Positioning Systems Company Story

Losing a job is one thing, losing a dream is quite another.

Imagine you've worked 15-20 years in the field you went to school for, trained your whole life for, waiting for that opportunity to own your own someday. Some day finally comes. You need partners so you build your business. You build it to be better than any other business of its kind. At first, it all goes well. You're successful, not overly successful, but you gain the respect of your peers and even your partners are satisfied. Then slowly things change. The time you spend in the business isn't as satisfying. You seem to be doing the same things over and over. Finding good help is hard, running the business is harder and your partners are demanding a better return on their investment. At first, you vow to work harder, but finally you wonder, is it worth it? Then the day comes. Your partners have received an offer and if you're interested in matching it, you can buy the business. You think about it, but the fire is gone. You've become exhausted by your efforts to build your dream, but the dream didn't turn out the way you imagined. Why?

The success that failed.

In April 1996, my dream of owning seven radio stations disintegrated before my eyes. While we had achieved success, (the sale of the station returned a 300% return on each investor’s initial equity position) it was not the success I had dreamed. At the time I had neither the necessary skills, knowledge nor consciousness, let alone desire to buy the radio station my partners had so easily decided to sell. I had just recently gotten married and had a brand new baby. I could see instead of working 60 hours a week, perhaps working 120 to make sure that the radio station would succeed. I didn’t have any idea what systems were and how they could help me to duplicate and replicate my efforts, even though in many of the areas I truly had conquered and enjoyed I was already working with systems. All I could see is my exhaustion, and that if I’d buy the station I’d need new partners (I didn’t have 1.5 million dollars), and if I chose to work that much I’d be on my way to another divorce. I didn’t want that.

Put me in Coach.

My frustration, disappointment and even humiliation and embarassment over not fulfilling my dream led to my discovery of Michael Gerber’s E-Myth. It has become my desire not to allow anyone else in business to succumb to the same disappointment, frustration and exhaustion that I did. Positioning Systems intention is to provide the tools, knowledge and coaching business owners need to live their dream, fulfilling both their business and their lives full potential. Since 1998Positioning Systems has brought this level of success to hundreds of clients. We helped businesses and their owners achieve success and personal and financial freedom.

Banished again!

Yet that too didn’t last. In January 2005 E-Myth World Wide informed its independent Certified E-Myth Consultants that our licenses to provide their tools would end in January 2008. While they implied that we wouldn’t be abandoned it became apparent over time that we were not a part of their plans. The new CEO of E-Myth World Wide, has a technology background and plans to move the company to a web based consulting, diminishing the coaching model. With very few, but only the really successful independent E-Myth coaches left, this group banded together to take the high ideals of the E-Myth Business coaching and combine these with our best practices from working in the trenches with our most successful business client’s. We started an Alliance, found the original writer of most of the E-Myth Mastery Program and decided to have him write new material. Unfortunately we soon discovered that he was more committed to his own ideals and writing than he was to including the input of the coaches who had actually learned by teaching clients how to do it correctly. We abandoned that effort and began writing material on our own.

Finding a better way.

Michael Gerber’s E-Myth Revisited still resonates with us. As we approached the new material we haven’t abandoned our roots but rather embraced them further. E-Myth Revisited and the principles of systems and achieving freedom for the business owner is still our Bible. Creating the new material has taken time, but it means these new tools provide the best of the best practices, and is written in a shorter version to provide simplicity and include actual client examples for the fast pace and busy needs of the small business owner today. There are many ways to build a small business. Small business is the fastest growing, and most impactful area of the world’s economy and Positioning Systems is dedicated to teaching and providing the tools to make every small business owner a success, and to provide you with the personal and financial freedom you dreamed of when you started your business.

The system is the solution.

Building a successful business is about creating systems. However systems are not just how you answer the phone, take inventory or bill a customer. There are hard, soft and information systems. Every business is at different stages in its life cycle. We recognize this and have created our business Master Plan Tools to help first identify where you need help, and also to help you to create the mind set for moving you, your employees and managers from the tactical to the strategic. To help you move from the technician to the master entrepreneur. There is both an inner and outer game of business. There is both the subjective and objective to operating successful. Success doesn’t come over night. It is a process not an event. If someone tells you otherwise you should probably run as fast and as far from them as you can. Only those business that have been successfully engineered already, placed most of the significant pieces in place, can expect to have one or a just a few tools impact them for immediate results. It’s not to say that small tools and systems can not make a significant impact. However for sustained continuous improvement the tools you require will need to be harnessed, implemented, evaluated and innovated continuously over time to achieve and sustain real growth.

Break the handcuffs.

