How do you solve a problem you don’t know you have?

One of the biggest challenges facing young entrepreneurs is that often they’ve had no prior experience working inside a successful company. They thus never got to learn and understand fully the Processes that drive such companies to success. Unless they fully appreciate this handicap and seek ways to mitigate the knowledge deficit, they find it difficult to fully scale the business.

In the United States and Israel [for instance], they have long realized that young entrepreneurs may have brilliant Innovations but they may lack the skills of Process [the toughest skill to acquire]. Venture Capitalists who fund startups create support structures including, training, mentors, and even provide skilled managers to help Scale [MAKE THE BUSINESS BIGGER].

This was the problem that initially led to the sacking of Steve Jobs. Listen to the Podcasts on companies like Google, Facebook, eBay, Starbucks. You will see how entrepreneurs teamed up with skilled executives to help them scale their businesses.

If you are now running a business, and you fall into the category of those who started without prior institutional knowledge, this one is for you:

__Pay real attention to it, because this may be the reason you are actually not able to grow very big, even though there is lots of demand for what you sell.

You must find the people to help you, but you must also humble yourself to study #Management, because it is not just a collection of clever, educated people. When you understand the science of organizational design and management for growth and profitability, only then are you on your way to building a multi-billion dollar organisation.

You need help… but how do you get organized?

As I pointed out in a comment last week, I discovered after two years of near chaos how to get #Scaled: You get the right #People, even if it means giving them shares, and profit share, to get them on board.

These people must have experience in building #Process, particularly financial management. I understood the power of #Organisation because I had worked before. But I did not understand it fully as a #StartUp because I did not build the organizations I had worked for!

One of the things that helped me was inviting retired executives to either come and talk to me, or even to spend some time with us.

You will not find people who are still working willing to do this, and it’s not reasonable to ask them.

Remember I told you about a German program for retired executives I learned about when I was reading, now years and years ago? [READING is something you must do without ceasing.] Well, I wrote to them, and they sent and paid for a guy who spent six months with me in Zimbabwe.

He shared my office and shadowed me everywhere. He also ran coaching sessions. I would say in those six months, he added 10 years to our development. By the time he left, we had #Systems and we had added German efficiency to our approach. Things like time management and planning were drilled into us like soldiers.

I was able to fix this problem because I recognized it, and had the humility to seek the help I needed. I was keen as a puppy to learn stuff, rather than pretend I knew everything. Today the mentorship system for young entrepreneurs is global.

What I’m doing for you on this platform is just INTRODUCTIONS to what you should be thinking about. I have no time to take you further; that is your job!

Herr Koehler, my friend! Thank you.

“The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them an opportunity to create themselves”. Steven Spielberg