Hey Boss, go sack yourself!

By Steve Marsten


It’s at this time of year we, the Directors of Sothertons, are heavily booked and working  flatchat. Often we hear from clients who say “We are working  our whatsits off but we don’t have any profit growth to show for it.” They also feel that they are not getting closer to their financial and lifestyle goals.

When you consider many people go into business for two main reasons:

1. To have more control over their time and lifestyle; and
2. To increase their wealth or cashflow.

Suffice to say that Business is also hard work for many. So why do so many people do it? The answer is because when you get it right, the financial and lifestyle rewards are unparalleled. Over the past 30 odd years working with businesses and business owners we have identified several keys to building a successful business and the first one is to “give yourself the sack!” You see, sometimes the biggest single critical success factor in your business is you and hence you are also the biggest barrier holding the business back!

All too often we think that the business relies heavily on us. We feel the business needs us to survive and hence it becomes your self-fulfilling prophecy – things couldn’t possibly run better without you there. And alas - you become trapped. Now this thought process is usually built on the fact that the business provides you a job as opposed to you building a business that supports you.

The key trick is to examine, develop and adopt ways to build a highly saleable business that provides good cashflows and profits, a solid customer base and an awesome team of people. The goal is to get processes in place that DON’T rely on the current owner. Now the fact is - this is the perfect business to own so many owners are unlikely to sell it anytime soon.

At Sothertons, we work with business owners to go through every aspect of their business to determine how to remove the “owner” from the system. This enables staff to be trained to follow the system. Success comes with having clearly defined processes to follow, within a supportive, high performance culture. Call us on 4972 1300 for more information.