For many small business owners this will require much more than learning how to create systems. Through our own unwittingness we have become slaves to our own devices. We believe we have to do all the work ourselves, we can’t trust others, we don’t have enough time, there isn’t enough money, we can’t find good help. On and on, our excuses and belief system limits us to be trapped by our own handcuffs. Becoming a successful business owner is as much the mental “inner” game as it is the outer game. It is only after you change how you think that you will successfully become the successful small business entrepreneur. This will take time. It will require you to change. It will not come all at once, unless you’ve already been prepared, and from our small business experience we have found that this often comes in stages. That’s where our business coaching will help. Beyond the tools that help you build a predictable consistent performing business, you will need someone to guide you through these stages and support you so you don’t give up or fall back into the mental trap that has held you back.

Accountability.

It’s ironic that most small business owners start a small business to be their own boss. They want to be free from having someone else tell them what to do, and yet when they look at why their business is not successful, if they are honest with themselves it is because they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing in the business. Simply put they can’t manage themselves let alone manage any one else. Is it any wonder their business struggles? While a coach will provide accountability, he will also provide encouragement and support. He will help you to recognize your strengths so you can spend time doing what you truly enjoy and hire others to help you shore up your weaknesses. Why spend time doing things you aren’t good at? It far more rewarding and fulfilling to invest our time and energy into the work we love doing. The definition of insanity is to expect a better result doing the same thing. The only way to get better results is by changing the way you currently do something.

Energy.

In order to achieve the success you want we suggest you start at the beginning, with yourself. Many owners are surprised to find that you, the business owner are the first order of business. Most right brain clients believe the first place to start is with building systems. We do start with a system, but it is a system that is an absolute requirement to operating a business – Energy. Your energy. In order to build your business you need to have absolute faith, a belief system that you can conquer any obstacle in your path in order to achieve the result you want. We’ve worked with countless business owners who either decided to skip this step, or failed to recognize the importance of it, and all failed. Discovering your purpose, your absolute values for your life is the most impactful place you can start because it fuels the resources you need to build your business. Further it aligns your values with the business, and gives your employees understanding of the rules of your game and the core principles that drive the business. No one who has ever achieved anything of any significance did so without having an undying sense of purpose. If you look at any successful achiever you will find at the root of their success an undeniable sense of purpose. That purpose propels them to do the impossible and it is why we provide a value guarantee [first three meetings are refundable] to all clients who begin as we suggest at the very beginning by determining and discovering your Mission statement or unique capability.

What does it take?

What does it take to succeed in this program? From working with successful small business owners and the collective input from the most successful business coaches we’ve discovered this: There are only two ways to fail in this program: 1) Failure to put pen to paper, even for one hour a week to "duplicate" the Master Plan Solution you receive, and/or 2) Impatience, moving forward too quickly, doing a half-baked job at your documentation, failing to "implement" things properly, one step at a time. At Positioning System, we never blame the client. We take the Point of View that the client came to us motivated, and it is our job to convert that motivation into action. While we succeed 90% of the time, we lament some failures, as well. As a client your responsibility is to take action upon that which you have learned, developed and created.

The Promise and the Process

All decisions are made emotionally. One of two fundamental visions Positioning Systems strictly adheres to for helping you build your business is based on the quote from Fred Smith of Fed Ex, “Two words drive the business, the promise and the process.” Most companies fail to identify a promise for their business - a significant differentiation that separates them from their competition. When they do, they still fail to embed it deep into the business framework to allow it to resonate as it should. Positioning Systems is dedicated to helping you discover your unique customer promise and then building the systems that will provide your customers, and even your employees with a moving, meaningful emotional promise that they will buy into so powerfully that it will elevate your business beyond the masses of competitive pressures that exist in your marketplace.

Structure Build Momentum

Positioning Systems final fundamental vision is structure builds momentum. Applying structure to any situation will immediately provide it with a set of rules and principles that improve it. Most business owners started with an intention to escape a boss or to become free from the confines of previous bureaucracy, or boss who they did not agree with. They wanted to be free to set their own boundaries and not be regulated by others. In doing so they may have built up a resistance to structure, failing to realize that it wasn’t the structure they were revolting against, but the rules or theories the structure was intended to impose. Order is critical for building a business. Thriving on chaos is mythical. All great businesses thrive in an orderly process of creation.

Positioning System will provide you and your business with a set of rules and guidelines which will give your business the structure and foundation to grow and achieve even your most unimaginable goals. Getting a team to work together toward a common goal requires structure, agreement, commitment and determination. Count on Positioning Systems to provide the tools that elevate you and your business to the heights you always dreamed of attaining.