The business you’re running today isn’t necessarily the one you need to achieve your goals. I know this is a hard pill to swallow. In fact, most people in this situation will defend the status quo, even though their business may be like a boat full of holes and rapidly sinking.

If this is you, you probably need a way to release your emotional attachment to the situation. Here’s an exercise I recommend my one-to-one clients and other contractors to do periodically so they can more objectively evaluate what is going on — and what needs to change.

Imagine for a moment you’ve closed the doors at your existing company and are going to reopen it down the street as a brand-new company. 

The goal is to end up with a business that works right the next time. To do so requires you to do a self-assessment of your business today:

What worked right?

What didn’t work but could be made to work with some tweaking?

What was broken (or missing) and needed to be redone?

What should you have stopped doing?

Next, you’ll want to look at some other noncompeting businesses and take some notes:

What do they do really well that I want to emulate?

What do they do that’s only OK?

What do they do that we never want to do?

My brothers and I did this years ago, and it’s amazing what you can see by visiting those other businesses. We always came away smarter for it because we said to ourselves:

We should do that, too.

We have done something similar, but now we know how to get it done.

We don’t ever want to do that!

Top 10 Reset Tips

If you came to me and wanted to know some nuts and bolts on how to approach this reset, here are my Top 10 things I’d have you do:

1. Create the right organizational chart: Your name will probably be in many boxes, especially if you’re a small company; that’s only natural. Your job is to hire and train people to take most of those boxes away from you or at least move you down the Depth Chart. The right box org chart also allows you to show new people where they can go in your company — offering them careers and not just jobs.

2. Set up your office based on that org chart: That means the right people sit next to each other to maximize communication. Watch your callbacks go down. Are you in a two-story building? Make it a goal to get everyone on one floor in the right layout.

3. Create some operating and trade manuals that cover 80 percent of what goes on: You’re never going to cover 100 percent, but with this, you can hold everyone to the same standards. Finally, get rid of the C and D players that your A and B players hate and end the resentment they feel for you keeping them around. 

4. Leverage those operating and trade manuals to train your staff: Use the trade manual to create a hands-on training center, training curriculum and training room; turn it into a “university” where training is always happening.

5. Look hard at the services you are offering to customers today: Also, look to dump services or sister businesses you have that detract from your main offerings. You want your technicians to be freed up and better prepared to master the right services you do. Your customers will be better served, and you’ll be better able to make money today and set yourself up in the future to add the right services the right way. 

6. Look at your customer list: Pay attention to the ones who don’t let you make a living because they demand the lowest price and then don’t pay on time. Gone. You won’t miss them, I promise. 

7. Get rid of dead weight, things you’ve been hanging on to: Look in your warehouse. What can you convert into cash? What can you exchange for credit? Test everything and dispose of things that don’t work. Tag what’s left over and if it’s still there a year from now, dispose of that stuff, too. 

8. Look at your fleet: Do you still own all your trucks? Why? They’re depreciating assets tying up money. There are all kinds of reasons to lease instead. 

9. Get your debt down: Know that you’re not alone, as many owners struggle with this. The best advice I can give you is to reach out to your creditors and let them know what you can and can’t do. You’ll get better terms if you are proactive rather than waiting until they take some punitive action against you.

10. Get all these things you want and need to do into a plan: The plan is made up of a series of projects where you work on a maximum of five at a time for at least two hours a week. To make the list, a project has to either solve your biggest problem or better your ability to grow and be profitable. 

Doing these projects is how you’ll move forward and get more of what you want — and less of what you don’t want.

Leaky Boat

Realize there are going to be emotions. The analogy I’ve shared with clients over the years is, “You’re standing on this riverbank. You don’t want to be on it because it’s fraught with struggles and you’re losing money. So, you start rowing your boat across the river, and now you’ve struggled to get halfway across. The current is strong and the rowing is wearing you down, plus your boat is probably a little leaky, too. 

Know that it will be just as much effort to row back to where you came from (that you hated) as it will be to keep moving toward the riverbank you want to be on. So, keep moving forward. Everything you want is on the other side of the turbulent river.”

I presented this shutting and reopening the business concept as an exercise, but this is exactly how my clients, some of whom were in some pretty dire straits, were able to reset their businesses successfully. My recommendation is that you follow my advice so you, too, can trade in the leaky rowboat for a beautiful yacht that is taking you where you want to go!