Michael Gerber's Business Development Model: Step 7: Your System Strategy

The last step in Michael Gerber's business development program is a systems strategy. See pp. 214-252. Gerber defines a system as:

A set of things, actions, ideas, and information that interact with each other, and in so doing, alter other systems.

Gerber says there are three kinds of systems, each of which interact with each other: hard systems, soft systems, and Information systems.

1) Hard systems are "inanimate, unliving things," such as computers and buildings.

2) Soft systems are "things to be sold." He also calls it a selling system, "a fully orchestrated interaction between you and your customer."

3) Information systems to support the sales effort.

Go to Gerber and read this, there's a lot more in it than I've outlined here. I can say that for the whole book. Think about how all the elements in your business, the physical structure, your products, your customers, information, and the context within which you're selling, connect with one another to make what your business is.

What do you think of this? The goal is to produce more skilled entrepreneurs.

Does this help? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com.

Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. Entrepreneurial ideas are their life's blood. For my ideas on entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

Michael Gerber's Business Development Program: Your People Strategy, Step 5, part 4.

Michael Gerber, pp. 203-206, sets out 8 rules of his game:

1. "Never figure out what you want your people to dl and then try to create a game out of it." The game has to come first.

2. "Never create a game for your people you're not unwilling to play yourself."

3. "Make sure there are specific ways of winning the game without ending it."

4. "Change the game from time to time--the tactics, not the strategy."

5. "Never expect the game to be self-sustaining. People need to be reminded of it constantly."

6. "The game has to make sense."

7. "The game needs to be fun from time to time."

8. "If you can't think of a good game, steal one."

There you are, your people strategy. The game is outlined in your operations manual. Implement this game in your business, really implement it, along with all the other things, and you're business will thrive. Believe me.

What do you think of this? The goal is to produce more skilled entrepreneurs. Does this help? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com.

Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. Entrepreneurial ideas are their life's blood. For my ideas on entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

Michael Gerber's Business Development Program, Step 5: Your People Strategy

Step 5 in Gerber's program is your people strategy, starting on p. 197.

Here, on p. 201, is an important thing to remember: You manage people by making sure that they understand "the idea behind the work they're being asked to do," and you make it clear that "the idea behind the work [is] more important than the work itself."

I've never worked in a place where I was just told what to do, but I can imagine the scenario Gerber lays out, where employees are just told what to do. There's no respect for the employee, just what the bosses want.

More on this tomorrow.

What do you think of this? The goal is to produce more skilled entrepreneurs. Does this help? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. Entrepreneurial ideas are their life's blood. For my ideas on entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

Michael Gerber's Business Development Program, Step 4: Your Management Strategy

Beginning on p. 187, Gerber elaborates what he means by his management strategy. It's not what you think, and it's really important, so here goes:

You may think that the successful implement ion of a management strategy is dependent on finding amazingly competent managers--people with finely honed "people skills," with degrees from management schools, with highly sophisticated techniques for dealing with and developing their people.

It isn't

You don't need such people

Nor can you afford them.

What you need, instead, is a Management System.

The System will become your management strategy, that means through which your Franchise Prototype produces the results you want.

The System will become your solution to the problems that beset you because of the unpredictability of your people.

The System will transform your people problems into an opportunity by orchestrating the process by which management decisions are made while eliminating the need for such decisions wherever and whenever.

Have you ever worked for any company like this? Probably not. Listen to what he says, reread it, and then apply it to what you want to do.

What do you think of this? The goal is to produce more skilled entrepreneurs. Does this help? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. Entrepreneurial ideas are their life's blood. For my ideas on entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

Michael Gerber's Business Development Program, Step 3: Your Organizational Strategy

How is your company going to be organized? Michael Gerber asks. It makes no sense to say you need an organization because you are small. You have an organization no matter what size you are. And what does your company look like when it grows up. Visualize this. And how do you get from where you are now to where your company will be when it's done is your organizational strategy.

Everyone has an organizational strategy too. Either it's not written down carefully thought out, and well executed, or it's in your head poorly thought out, and poorly executed.

On page 175, there's a neat organizational chart, drawn during the old economy when companies were organized hierarchically. They never worked that way, but they were visualized that way.

In the new economy, driven by globalization and its correlates, we need to be horizontal in our thinking rather than vertical. We need to think cooperation and collaboration rather than command and control.

