How important to you is your company?

Who are you?

An artisan who has been trained since school in the area their company operates in today?

An enthusiast who decided to make money on their passion?

A lucky person who happened to be in the right place at the right time?

How many percents of time do you spend on your company? 40-50-80?

How many nights you could not sleep, thinking about the problems with employees, clients, suppliers, finances…?

Or maybe you spent your vacation on the phone or with your laptop?

How vital your company is to you can only be understood by other business people. Some of them lose their friends, family, their children drift apart, or they are the ones neglecting them.

Why does it happen?

That’s because our company is our child. We have taken care of it right from the very idea, which was sometimes made fun of by our friend, we have invested in its growth – plenty of times by denying ourselves the basic goods. Instead of buying ourselves a new car, we bought a van – for the company, instead of a new purse – a printer, instead of new biking gloves – a cement float. The list of sacrifices could go on, the time - uncountable hours spent building, developing and nurturing.

For what was all of that?

Why do we sacrifice that much, instead of getting a 9-to-5 job and leaving the problems behind the workplace’s door?

The desire to develop our passion, time independence, the freedom of action, the prestige, no boss and most of all – the finances! We expect our child to make money for us so that we can afford a new iPhone, dream vacation, a car, a house and decent senior years, expected to pay our bills and feed us.

Can you tell the value of your company now?

Multiply the hours you have spent on it by the wage from a potential employer, add the entire financial contribution you have put into its development, evaluate it and add the stress related to it, add the value of the things you didn’t buy for yourself just because you have to put the money in your company, evaluate the free time you didn’t have, the vacation…add the value of everything you think you have sacrificed for your company.

Think for a moment, convert it into money, materialize its value.

Now let me get a little off-topic.

- You buy a new iPhone, and you look for the right case so that it does not get broken when dropped. You change the wallpaper, set ring tones, you personalise. What does it give you? Prestige, the sense of fulfilment it indeed does provide you with something.

- You buy a new car, and you take care of it, you fill it with the best fuel, the right oil, you look after it, you wash it, you clean it or pay someone to do it, you will not even let anyone smoke inside it. Why? The point of a car is to get you from point A to point B after all. Because you spent your hard-earned money on it? Because it is your dreams come true? Or simply – it gives you what you need.

- You buy a puppy, a kitty or even adopt a stray one from the shelter. You get attached, you feed it, you look after it, you train it, you care for it, you get used to it, you love it.

What do you do when your iPhone gets broken? You send it for repairs to a professional.

What do you do when your car breaks down? You drive it to a mechanic, but only a recommended one, a proven one, the best one.

What do you do when your beloved look-after dog gets sick? You go to a professional, a vet, and you spend a lot of money to get it cured, sometimes to get it at least partially back to normal.

Now let’s get back to our company.

Tell me again, who are you? What kind of company do you run?

- A plumber who started his own company and now is hiring ten other plumbers, you keep getting new, progressively bigger contracts. And you’re not going to stop there.

- An office worker - who loves horses more than anything else? You have certainly gotten an education in that, and you wrote a book about proper horse care, you started your ranch.

- Or maybe a cook who got in the right place and time and now has his factory that employs 50 people.

What do you do when your company gets sick?

What do you do when your company gets sick? What do you do when problems arise? When your client is not paying? When employees quit for no apparent reasons? When your company is not turning enough profit? When does it start generating losses? When clients send complaints or just don’t come back at all? Sometimes you can not even name the problem, but something is not going right, and you can fell it.

Do you visit a professional?

Yes - An accountant? After all, they know finances. Sadly, an accountant is often seen as an oracle when it comes to the company’s finances – I will explain in later posts why it is not the case.

You have spent an awful lot of 100 pounds on consulting an accountant. Did it not help a thing? What are you going to do now?

Are you hiring a manager?

Someone trusted, someone you know, someone you could trust your child to, someone who has a knack for it. Someone from your family or you promote one of your employees.

Did you get the changes you expected? Did the functioning of your company suddenly change noticeably?

Why don’t you hire a manager with a degree, with certificates?One with management education. A professional!

The most common answers are – 1. „Because I can not afford it”, 2. „Because my company is not big enough (I only employ ten people)”, 3. „Because there is no need to (I am doing great)”.

And sure enough, sometimes there is no need to, but…

Tell me now, how much time have you spent to learn how to manage your company.

How many courses have you been through in time and people management, in communication, negotiations, marketing, production planning, Lean Management, etc.?

Do you realise how many years a good manager spends learning? All the time. They start as a student and never stop. And all in just one field. How to in a proper way, manage a company.

Don’t you think that your company, which you have just evaluated a moment ago, deserves being looked after by a professional for the value of one, two, three iPhones – which your kid throws around anyway.

Everyone has their specialization, a plumber – water installations, a vet – looking after animals, a cook - cooking, a manager – management.

An auditor – diagnosing and curing.

Welcome to my blog.