As business leaders and owners, we often hear “you need to work on the business, not in it.” The challenge often is how do you actually do it?
When I first became president and then CEO of Marco, my initial gut response was that I needed to learn more about our products. Attending industry events, most of the leaders I met could recite model numbers and specifications. They knew their products well and I didn’t know any.
So here I am 10 years later, and I still don’t know any model numbers or product specifications. In hindsight, I think this works in my favor. Learning product information could have easily become a distraction, but we already had plenty of product experts, so it didn’t matter. It freed up my time to focus on activities that drive business growth and profitability. I dedicate most of my time to business and client acquisitions, and talent recruitment. I believe working ON these activities helped move Marco to the top of our industry.
Here are a few ways I think leaders can shift from working in the business, to on it:
- Lead annual strategic planning.
I take complete responsibility for our company’s strategic planning process and the final outcome. That includes setting key goals and identifying initiatives to strategically grow our business. In my first 10 years as CEO, we have acquired and integrated 25 businesses while also balancing strong organic growth. This annual focus helps set the course for the company as a whole and as individual departments for the coming year and beyond. It takes a significant amount of time, but the return is well worth it. - Keep score.
I often say that record keepers are record breakers. We measure ourselves against industry benchmarks and our own personal bests. Tracking key metrics against the benchmarks helps me stay focused on the important stuff. We consistently share our financial performance with our employees. We simplify it so employees better understand how we measure our success. Here’s the five categories we use: sales revenue, gross profit, sales and marketing expense, general administration expense and profit. We review these monthly to identify what’s working and where we need improvement, and adjust accordingly. This holds us all accountable to achieving desired results, not just best efforts. - Look for opportunities in your industry.
It’s common for leaders to attend conferences, participate in peer groups and read the latest industry publications. But these will only be helpful if you take action because of them. Being able to return from events with best practices to execute is one of my strengths. I focus on bringing back ideas related to business operations, rather than the latest product information. A good example is from several years ago when I learned from my peers in the copier industry that they charged for freight when shipping supplies to their clients. Marco wasn’t doing that. Clients understood that freight was an expense and didn’t object to a modest shipping charge. By recapturing this expense, it added significantly to the bottom line. If you take the time to go to a conference, identify one or two ways you can improve your business – and then come back and actually do them. - Look inside for opportunities.
Every business has potential to improve. Do you know where the opportunities are in your organization? When you’re working on the business, it’s easier to uncover them. At Marco, we give new life to copier trade-ins that are common in our industry. Instead of shipping them off to the landfill, we recycle the good parts to keep our clients' machines running well. It’s better for the environment and lowers the cost of parts for our clients. We all win.
As the pace of change continues to accelerate, it’s more important than ever for leaders to focus their attention on the activities that improve performance. Working on the business cannot be a once a year or once a month activity. I dedicate 75 percent of my time on the business, knowing that about 25 percent naturally will go to inward activities. If right now you think you’re spending too much time IN the business, you probably are. Try spending more time ON the business. I think you’ll find it worthwhile.
