Introduction

While visiting family in Montana recently, I was nominated to grill the steaks for my brother-inlaw’s birthday dinner. To set the stage, it was cold… very cold … eastern Montana in December cold. So after slapping the meat on the grill I raced back inside to keep from freezing to death.

Having a couple of minutes to spare before the steaks needed flipping, I rounded up my kids and their cousins so we could get the Lego explosion in the living room cleaned up before dinner. While rallying the troops, my cell phone rang (cue ominous, impending-doom music). I recognized the number as that of
friends we were planning to visit while in town, so I answered it. I honestly don’t know how much time transpired between the ringing of my cell phone and the ringing of my wife’s voice, "Are the steaks done yet?” but it was too long.

THE STEAKS!!!!!!

I cut the conversation off in midsentence, hung up, and charged outside. Flinging open the lid and dodging the billowing white smoke, I saw my life flash before my eyes. The steaks, which were a gift from a rancher friend of my in-laws, were charred black.

Where does one hide when it’s cold enough to freeze spit? Not outside. I had to face the music and the faces of the entire family to apologize.

I mention this story because it mirrors the day-to-day experience that defined many years of running my granite fabrication business: the frustration of constantly cleaning up after my employees and the embarrassment of constantly apologizing to customers for screwing up.

Prior to starting my business, I had never managed a department. I had never been a supervisor. I had never been responsible for a budget or even a company credit card. Up until the day I found myself self-employed, I had never managed anything, not even my own time. So when I started hiring employees and attempting to “manage,” I had no firsthand experience to draw on.

Someone wiser than me pointed out: Experience is the best teacher—especially other people’s experiences! So, I invite you to benefit from everything I’ve discovered.

Everything I have come to know and understand about managing a growing small business has been learned on the job, in what I like to refer to as a small business laboratory. It is where I have tested theories learned in books, applied lessons learned from mentors and business coaches. It is where I have measured results and documented the findings. It is where I honed roughly organized principles into applicable best management practices that I have shared in dozens of articles in national trade publications and in workshops and presentations from Orlando to Atlanta to Las Vegas.

These universal principles—these concrete pillars of practical management — are broken down into four simple stages within this book. Your take-away? Well, this book’s title says is as succinctly as possible: you’ll enjoy Less Chaos, More Cash.

Guaranteed.

In Part One, I address how The Deadly Assumption™ and change are much more likely to be the cause of chaos in small businesses than are the employees. By understanding these fundamental issues, you as a business owner can fully grasp the massive costs of chaos if these issues go unresolved.

Part Two details the extent of the cost chaos brings on business when employees leave, when customers don’t come back, and when a business ownership becomes a burden.

Part Three features a framework for conquering the chaos in your small business. I explain a unique PROcess™ for ensuring that your company’s important work and crucial tasks are done right, and at the right time, by delegating effectively (Assigning the Position), creating expectations (Defining the Results), and developing procedures (Designing the Operation).

Part Four explains how to implement this PROcess™ and how to create a culture of shared control, where the first thought in everybody’s mind is improving processes instead of assigning blame.

If you are like I was, you might believe that if it weren’t for employees and customers, running a small business would be a lot of fun! You might also believe that if it weren’t for the problems these participants cause your business, you would be making the kind of money you intended to make when you started the business in the first place.

The great news is that a business can in fact operate profitably and in harmony with its employees and customers. But only if the owner understands the roles these actors must assume, writes the script accordingly, and is willing to direct the play.

This book, then, is the how-to manual for you to write the screenplay for your company’s success. But first, we need to take a look at today’s realities …

...go to Chapter 1