Workbook  ·  Activity 1b

Harnessing the SME advantages.

Being small is an advantage. Decision rights, agility, alignment, closeness to customer. The catch is that the advantage only works when you actually harness it. Six questions to surface where you are, and where the founder's cost is hiding the founder's gain.

Six questions

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Question 1
Are you building your business in service of all the stakeholders the business depends on?
In a public company there is endless talk of shareholder value. In an SME, revenue depends on customers, customers depend on people, owners benefit at the end of the line. Harnessing the advantage means doing that dance, not picking a winner.
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Question 2
When you and the other owner-leaders get together, what percentage of the decision rights are actually in the room?
Owner-leadership SMEs do not need agency the way corporate boards do. The owners are in the room. That is the speed advantage, but only if the room actually holds the decision rights.
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Question 3
Do you have real clarity on what your fellow owners want this business to deliver for their lives?
Your advantage cannot be harnessed if the owners are quietly misaligned about what they want. It is wise to surface this early, in writing.
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Question 4
Does your business let you live the life you want, or has the business taken over your life?
If you are stuck in operations and cannot do the big thinking, the advantage is gone. The business stops serving you, and you start serving it.
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Question 5
Are you the entrepreneurial or cultural leader of this business? If so, what is your plan to hand that to someone else?
Most owner-leaders are one or both. Too much connection to one person is fragility. Harnessing the advantage means writing that role down so it can travel.
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Question 6
If you decided to sell, what have you actually put in place so that you can, and so the value reflects what you have built?
Many founders want to build for the long term but will not say no to the right offer. Harnessing the advantage means being ready for either, even if neither is in the plan today.
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