I am becoming a bigger and bigger fan of reading books that can help my business. For every book I read, I can count on picking up at least a couple of things that will help my life.
One of my all time favorite reads is the E-myth by Michael Gerber. I had picked this book up one year for reading during my travel to the annual International Window Cleaning Association meeting. With the full life that I lead with kids, family and work, the quieter time to devour the book was excellent.
My biggest takeaways (so many but here are two):
Right where you are today, take time to organize the roles and responsibilities of everything associated with your business. Even if you are doing EVERYTHING for your business right now, create the list of duties and put your name next to them. If there are roles that you are not doing that you should be, identify the role and leave the line blank next to it.
Always make time to think about where you would like to end up. When I talk with window cleaners that are just starting or sputtering in their business, this is a favorite question to ask. A window cleaning business can become exactly what YOU want it to become. To some, that means 4 trucks and 8 workers, others it means that they will be owner-operators. Both are viable. Both can be profitable. However both take different paths as far as type of work, size of customers, etc.
For sure, E-Myth has helped to challenge and expand my business!