You are great at what you do, but can you run the business?

I get to meet a lot of business owners all across the country.  When I share with them the systems and procedures that we use in our businesses, they all seem to have the same statement.

This statement comes from a basic assumption, and it goes like this.  

They assume that the school I went to (I went to Palmer College of Chiropractic) must have taught me something about business. How to run the business? How to attract patients? How to grow the business? How to run systems? And they must have shown me how to make sure that your staff is happy, your team is happy, and your patients/clients are happy.

And of course, they didn’t get this education at their school. So the statement I am referring to is:

“They didn’t teach us business at our school. They didn’t show us how to open a practice and grow it and do the books, and all of that stuff.”

I always find that statement so funny because, yeah, they didn’t show me either!  It doesn’t really matter whether you’re talking about chiropractic school, medical school, trade school, or any other school.  Your school is there to help you learn how to do what it is that you want to do with your life.

They’re not going to typically teach you how to go out and start a business. Most of them are just going to assume that you’re going to work for somebody and if anything, you’ll learn the business from the person that you’re working for. And then if you ever want to open a business later in your life, that you have learned enough from the person that you worked for.

First let me say, that I do believe most people should go work for someone when first getting started. You should do your homework and pick a business that  you want to exemplify, and go work there.  Learn what you can… but… this will NOT be enough of a business education to open your own business.  Whoever you work for will have found a way to cut certain corners, will be excelling at parts of the business and completely ignoring others, will be running things their way, and you have to figure out your way.  So your schools assumption that you will learn by working for someone is at best flawed.

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 The truth of the matter is this:

1)      You are not going to learn how to open and grow a business from your school.

2)      You are not going to get enough of a business education working for someone else.

So, how do you figure out how to run a business? Where is the school of business?

Well, it’s really easy! You can find it at Barnes and Noble. You can find it at the library. And you can find it online!

People always want to know where I learned how to run a business. The first thing I say is I’m always learning something new, always implementing something new, always trying to improve on the systems that I already have in place. And I’m just figuring things out as I go.  Your business education will never be complete, so first understand that.  Once you get that concept, time to get rolling on your education.  

Here are a few places I got my education:  

1)      The E-Myth: Break your business down into every aspect that needs to get done, compartmentalize it, give each department a head, and your job is to run all of them until you can add employees..

2)      The Starbucks Experience: I read every Starbucks book.  If you want to have a mission, values, and policies to live by, and build a culture for your employees and customers, then learn from Starbucks.

3)      The Five Dysfunctions of a team: Read this and you know from the start where you need to lead your team to be World Class.  

4)      The New Gold Standard: About the Ritz Carlton.  If you want to be know forgiving the best service or product, learn from the best service industry in the world .

This is just to name a few.  There is no weekend course that will teach you everything you need to know, there is no one that can share with you everything you need to know, it is as simple as picking up the right book, and following the leaders.  

I travel around the country and share a talk I call “Intentional Success”. The premise is simple.  Every year there are certain businesses that grow, and they do so intentionally.  My school of business… I read about them, study them, and implement the pieces of their systems that work for me.  

Decide to commit every single day to reading for at least 30 minutes, and see what the greats have done. Copy, mimic, plagiarize and steal the actions, the beliefs and efforts of all of those people.  That’s a saying that one of my mentors Larry Markson told me. But find those that you can be like, implement and get going!  Your education awaits.