Manage The Ego And You Manage Entrepreneurial Growth

When it comes to entrepreneurship, a little ego goes a long way. You need a healthy ego to do this incredibly risky thing – starting a business – but an inflated ego will inhibit company growth and could cause you to burn out and shut down completely. If you want to learn how to manage entrepreneurial growth you have to deal with this little, itty, bitty thing called ego. It’s the ego, you see, that keeps entrepreneurs from knuckling down and implementing the key tool that will help them grow their business by leaps and bounds: systemization.

The Entrepreneur’s Superhero Complex

It’s the entrepreneur’s superhero complex; we believe that we been gifted with a unique set of talents, knowledge and experience which cannot be duplicated. Operating from this belief, we keep the recipe to the secret sauce to ourselves and rarely make time to teach anyone what we know. The result? A lot of exhausted entrepreneurs taking on too many roles in their own company, and worse—stunted growth.

Until they figure out the human cloning thing, you’re the only “you” running your pop stand. Likewise, I’m pretty sure you don’t have a time-traveling DeLorean hidden in your garage, which means you’re still operating with the same 24-day we all work with. And, since I’m 97% sure that, despite your hero status among those who love you, you are not, in fact, a real live superhero (the cape type, not the firefighter type). So if you’re already maxed out on time, there’s no way you’ll be able to take your business to the next level.

Systematize Everything

Most entrepreneurs know that systematization is a good thing. When you systematize your processes—everything from concept to delivery of goods or services—the result is a more efficient, profitable company that can easily handle rapid growth. When you have repeatable, teachable systems in place you can easily expand your staff to fill that crazy big order, and when you’re ready to cash it in, you can sell your business without “you” attached.

Entrepreneurs know this. You know this. Still, most businesses, at least to some extent, are completely dependent on input from the founders. When you operate under the belief that you are the best person, or the only person to do specific task, you undermine the confidence of your employees and tie yourself to your business unnecessarily. Guess what? Your staff? They can do stuff. Let them try.

Perhaps you believe your business cannot be systematized. If this is your stance, you’re not alone. But here again, we’re dealing with ego here, the notion that one’s business is somehow too unique, too complicated, or too special to be systematized.

Systematizing The Muse

I remember a conversation I had with a friend of mine, a fellow entrepreneur in a creative field, who said she had to turn down lucrative projects because she couldn’t keep up with the demand. “Couldn’t you hire and train other people to do the work for you?” I asked. She looked at me like I had three heads and said, “Mike, you can’t systematize the muse.”

“Wanna bet?” I said and sat down to help her break her systems down until she had pieces she could delegate or farm out. Here’s how we did it:

1. We started with identifying her Immutable Laws, the core values that she followed when working with clients, the same values she would teach her team to follow.

2. Then we started at the end, getting clear about her standards for delivery of her product.

3. Next, working backwards from the finish line, we identified the big stages of execution.

4. Then, we broke down the actionable steps for each stage.

5. Finally, we create checklists and instructions for each stage.

Getting To the 98%

She begrudgingly started to implement some of the systems, testing them out and making improvements, until she was able to trust her team to complete 98% of the project without her. Up until then she believed no one could possibly do her job. She wasn’t wrong, per se; no one will do your job exactly the way you would. (Unless you have a clone, which we’ve already established is somewhere far off in the future.) But you can train people to do a great job, doing what you do.

If an artist can systematize their business, so you can you. If you want to see your big vision come to fruition, you’ll have to get out of the way of your own business growth and check your ego at the door.