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How do I get past the Hunter/Gatherer Stage of Business?

A few weeks ago, Danielle Keister, founder of the Virtual Assistance
Chamber of Commerce, posted the question "How many small business owners are running everything themselves?"
I think she asked one of the key questions of small business. I`ll ask
it a different way using the entire history of man (in one short
paragraph).
For thousands of years we were hunter/gatherers, which took up all our
productive time. Along came farming and instantly 20% of the community
could now do something completely unrelated to bringing home the
bacon. Today less than 2% of us are focused on farming and virtually
none on hunting/gathering (except by choice). The other 98% of us are
free to choose how to invest our time in "higher" pursuits and things
we love doing rather than hunting/gathering and farming.
The Mexican government coined the phrase "The Green Revolution" in 1948
to describe the process of planting 90% in proven
seed/fertilizer/watering techniques and the other 10% as a test
ground. Eventually we all learned how to increase our yield per acre.
Two questions -
1) What percentage of small businesses do you think are Hunter/Gatherers?
2) How do we increase our yield per hour so we can get from survival
(hunting/gathering) through success (farming) to significance (ability
to choose how to invest our time)?
Chamber of Commerce, posted the question "How many small business owners are running everything themselves?"
I think she asked one of the key questions of small business. I`ll ask
it a different way using the entire history of man (in one short
paragraph).
For thousands of years we were hunter/gatherers, which took up all our
productive time. Along came farming and instantly 20% of the community
could now do something completely unrelated to bringing home the
bacon. Today less than 2% of us are focused on farming and virtually
none on hunting/gathering (except by choice). The other 98% of us are
free to choose how to invest our time in "higher" pursuits and things
we love doing rather than hunting/gathering and farming.
The Mexican government coined the phrase "The Green Revolution" in 1948
to describe the process of planting 90% in proven
seed/fertilizer/watering techniques and the other 10% as a test
ground. Eventually we all learned how to increase our yield per acre.
Two questions -
1) What percentage of small businesses do you think are Hunter/Gatherers?
2) How do we increase our yield per hour so we can get from survival
(hunting/gathering) through success (farming) to significance (ability
to choose how to invest our time)?
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Comments
Are you talking about the owners doing menial tasks?
time for hours and if you`re not working, you`re not making money. I
learned that lesson when I was laid up in the hospital for nearly a
week. Almost lost it all as a result of not having a system to run my
business. Took me one time to learn.It wasn`t until I read some of Robert Kiyosaki`s Rich Dad Poor Dad books that I learned that being self-employed is not the same as being in business. In Cashflow Quadrants he says:
An "S*" owns a job, a "B*" owns a system and then hires competent people to run the system.
* S = self-employed, B = business owner
That was an eye opener for me. Up till that point all my ventures were
built around me. Everything is different this time. Our business plan
involves hiring competent people to run the system. For me the fact
that our bakery is 2 1/2 hours from our house was a selling point (and
we don`t plan to move any time soon).
Have just started reading The E-Myth Revisited. Sounds like he`s headed down the same road. Looks like a good read.
I`d suggest that an important bit of information for any entrepreneur
to take to heart is that no matter how much they want to believe their
business is totally unique, it probably isn`t. In SOME way, that
business or product is "like" some other, well-established business
that`s been going on for a very long time.It`s
the perception many entrepreneurs have that competition is bad that
drives them to do something completely "new". Competition is good; it
means there`s a viable market out there. Also, if the market can`t
support one more entrant then you need to look at another business to
get into.
is not inclusive enough for me as a purpose for business because it doesn`t address profit, customer satisfaction, and a number of other things. (If I don`t have a product or service, I can`t acquire customers, so it`s a given in my statement.) I can "exchange a product for a value" and go out of business quickly because my value wasn`t high enough or I treated customers or employees badly, had lousy processes, awful suppliers, etc. Whereas the "retain" part of the "acquire and retain customers" requires that I sell at a profit, treat my customers and employees well, plan for the future, etc - all so that I can be around to retain the customers I acquired by exchanging the product. For me it`s much more inclusive. I haven`t found a business it doesn`t apply to.Re: building a great product (or service) - this only makes it easier to acquire and retain customers - you can actually do it quite well with a bad one, so I can`t see that a product`s worth or quality is the single most important factor that make`s or breaks a company. It`s just a really important factor (maybe #3 behind acquire and retain?).It seems to me that "exchanging a product (or service) for a value" describes very well what businesses do - maybe the key activity, but for me "acquiring and retaining customers" helps me sum up the purpose of a business more inclusively.