According to leading small business coach Michael Gerber, your company?s growth is limited by your ability to delegate. He says that ?most businesses are started by technicians (mechanics, carpenters, etc.) who go into business and realize that running a business is more that technical work. They need to wear various hats such as the salesperson, administrator, bookkeeper, production, human resources, etc."

So how do you create a business that really works? Before you can delegate effectively, you need to follow six steps to work on your business and not in your business. The six steps are:

1. Get organized. Clean up your messes, which reflect unfinished business. Messes hold you back because you waste time looking for information, thinking about things that are not done and indecision. Once you get in the habit of finishing what you start - one task at a time - you will be decisive, get any information when you want it and people will look you up when the important tasks come. You will have time to do what is important and the number of fires you put out will go down.

2. Begin with an end in mind. Ask yourself, why did you go into the business? Did you go into business to make "X" per year, to sell it for $ X or to work 25 hours per week? Make sure this goal is met and create a crystal clear picture of what your business will look like. Define the geographic locations, sales volumes, number of team members, etc. It does not matter if you want 1 location or 10, but you do need to know exactly what you are working for. All decisions must be made with your end goals in mind.

3. Create an Action plan to get to your goal. The first order of doing business is to clean up house. Doing the same thing and expecting different results is insanity. Take a good look at how you do things. Write out as many actions as you want in each of the production, administration, marketing, human resources and research and development areas. Attach an approximate cost of each action and the potential benefit. Start with the action that offers the highest increase in profit or reduction in stress. You may find, for example, that 20% of your customers cost you money and headaches to service. Sending these customers to your competition will increase your profits and make your place a more pleasant place to work. Identifying these customers may cost you $2,000, but give you a potential benefit of $15,000, making your net benefit $13,000. Similarly, it might cost you $1,500 to create a relationship with a "Pillar for reference." If that relationship generates $150,000 in sales at a 20% margin, you?ve made $30,000. Decide which one you want to do first and take action.

4. Determine your measuring posts. Whatever you can measure you can manage. A coach cannot manage a hockey game by looking at the scoreboard. That is the end result. A coach looks at numbers such as shots on net to determine if his line is effective against the opposing team and then changes his lines based on information such as this. You cannot manage your business by looking at your net profits. You need to know how many sales calls were made? What was the closing ratio? What was the profitability of each job? Keeping your eye on the inputs also increase profitability.

5. Create a system so that each team member performs a task in the same way. Do you have a system in place to determine how the phone is answered? Do you have a system in place to deal with new customers? Do you have a system to ensure your customers are happy once they are on board? Do you have a system to ensure your paperwork is handled only once? Are you able to replace staff and have instructions so that they become productive sooner or do they have to go by memory?

6. There are only 4 ways to grow your business. The four ways are:

A.Increase the number of customer of the type you like

B.Increase the number of times they come back

C.Increase the amount they spend with you each time

D.Increase the efficiency of each process!

These concepts are simple. But the thinking process will take you at least 1½ days to come up with an action plan that works. If that sounds interesting, let?s do lunch . . .

There are a few things you should know before you hire an accountant, and a few things you should know about what you can do to make sure this client/accountant relationship works for you and your business.

First, accountants generally charge for their services on an hourly basis. They purchase time from their staff or themselves and sell it to clients. The hourly rate is much less important than the value you get for your services. Always remember that accountants are not mind readers. You must ask them what you need to know and you must give them all of the information they need to provide quality service.

For your compilation work, look for an accountant who is organized and has systems in place to ensure your data is always handled the same way. An accountant without systems is like a shopper without a list. Quality tax preparation depends on organization, not a good memory.

Also look for accountant who focuses on deadlines and can help you meet them.

I have reviewed timesheets on clients with similar needs but big discrepancies in fees. Clients whose information was difficult to gather, came in slowly over time, or provided answers to the wrong questions pay more, since clients are charged for the time it takes to do the return. Rush jobs are another problem. When staff rush through jobs, mistakes are made. These take time (and cost money) to fix.

Tax season at our office begins the summer before the next year?s deadline. We review any problems we had, fix our templates and start creating the next year?s templates for each client. This ensures we have systems in place to get the job done quickly, catch errors easily and move forward. Once tax season hits, we have small systems in place such as:

1.Having one box per client so we do not waste time looking for documents

2.Having only one file on each desk so we do not mix different clients files

3.Having a system to prioritize a job so the staff do know what is required of them as opposed to wondering what they should do next

4.Our staff start one file and work on it until it?s finished so staff do not have to come back to it later and familiarize themselves with the same file

5.Standard documentation procedures so we know how the information was obtained.

6.A paperless files system further ensures we do not waste time filing and retrieving paper

7.All our staff have dual screens on their computers to reduce errors

To get real value from your accountant, you need to make sure you can get answers to your questions when you need the information. This does not mean you need face-to-face access to your accountant. It does mean you need some assurance you can access your accountant when necessary. Find out if you can e-mail a question and expect a response in a reasonable amount of time.

To optimize that relationship, make sure your questions are real, not hypothetical, since you don?t want to waste your accountant?s time. You also need to understand that your accountant cannot ?bless? a deal. Their accounting and tax expertise provide a sounding board to help you make better decisions; but the decisions are still yours. Your accountant should be able to help you make decisions about how to set up financing and how to time sales and purchases. Specific advice about how a market will fare are way beyond their expertise!

If you do not receive an answer to your e-mailed question in a reasonable amount of time, do phone the office, since a spam filter may have prevented the question from getting through. Avoid putting your accountant into a ?rushed? situation. If the deal involves a real estate purchase that closes the next day, it may well be too late to change how the deal is set up, even if your accountant wants the change!

You must also understand your accountant's bias. For example, I am more real estate oriented and my focus is on long-term cash flow properties. Hence, I will be more positive on these types of real estate, but more negative on flippers of real estate, mutual funds, foreign exchange traders and day traders. I look for more solid long-term returns as opposed to a higher-risk returns. I come across builders and land developers that do well, but I have not done these kinds of transactions. So if I get a question that is not a tax question, I would try and put a client in touch with another client in a similar field so they can help each other. Other accountants may consider all real estate risk and mutual funds of less risk. Overall, most accountants have similar training in dealing with the compilation side of our practices, but our take and experience of life and investments are different. Our organizational skills are also different, so you need to find someone that fits with your long-term needs. There may be variations from what you and your accountant think, but the final decision is always yours and you should feel like your accountant listens and can help you reach your goals.