11/ 19/ 2004
by Douglas Davidoff
I remember the day I opened my first business. Even though I had started several side businesses while I was in college, this was the first time my livelihood, let alone the livelihoods of others, was dependent upon my success.
I started the business for many reasons. I wanted to make more money and to build something that I could be proud of. But the main reason was so I could be in control of my destiny, enjoying the freedom that every entrepreneur I know desires.
At first, my three partners and I reveled in our success. But the euphoria wasn’t long lived. It wasn’t that our business suddenly took a downturn. Instead, it was something we never expected. We fell into a trap experienced by many small-business owners.
We were an “I” business, a business whose customers perceive the entrepreneurs to be the near-exclusive providers of value. Among the most acute symptoms of an “I” business are: difficulty increasing your profits, a feeling of owning a job instead of owning a business, increased anxiety and the loss of the freedom you yearned for in the first place.
In our clients’ eyes, the value of our business came exclusively from one of the partners. This situation not only drained energy from me, but it also negatively impacted our employees, because they rarely felt valuable. Clients always asked employees what the partners thought about an issue, even if the employees were more qualified to discuss the matter.
The solution was obvious: Our company had to transform from an “I” business to a “we” business. A “we” business is one whose customers see the value of the business as a whole, instead of just seeing the value of the owner. There are several ways you can make this transformation. Here is what worked for us:
Identify what each employee does well. We forgot that the people we hired to support our abilities also created value. By identifying their strengths, we increased the value of our entire organization.
Find your strengths. In charge of business development, I realized that while I was the best all-around salesperson in the company, there were many tasks I did that could be performed equally well, or better, by others. Giving up those tasks freed me to focus on my strengths.
Enlarge the spotlight. When you are an “I” business, clients want to talk to you and no one else. To become a “we” business, I had to show my clients the value of my staff. When clients asked a question, I told them that I needed to research the answer. Then I had one of my employees call them back to answer the question and discuss the issue. Soon, clients began asking for my employees instead of one of the partners.
Say “we” instead of “I.” We did something that seemed small at the time, but in hindsight had a big impact. The partners started using “we” instead of “I” when talking to customers and prospects.
By following these principles I was able to sell my first business for a nice profit and start three more businesses, all while starting my family, taking vacations, having a lot of fun and most importantly, getting that sense of freedom I was looking for in the first place.
Douglas Davidoff is founder and president of Imagine Consulting. Imagine works with growth-oriented businesses to help them avoid the Commoditization Trap™ and to transform themselves into successful “we” companies.
