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How do you drive your business?

by Brian Bowie
Active Business Systems

You will not achieve business success unless you address the business issues. By all means, be imaginative, creative, lateral, proactive, etc.; but also, be businesslike.

When you drive a car, you can smile or frown; sing, whistle, or shout; you can eat, drink or smoke; listen to the radio or dictate notes; you can wear anything you like; you can travel alone or with company. But in addition to all these variables, you need to do some essential things.

You must put fuel in the tank, air in the tyres, oil and coolant in the appropriate engine bits. You must use the gears, clutch and accelerator properly. You must obey the laws, pay your registration, and be licensed. And you must show appropriate courtesy to other road users. You can get away with ignoring some of these "musts" for a while, but eventually they catch up with you.

Driving a business has a lot of similarities.

Recognise that a business should be run according to a range of tried and true principles ~ whether or not they are in tune with what you feel in your water, or with the attitudes that you have brought with you from your childhood or from other past eras or experiences.

You must commit to setting appropriate objectives for the business and adhering to them.

You must devise procedures for all of the tasks that make up the day to day operations of your business.

You must have a working customer service policy.

You must establish a proper bookkeeping/accounting system.

You must make sure your staff are well-trained; that they have the necessary skills, knowledge and attitude to keep your business running in top gear.

Whether your business is large or small; whether you're a sole operator or have employees, you are the manager - the driver.

Managers must be responsible for the following actions. You don't have to do them all yourself, but you do have to make sure that they happen.

• Identify goals

• Set objectives

• Make decisions

• Make commitments

• Devise procedures

• Develop systems

• Publish schedules

• Allocate resources

• Assign tasks

• Take action

• Monitor regularly

• Record everything - forever

• Measure everything - forever

• Count everything - forever

• Evaluate everything - forever

• Review regularly

• Identify what works. Keep doing it

• Identify what doesn't work. Stop doing it.

If you know you would like to do these things but you're not sure how or where to start, contact Brian at Active Business Systems on mobile: 0417 824 871,

We can help you with a variety of business building strategies, including marketing, advertising, copy writing, management, policies and procedures, general documentation, training and human resource development.