Productivity Secrets for Service Business Owners
(From Forbes Billionaires)
How do you boost productivity in your service business?
Learn from the best!
These billionaires know all of the secrets.
Your small business mindset places limits on your service business.
You started the business as a technician. That means you have all of the skills that relate to the job. However, it doesn’t automatically mean that you know how to run a business.
One of your jobs is to make your business as productive as possible. You need to deliver quality work efficiently. And you need to make sure that you can focus on the important stuff instead of wasting time putting out fires everywhere.
You can’t do that if you’re still stuck in the service business mindset. You need a billionaire’s mindset to build an awesome business.
Help is at hand.
There happens to be a big list of billionaires for you to learn from. Every year, Forbes compiles a list of the world’s richest billionaires.
They may not own services businesses. But they can show you how to boost productivity and start thinking like a business owner.
Guys like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos sit at the top of the tree when it comes to business owners. We’re going to share six service business productivity secrets gleaned directly from them.
Jeff Bezos – Don’t Go it Alone
If you haven’t heard of Jeff Bezos, you’ve almost certainly heard of the company he founded. Bezos is the genius behind Amazon and he’s one of the richest people in the world.
It’s fair to say that he knows a thing or two about running a productive business.
He says that building a great team is the key to boosting productivity. Specifically, going it alone and trying to do everything for your team will get you into trouble.
Bezos says: “The myth of the lone genius, who comes up with these ideas, and sends them down, is a myth.”
Bezos is so unconvinced by the idea of a “lone genius” that he calls it a myth twice in the same sentence.
Here’s the point he’s making. As a service business owner, you have a vision for your business and a lot of great ideas. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from your people.
In fact, it’s the people you have on the ground that can often teach you the most important lessons. Get them involved and talk to them about ways of boosting productivity.
Don’t allow ego to get in the way of listening to good ideas from other people.
Bill Gates – Take Care When Making Decisions
The co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates made his billions through his coding talent. That may seem like he’s in a completely different industry (but in reality he’s a hands-on “doer” like you! Maybe not that different after all!)
And the man knows how to make the best use of his time. That means you can learn from him to improve service business productivity.
Gates is a big believer in getting things right the first time.
As he puts it: “Don’t make the same decision twice. Spend time and thought to make a solid decision the first time so that you don’t revisit the issue unnecessarily.”
There’s probably a little hyperbole thrown in there. Every business owner will make some mistakes with their decision making. And it’s not something to feel bad about. Mistakes offer you the chance to learn more and bounce back stronger.
However, Gates does warn against making decisions too fast and before you have all of the information that you need. Take your time and consider all of the potential outcomes of a decision.
You’ll get it right more often than not. And that means you improve productivity in your service business.
Michael Dell – Delegate Effectively
Another tech billionaire, Michael Dell’s surname should clue you into what he does. Anyone who has a Dell computer has benefitted from the man’s work.
He says that effective delegation is the key to boosting productivity.
“First, if you try to control things, that’s self-limiting,” he says.
“The easiest way to think about this is that if all the decisions inside an organization had to roll up to the center of the company or to one person, it’s a massive bottleneck.”
That’s such an important point. You have talented people working with you. They’re capable of handling the responsibility for minor business decisions.
Yet so many service business owners insist on making every decision that relates to their company. Loosen the reins a little and let your people assume some responsibility. Make sure they understand the business and what you aim to achieve.
Then, empower them to make decisions and take some of the work off your shoulders. That leaves you with more time to spend on building the business.
Mukesh Ambani – Manage Your Expectations of Yourself
Looking globally, consider the richest man in India—Mukesh Ambani. He’s built a $20+ billion empire as the chairman of Reliance Industries Limited. The company operates in the oil and gas sectors as well as working with chemicals.
He’s a big believer in setting realistic goals.
Ambani says: “I don’t think that ambition should not be in the dictionary of entrepreneurs. But our ambition should be realistic. You have to realize that you can’t do everything.”
You’re an entrepreneur. You have massive dreams for where you want your service business to go.
And you should absolutely follow your dreams.
However, it’s important to inject a dose of realism into your work. Trying to go too big too soon is what leads to many service business owners taking on too much.
If you’re not careful, you’ll burn out.
Ambani shows us that you can improve service business productivity if you slow down a little. Evaluate your goals and ensure they’re achievable. Remember that even the largest businesses start small.
You’ll be able to set more ambitious goals later on. What’s most important is that you build a solid foundation based on realistic ambitions early on.
Elon Musk – Focus on Work That Makes Things Better
Elon Musk is the founder of Tesla and SpaceX. You probably know the man better than his businesses because he’s done such a great job of building a personal brand.
But there’s a good reason why Musk is so successful. He’s constantly focusing on boosting productivity.
Musk points out that business owners often get bogged down in the unimportant stuff. And he offers some important advice:
“Focus on signal over noise. Don’t waste time on stuff that doesn’t actually make things better.”
Productivity in your service business falls when you’re not focused on the right tasks. Yet, it’s so easy to get caught up in the little things that don’t help you grow a business.
For example, you could spend several hours of the day responding to emails. But how many of those emails are actually worth your time? How many of them directly help you to grow your service business?
We’re betting it isn’t many. Follow Musk’s advice and you’ll start zoning in on the important stuff. The rest can get delegated or ignored.
Scott Farquhar – Have the Courage to Make Changes
Scott Farquhar is the co-founder of Atlassian, a software company. It’s also one of Australia’s fastest-growing businesses. In fact, 2019 saw Farquhar’s personal wealth grow to over $10 billion thanks to his work with the company.
He has an interesting take on improving productivity. The inability to make the changes needed is often one of the biggest barriers to boosting productivity. Farquhar points to courage as the answer:
“The way companies fail is they don’t make changes. People don’t feel empowered to make change.”
Why is this one of the best productivity secrets for service business owners?
Just consider where you are right now. You may feel burned out because you’re taking on so much work that you don’t need to do. Maybe you have a culture that isn’t serving the vision you created for the business.
Yet, you plow the same furrow and don’t change anything.
Keep going in that direction and productivity won’t improve. The business’ growth will stall and you’ll eventually fail.
Having the courage to make changes is as important as the changes themselves. After all, you can’t improve service business productivity if you’re not willing to take action.
Improve Your Service Business’ Productivity Today
It’s not just service business owners that can teach you how to improve your company.
Successful people can show you so much, regardless of their industry. That’s what we aim to highlight here. There’s a lot of knowledge about building businesses that crosses over from one industry to the next.
Use it to boost productivity in your own business.
The billionaires in this article have all reached the absolute pinnacle. They have the big business mindset that you need to adopt if you’re going to scale a service business.
But you may need some help to put all of this into practice. And with CEO Warrior, you’ll learn how to improve productivity and scale your service business.
