Working ON My Business

Through the interaction with our mentors at Count-Me-In, as well as with the other amazing winners, I have learned to pull back and look at my business as an entity separate from myself and from my own work. Being able to truly see a clear path to a business that will function as I envision it, but without me having to do all of the work has been an amazing gift.

On the very first day after winning the Make Mine a $Million award, we all talked about how important it is to learn to work on the business not in it. That was a catch phrase that I’d heard before, but I could never really see how that would apply in the case of my business. Sure, I could see why it was a good idea in theory, but I couldn’t see how to put it into practice. My business, after all, was founded on the basis of the specific expertise of myself and my partner. Even if I could find somebody to replace myself, I was not all sure that I could afford such a person. And even if I could afford such a person, I seriously doubted that I could actually walk away from the work. How could I be sure that the work would be done to my satisfaction and to the standards that our clients have come to expect? Clearly this was a situation that was inherently limiting to our growth; if the work has to be done by an owner, and there are only so many hours in an owner’s day, there is a hard upper limit to our revenue.

It has taken me a couple of months of intensive learning, listening, and thinking to see how to get there, but I am happy to say that I think I really get it now. Without the support and exchange of ideas that have been made available to me through the Make Mine a $Million award, I think I’d still be heads down churning out client projects myself, yet plagued with the nagging feeling that our company could be offering the world so much more if only I could clone myself and my partner. Now I see that I don’t need more of me at all. In fact, the solution to this problem has been in place for years, but I was too busy doing the day-to-day work to see it.

As a kind of survival mechanism to help us keep up with our ever-growing client list, we gradually developed and refined a process for working with each client. With each project, we go through the same basic steps, keeping to the same high standards and making use of a set of highly specialized software tools that we’ve developed. In other words, over the years, without realizing it, we have created a proprietary system that encapsulates our expertise – one that could be implemented by a properly trained non-expert! What a revelation that has been. This system has been in place for some time now, but it took me looking at our business from the outside to be able to see it. Our clients can still get the benefit of our highly developed technical approach, experience and high standards – but with one HUGE difference – they will not have to wait for me to do it myself. This will in turn free me to put my full attention to steering our company toward the fulfillment of my ever-clarifying vision.

Being able to pull back and look at my business in a fresh way has opened my eyes to a whole new world of possibility. Making the most of that possibility is a challenge that I very much look forward to tackling every day.

Technology Lifeline

It has been such a whirlwind since San Francisco. I am so honored to have been chosen as a winner of the Make Mine a $Million award. I anticipated that the program could provide enormous support and resources to help me get my business to its full potential, but I had no idea how just how much. Thank you again to Count Me In for giving life to this awesome program and to all of the sponsors who are giving the program so much depth!

I have started to write my first blog entry many times since June 2, and each time stopped short because I felt that I didn’t have enough time to do justice to all that was going on! When all is said and done, though, I have to start somewhere, so here goes! Because we are up to our necks in putting new systems and technology in place to make our operations more efficient, that seems like a reasonable place to start.

First, I have to say how thrilled and grateful I am to have been awarded one of the Cisco prizes. I can say without hesitation that it will be a lifesaver (business-saver?) for us. Because ours is a small, mostly virtual company, we have to do more with less, and we need our technology to support us in very important ways.

Perhaps a little bit of background is in order to give some context for my boundless enthusiasm for network gear. We offer both consulting services (in the form of custom development of mathematical planning models) as well as software products. Our core work requires a very niche skill set. This means that as we grow, we can not just pop down to the local Starbucks and hire any programmer who happens to be around. We have to be prepared to cast a wider net to get the skills we need and we have to be prepared with the right systems in place to support the remote collaboration that will be required. Even now, we typically spend several hours each day collaborating from our offices in Bellingham, WA with partners, clients and potential clients in locations ranging from New York to Sydney, Australia. Our collaboration involves both voice and data components and we frequently have to pass large, often highly sensitive data files around.

If we aren’t collaborating with clients remotely, it is only because we are meeting in person and are therefore away from our office. I can’t even begin to count how many times we’ve been working from a hotel who-knows-where and really, really wished that we’d remembered to bring file X with us. With our Cisco solution, we’ll have a VPN (Virtual Private Network) that will allow our laptops to function exactly as if we were working in our office, with secure access to any file we need. Heaven! The IP phone system will allow us some of the luxuries we don’t have now, but could really use, such as the ability to transfer calls between extensions, much better control over our voicemail and so much more. Best of all, it will all be designed to work together from the very beginning so that it can support us now and well into the future.

We met last week with the folks from Cisco and Northwest Computer Support. I was very impressed with how the team focused so carefully on our needs. They really listened and were able to suggest great solutions. Prior to the meeting, I had made what I thought was a very ambitious technology wish list. It looks like the Cisco solution that we have been awarded is going to be able to deliver just about every wish, and even a few I hadn’t thought of. Winning this award feels a lot like having my very own Technology Fairy Godmother and we are so very grateful!