Should you be focusing on just one thing for a simpler way of running your business?

There is no doubt that running your business is complicated. You probably have many different things going on at the same time, and your product and service lines may have become increasingly complicated as you try to please all of your customers, all of the time.

This is normal – most businesses naturally want to do more and more for their customers as demands and expectations change and increase, creating more products and services for their customers to buy.

But this can make your business complicated – and a complicated business is heavily reliant on its business owner and, therefore, potentially unattractive to a future buyer.

For example, a flower shop opens to sell flower arrangements. They may start to provide flowers for weddings and funerals and then begin selling planters, vases and silk flowers. Next, they may decide they could sell coffee and cake while customers wait and may choose to open a café.

All of this means more people, more shifts, possible 7-day working, deals for regulars, maybe a contract with a wedding planner or a funeral home, bigger premises…the list goes on and on.

Complexity builds as revenue and profits build, making the business more and more reliant on you, the business owner. The complexity of the business you now run, as opposed to the business you started, means it’s harder for you to step away, even for a short period of time.

BUT, when you switch your focus to capital value growth AND revenue and profit growth (the two are not mutually exclusive), you find what John Warrillow calls your ‘sweet spot’ product or service, your Standard Service Offering (SSO):

• a service your customers find valuable
• a service that your business does really well, giving you a competitive advantage
• a service that can be taught to others (in your team)

Finding your SSO and teaching the other members of your team how to produce, create, market and deliver it means that the business becomes less reliant on you, making it much more attractive to potential buyers, as well as maintaining its profit levels.