Clients should be loyal to a process not just to a person and performance
Stephen Covey, the legendary author of the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, advised that we should always begin with the end in mind. It is for that reason we suggest that you apply a mindset of building a business with the intention of selling it for maximum value at some point in the future.
Your Business Should be Built to be Sold
Even if the thought of selling your business hasn't really crept into your mind, or is a distant vision for many years down the road, it's still a good idea to apply the philosophy of maximizing the equity value in your business on an ongoing basis.
This goes beyond just practice management in the traditional sense. Sure deploying best-practices creates a client experience that generates loyalty and refer-ability. But if you don't document those procedures you are still only trading your time for money. You have a job that ultimately generates an hourly income for you. Don't get me wrong, you can earn a tremendous living that way but you still want to keep an eye on the prize - maximizing the equity value of your business beyond just Trailing Twelve Months (TTM).
Beyond Trailing Twelve Months
The best business is one that earns you a living and builds your legacy. This dual-track stems from creating and deploying predictable, sustainable and duplicable procedures that are documented in a playbook and are consistently implemented. This creates the consistency that your clients crave that insulates them from competitive factors and other issues beyond your control. But the double-win is that when it eventually comes time to sell your business, the suitor realizes your clients are loyal to your process, not just to you and the performance you generate. Additionally, they realize that your procedures have not only created a durable business - he or she can also apply your procedures to their existing business. 1+1 really can actually equal 3.
When it comes to maximizing a business valuation, the buyer wants to ensure continuity through and beyond the acquisition process. When all of your processes are documented in your playbook, and you present a transitional process to professionally communicate with clients well in advance of the transition, predictability elevates. And this applies even if you plan to sell just a portion of your business through a right-sizing process.
The Rule of 3
Every action you do three or more times and that has three or more steps in the process, should be documented in your playbook. Get everything out of your head and the heads of your team members. The benefits of a playbook go beyond just consistency and continuity. The efforts compound over time creating momentum - regardless of who is deploying them. If a business is driven by maverick talent - talented people who operate daily out of their heads - the value is lower than a business driven by the procedures contained in a playbook. Remember, the faces on your team may change over time but the processes remain.
That's not to say that you will always remain on auto pilot after you create a playbook. The Law of Optimization suggests that every process can be refined over time. It's funny, when I ask an advisor "Why do you do things that way?" The answer is often the same: "That's the way we've always done it." They unconsciously drifted into a pattern and then arrived at a set-it-and-forget-it mode. Einstein was right when he defined insanity as being the repetition of an action over time and expecting a different outcome. This explains why many advisors who have been in the business for 15 years really have one year of experience 15 times. Sure they are making a living, but they aren't building a business that is valued for more than the industry average.
Let Pareto Systems help you create a playbook to harness and deploy the true value of best practices. The value of your business will increase and so too will the fulfillment you realize from it.
Continued Success!
Contributed by Duncan MacPherson
