Who teaches you how to run a business?
Who teaches you how to run a business? School? College? Your Parents?
Generally, unless it’s a multi-generational family business, none of these sources of education are able to help when it comes to learning to run a business.
But does that matter? After all, how hard can it be? There are hundreds of thousands of businesses out there all getting along OK and in some cases much better than OK.
So, let’s refine the question – how hard can it be to run a successful multi-million pound business?
For all businesses started in the UK (approx. 350,000 per year on average), nearly 1 in 3 doesn’t make it to 2 years. Nearly two thirds don’t make it to 5 years.
Of the UK’s 2,767,700 VAT and PAYE registered businesses (in 2022), fewer than 10% are turning over £1m or more. 5% have managed to reach £2m and 2.3% have made it past £5m. Only 1.2% have breached the £10m and that includes all the large multinational PLC’s you know about.
So, survival rates and sizes tell us that very few businesses ever manage to be both successful and larger than £1m or £2m in size.
Back to the original question. Who teaches you to run a business? Usually, it’s experience, trial and error or employment within a company that will train you in each aspect you need to know as you develop through that company.
Business failure stats show us that trial and error turns out to be error most of the time. Only 1 in 3 gets the 5 years needed to make experience count and if the business you’re running can’t or won’t train you, it’s down to the personal development you decide to engage in yourself.
But somehow, as the owner or MD of a UK business, you’re still expected to have all the answers. By your team, your peers and by the government in the form of HMRC.
In reality, when businesses get past around £750,000 in turnover they become a much more complex entity to run. There’s another level of complexity again as you approach the £2m mark and then once you’re past £5m you really have to know your stuff – the room for error is very small.
Most of the MD’s and owners of businesses we talk to already know that they want their organisations to be bigger and better. They also know that they will have to learn how in order to make it happen.
There are lots of ways you can learn – peer groups, courses, training packages and so on.
One way is to hire a good business coach.
For the price of a junior member of staff you can work with someone who has been there, identified the pitfalls and done the learning. A good coach will help you define where you want to go, put a plan in place to help you get there and give you (or point you to) the right learning at the right time so you develop just a little bit quicker than your business. They will also be someone who can help you stay focused and committed along the way and make sure the journey is enjoyable and rewarding.
A good coach is an investment, and like all investments, will pay back way more than their fees in a relatively short period of time. And because they’re a good coach, it remains your journey, your plan and your ambition. You just have someone there to help you achieve it.
If you’d like to talk to us about how we can help you make your business ambitions become a reality (and in the meantime, help you become one of the top 2% of businesses in the UK) you can contact us here.
Alternatively come along to one of our business training workshops which you can access using the link below.
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