Business 300

The Michelin-star rating system is a way to help us think through our business and value-offering. Not every business can or should have that expectation. Sometimes we need just a convenient and affordable gas station. There's nothing wrong with that. It's a needed business. And, if that's you, expect to be "just another gas station."

But if you don't want that as your standard, if you want customers going out of their way to buy from you, or to have customers who can't wait to give you their money, then you'll have to dream a little bigger, care a little stronger, and work a little harder in order to provide that service and be a Michelin-Star Business.

Business growth is more comparable to a staircase than a ramp. It's not smooth and linear. It's patterns of straight up and flat plateaus. You seek growth, land more work, and increase your sales volume. Then, you stop to build up your systems and processes, train and equip your people, and make sure the new work volume is being digested well. You start to prepare for the next growth spurt, figuring out what you might need to be aware of as more work comes in. And then you go for the next growth spurt, increasing your volume.

As we give ourselves to God, our life and work flows out as sacrificial labor as we strain to produce good things for others. This brings us back to the idea that we, the ones creating value for customers, are in a position of givers. We give of our time, strength, ideas, resources, and skills.

And our work to produce value for our customer through a Disciplined Offering has eternal ramifications. There is a transcendent moral good in our physical labor.

Kaizen is more than Continuous Improvement.
Kaizen is Disciplined Offering.

Business ownership requires discipline. Which is self-control. Those who can rule themselves can run a business.

You keep your business with Attention, Intolerance, Prudence, and Discipline. If you thought your business was worth building, it’s probably worth keeping as well. Work it, and keep it.

There's a lot of work to do to build your business. Getting distracted with your shovel or being impressed with new hammer models every few hours compromises future progress in your project as you chase after a shiny object time and time again, instead of focusing on the work in front of you. A steady and stable course at a sustainable pace is what helps you get to the next layer in your wall. You need discipline to work it.

"Working it" means cultivating, building, and growing. It requires Ambition, Shrewdness, Risk, and Discipline. Owning and managing a business is working it and keeping it. Next time, we'll talk about keeping it. For now, get after it, and work it.

When the potential accomplishment is in the distant future, it's helpful to set up relevant progress tracking on a daily or weekly basis where you can see the work accomplished. Instead of having 1 large completion, break up the completion into smaller chunks that you can see getting done. The reward for doing the work is seeing it get done. And the punishment for not doing it, is seeing it pile up. Set up immediate, relevant, and visible carrots and sticks to prod yourself towards self-control and discipline, on your way towards eventual completion. Start tracking the days you did and didn't do what you needed to, so that you can see the progress.

A threat of pain or enthusiastic inspiration are a blessing that drive performance. But those factors in themselves are unreliable tutors if we want to consistently produce results. We need self-control and discipline to get better.

Some of us like to speak grand about the future we envision for ourselves and our business. Sure, there's a place for talk. But the proportion of talk to actions needs to have the right balance. And too many people have it backwards. They're 80% talk, 20% action. Too many words. Too little deeds. 

It really is much easier to talk big and work small. And you get to pretend like you're hiding your lack of diligent effort behind your big words. Like a slight-of-hand magician, we try to trick ourselves and those around us to think that we're getting after it, when in reality we're not making any traction. But we're only fooling ourselves.

It's a waste of a life to only focus on the potential future goodness. A short part of our life is enjoying the fruits of our labor. Most of it is the actual labor – the process of getting there. The mistakes we make, the clutter we clean up, the stories we live through are all opportunities for us to laugh and have fun as we work hard to build something great.

It's exhausting and frustrating to build a great business. We have to get into the details and intricacies of the product designs and production processes. It's gruesome. I know. But like Jacob wrestling with God until he blessed him - even through pain and weariness - we wrestle with the problem until it gives us the answer. We don't let go.

A standard of Excellence is reliable ground to make sure that you not only continue to serve your customers in the best way but innovate new ways to serve them better. If your aim is to exceptionally serve your customers, the standard for that service is excellence. You aim to make things better.

In this way, you make your competitor irrelevant. Sure, you should be aware of what they're doing, and what they're doing better than you. But also, you keep prodding at your work to serve your customers in your context. What can you do to improve your value-offering as you seek to get better on your own?

And, you also make short-term customer complaints irrelevant. Maybe these customers are right. But they're not. Either way, you are working to improve your offering and provide better value. Sometimes reacting to immediate complaints will set you off course and destroy the effort you need to make. Be driven by sustainable, focused, and disciplined effort to make your business better, as you pursue a standard of excellence.