So write out the organization that you visualize. If you can't come up with the final one right now that's okay. Do the best you can. It will come to you. After all everything is a work in progress.

What do you think of this? The goal is to produce more skilled entrepreneurs. Does this help? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. Entrepreneurial ideas are their life's blood. For my ideas on entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

Michael Gerber's Business Development Program: Your Strategic Objective, First Standard--Money

Michael Gerber's first standard, discussed beginning on p. 151, is about money:

The first standard of your Strategic Objective is money. Gross revenues. How big is your vision? How big will your company be when it's finally done? Will it be a $300,000 company? A million-dollar company? A $500-million company?

It's about money. Once you have a passion and an idea, it's about money:

If you don't know the answer, how can you possibly know whether your business can help you realize your Primary Aim?

You won't know everything at the beginning. You have to start somewhere, and knowing how much money you will realistically make will tell you whether to go further with this. And you have to be realistic.

And don't be like the guy who was going to gross $5 Million in his first year selling submarine sandwiches at $5.00 per pop. That's selling 114 subs every hour, 24/7. How you do your financials tells you and others how successful your thinking is. Follow the money and you'll understand the business.

What do you think of this? The goal is to produce more skilled entrepreneurs. Does this help? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. Entrepreneurial ideas are their life's blood. For my ideas on entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

Michael Gerber's Business Development Program: Step 2, Your Strategic Objective

Gerber, p. 151-165, Lay out seven standards comprising your strategic objective. They are:

1. First Standard: Money [p. 151]
2. Second Standard: An opportunity worth pursuing. [p. 153]
3. Third Standard: When is your Prototype going to be completed?
4. Fourth Standard: Where are you going to be in business?
5. Fifth Standard: How are you going to be in business?
6. Sixth Standard: What...are you going to insist upon regarding reporting, cleanliness, clothing, management, hiring, firing, training, and so forth?
7. Seventh Standard: Other questions.

Standards 3 through 7 are laid out on p. 156. Gerber doesn't we need to stick just to what Gerber says. You need to use it as a basis for going forward. He does say that "the standards you create for your business will shape both your business and the experience you have of your business." [p. 156]

And we don't need to have all of this established before our business gets off the ground. Businesses are all a work in progress, and we figure things out as we go along. But we need to develop as full an idea of why we're in business and what the business will do as possible before we start. Gerber helps us do that.

What do you think of this? The goal is to produce more skilled entrepreneurs. Does this help? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. Entrepreneurial ideas are their life's blood. For my ideas on entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

Gerber's Business Development Program: Step 1, your primary aim

Gerber, pp. 139 to 140, lays out the questions he thinks you should be asking before you start your business. Here they are:

1. How do I wish my life to look like?

2. How do I wish my life to be on a day-to-day basis?

3. What would I like to be be able to say I truly know in my life, about my life?

4. How would I like to be with other people in my life--my family, my friends, my business associates, my customers, my employees, my community?

5. What would I like to be doing two years from now? Ten years from now? Twenty years from now? When my life comes to a close?

6. What specifically would I like to learn during my life--spiritually, physically, financially, technically, intellectually? About relationships?

7. How much money will I need to do the things I wish to do? When will I need it? .

These are just a few of the questions. You remember our values clarification from Todd Duncan's Killing the Sale? This goes along with that.

If we don't have clarity at the beginning, where will we be? All the orchestration, innovation, and quantification in the world won't help us.

But if we pay attention to our core mission and these other things, we'll start out farther down the road.

What do you think of this? The goal is to produce more skilled entrepreneurs. Does this help? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. Entrepreneurial ideas are their life's blood. For my ideas on entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

Michael Gerber's Business Development Program

Gerber lays out his Business Development Program on p. 135. Here's the outline.

The Program is composed of seven distinct steps:

1. Your Primary Aim
2. Your Strategic Objective
3. Your Organizational Strategy
4. Your Management Strategy
5. Your People Strategy
6. Your Marketing Strategy
7. Your Systems Strategy

This certainly covers the ground.

If you do this in addition to everything else in Gerber's arsenal of tricks, you'll be pretty far ahead. Success isn't assured, but it will be a lot closer to in your grasp.

What do you think of this? The goal is to produce more skilled entrepreneurs. Does this help? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. Entrepreneurial ideas are their life's blood. For my ideas on entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.