Often, entrepreneurs fall into a vicious cycle of working for their own business. It is not only that they work 14-hours-a-day, but also do not believe that someone can do the work as well as they can. Learn from Michael Krajewski how to Stand back and watch your business grow.
Who is Michael Krajewski, creator of the Stand back course?
Michael was born in South Africa and only spent part of his life in Poland. His parents pushed him towards skill development and education from an early age. Mostly, they wanted him to get a good job after graduating from college. As in many households, there was a strong belief that to live well, you need to finish school and find a job as a professional.
However, this is not a path for everyone. This is where entrepreneurs come in with their omnipresent ideas to improve businesses. Michael started his first business just like each of us, i.e. from scratch. He focused on creating something unique and satisfactory for his customers. Just as people specialize in their profession and become doctors or lawyers, entrepreneurs are specialists in their field. It is just as important and valuable as any other more recognized jobs!
The most difficult moment for an entrepreneur in building a business is always the moment when he restlessly works from dawn to dusk. This is the time when they get enslaved by their company. If everything in the company depends on one person, it gets too difficult, and the entrepreneurs run out of time for innovation and normal life.
Why is it so difficult to change an entrepreneur's habits and stand back?
First, it is necessary to consider who the entrepreneur is.
A person who has many ideas, so they start a company and create innovative projects. The entrepreneur has a vision of what he would like to achieve, and he is constantly working towards the goal.
At some point, however, work that was supposed to be temporary and to create better living conditions takes them so much time that they don’t have time to think about what to do next. In this case, stopping even for a moment means that some things will not get done and that the company operations will go to a halt. Entrepreneurs often forget that a business should run itself – like the well-oiled machine that works without an inventor.
Many entrepreneurs are in love with their business. Moreover, they think that only they can work well enough for the company to function well. Imagine you opened an online store. In the beginning, you are responsible for creating the website, selecting and selling products, and it’s you who takes care of shipping and customer service. As your shop is doing better and better, you have less and less time to think about how to improve it or how to modernize it. Soon, if you do not use the help of your employees, you will not be an entrepreneur anymore!
Every time you think no one can do something better than you, consider other similar companies that are doing well and are further along than you are. This means that someone is already doing it better, so follow their example and start delegating some of your responsibilities to others.
What is Stand Back?
The Stand Back system is 7 steps to achieve a goal of a better prospering company, and it allows the entrepreneur to devote themselves to the development of the company, product or service improvement, and not to work on day-to-day tasks.
Please remember that simply creating procedures will not help because people you work with need to trust you as a leader first to start working according to the new rules. Also, keep a balance between gaining knowledge and implementing what you have learned. Without implementation, there will be no changes! What’s more – Test and Evaluate: not everything will work right away, so don’t give up and realize that of all of your efforts, only 10% will work. Seems like too little? Then consider that if you don’t try at all, then you can be sure nothing will work!
Besides, it’s our beliefs that block us, too. We may not even know it because we have believed in something for so long that we do not realize that it is stopping us from achieving our goals. That is why our beliefs must be regularly checked and tested to unlock our business full potential.
What if we don't unlock our business?
It means death! You read it right … It can be physical death – from overwork, or worse, emotional death because you will not be able to do anything more than the minimum. Remember that if the entrepreneur’s spirit is tired and too busy, it doesn’t want to change or refresh anything. Then you fall into a death spiral.
Companies that do not grow or evolve are the ones you pass on the street and see the old sign and the same shelves for the past 20 years. Such companies only vegetate from day to day, from week to week. These companies face huge problems in times of crisis.
Look at it from a different angle: people can grow old and so can companies, but all you have to do is introduce something new to the company, and you just give it a second life – cheating nature. It is similar to online companies, it is enough to introduce a new product or refresh the page, and the company becomes something else – something new.
You have to automate.
Can you introduce changes in times of crisis?
It doesn’t really matter when we make changes because the essential thing is to change our thinking. It takes about a year to change attitude – because it’s all in our heads!
Now think about what will happen if you give some power to your employees. The end and ruin of the business, or more time for innovation and development for you? News flash: your employees are adults who have coped with many obstacles in their lives, bought houses, cars, and raised children. Why do you think a little more responsibility at work will be too much for them?
When you decide to pass the power to another person, the world will not collapse. Just know that you should prepare the ground and set the rules of the game first. Show employees how to work to get the bonus and what will happen if they break the rules. Follow the example of the best on the market! McDonald’s has tens of thousands of restaurants – and in most of them the owner hasn’t even been there (and doesn’t even know about them).