From Hamster Wheel to High Gear: Systems That Build Real Business Momentum

Welcome to Your Business, Accelerated! Digitally remastered with AI, Your Business, Accelerated! is the go-to podcast for entrepreneurs ready to scale smart. Hosted by Attorney Shaune B. Arnold, it delivers strategic business insights, legal frameworks, and real-world solutions to help you operate with clarity and confidence. Get actionable guidance to protect, grow, and optimize your business…one smart move at a time.

Are you exhausted from hustling with no traction? In this empowering episode of Your Business, Accelerated, Attorney Shaune B. Arnold reveals how to stop the madness of wheel-spinning by installing rinse-and-repeat systems. Learn how to model market leaders, identify critical gaps, and create scalable structures that grow a business you love. 

Transcript

Hello everyone, .and welcome …once again …to your business accelerated. I am your host, attorney, Shaune B Arnold, and I am excited to be here with you as I am each and every week. I am here to help you start, fix or build the business of your dreams.

Let me ask you a question. While you are working on your business, do you find yourself spinning your wheels, like you have created a hamster wheel instead of a legacy? Are you using a lot of energy and a lot of money and getting a lot of advice about building your business from a lot of people who, frankly, have never been there and you're going crazy and you're getting tired?

I'm going to talk to you tonight about how to stop the madness in starting building or fixing a business that you absolutely love. But before we get started down that road, I want to do just a little bit of housekeeping. First, I want to remind you that I am a California business attorney, and that means that I practice law right here in California, and have for the last 30 years.

So, to the extent that we talk about legal issues here on your business accelerated. Then those legal issues and my responses to those issues really do need to be taken in the context of my being a California business attorney. If you live in another state or country, then you need to take what I say to an attorney in your jurisdiction. They will let you know whether there's any difference between the law here in California and the law where you live. That’s just a little bit of protection for you there.

I also want to invite you to listen to my other podcast, legal biz café. You see, right here on your business accelerated, we are dealing with those hard core business and legal issues that stump you and that stop you from starting building or fixing that fabulous business. And over there on legal biz cafe, we deal with your mindset. We deal with the fact that as an entrepreneur, there are pressures that are coming at you that nobody else out there is having to deal with. As an entrepreneur, there are pressures coming up from within you, that nobody else out there that has a job or that is a stay at home whomever, has to deal with.

If you're listening to your business accelerated and legal biz cafe, you're getting two sides of the same coin, you are getting the skill set enhancement that you need to be a success in your business, and you're also getting that mindset transformation that is going to make you a success in your business and in your life.

Let's get started stopping the madness that is going on in some of our businesses, where we're just spinning our wheels and expending all kinds of excess energy, money, time, resources, and not getting the results that we really need.

How do we stop that madness? How do we go about getting super fast results in the business? Well, folks, the secret is to replicate and duplicate. For example, I'm writing a business plan right now for a client, and I'm helping them build out certain of their business systems. That means I am looking very closely at the business’ competitors and the marketplace to see what they're doing and how they caught fire in the marketplace.

What is it that captured the minds, hearts and imagination of those consumers that they keep coming back for more and more. And they took this little potential mom and shop building and they exploded it into a regional business and then a statewide business, a national business, and in some cases an international business. What was it that they were doing that appeals to the marketplace?

Now, here's another question for you that's going to give you a lot of leeway in the marketplace. What are they not doing for their customers? That is your real opportunity to start a successful business, or to build an existing business.

That is going to be able to challenge your competitors head-on. See, you want to look at what they're doing in the marketplace, first because you don't want to reinvent the wheel and just be out there spinning, but you do want to be able to differentiate yourself from those competitors.

You want to look at what they're not doing, because you want to be able to provide that to the marketplace so that you can get your market share. When you see the things that your competitors are doing well in the marketplace, copy that. In most cases, you can take whatever they are doing and turn it into a wash, rinse and repeat set of practices in your business.

Not only do you want to be able to set up repeatable systems in your business, you want to actually write them down in a policy and job training manual. You want to create a set of binders for each and every activity that you do in your business. This is going to help you, as you are training people to work for you or work with you in your business.

If you have a large turnover, say you have salespeople, for example, and salesperson is a position that is notorious for having large turnover.

You can drive down the price of actually training those people in your business if you can codify all of the things that they're going to be doing for you actually put them in a binder. That way you can just hand the new person the binder and then train them in a course-corrective sense. That will save you a lot of money.

Working from training binders will also allow you to set up repeatable systems, because the same people or different people are being trained in the same systems in the same way, once and twice and three times and every time. That is going to give you systems in your business that are solid and that can be repeated.

Remember, you're looking for wash, rinse and repeatable set of business practices. When you're starting out and you're looking at those competitors, you really do want to play follow the leader. This will get you past that idea and planning stage where so many of us get stuck and we just think it to death, or you may get caught up in creating products and tinkering with all the bells and whistles in your business …and never get that sucker off the ground.

Now, I've heard a lot of practitioners out there tell you that you should build the plane while you're flying it. And every time I hear that, I kind of cringe. I have very mixed emotions about that because your reputation can suffer if you are building the plane while you're flying it. That means the very first customers in your business are not getting your very best service. They're not getting your best product. They're not getting the best of what you have to offer. So that's a very fine line that you want to straddle or move along. You want to make sure that you're not getting stuck and overthinking your business to the point where you can't get moving but then you don't want to get started so soon that you're really not serving the marketplace.

Don't allow yourself to be paralyzed in business. Realize that business is a finite universe. It's not rocket science. Rocket science is also a finite universe. Once you find out how to build the rocket and send it up into space and get it back down safely, you have pretty much mastered that universe. And so business is the same way. It's not that difficult, but you do need to set up your business systems.

Business systems are a known entity. Again, you can look at your competitors and see how they're setting up. Review their payroll systems, accounts receivable systems, accounts payable systems, their marketing systems, cash control, inventory control, development and licensing of intellectual property, and any one of a number of about seven or eight different systems in the business that need to be set up so that the business is rock solid.

And if you don't know what those systems are, then definitely give me a call, because I can work with you on setting those systems up in your business, but at the very least, look across the aisle and see what your competitors are doing, and set it up just like that. If your competitors are not forthcoming, or you are finding a difficult time communicating with someone, then look into the public marketplace. There are publicly traded companies. You can go on the Securities Exchange Commission's website and look in Edgar, E, D, G, A, R, that is an acronym for their filing system. You can actually pull down budgets, marketing plans, all kinds of market related data that is going to help you set your systems up and market and build your business right on par with the big boys.

You just have to be willing to pull those numbers, analyze those numbers, and if you need help doing that, then find yourself a coach who can help you. This is what I do all day long with clients. I'm a Business Growth strategist. I help you look at those systems of your business and tweak them and get them solid so that you will have a successful business enterprise.

Now, setting these things up is one thing. Setting them up in the proper sequence is definitely paramount. And you know, it's hard to see over someone's shoulder. Sometimes you can't get competitors to communicate with you and really take you on. But don't make that decision for them.

Don't just assume that because they're your competitor, that they won't be willing to help you. If you were to approach a business association in your industry, you will probably find a mentorship capacity inside that association, where you'll be able to find a mentor in your chosen field, and you'll be able to Learn what they do that works; wash, rinse, repeat.

You're looking for the wash, the rinse, the repeatable systems that you can place in your business and of course, all of this is done through research, interviewing people, take them to lunch and record the conversation. if they don't mind it or take copious notes.

Take a look at your website from the perspective of a stranger. Are you answering the questions that a prospect has in their head when they get to your website? Because if you are not answering their questions, they are not going to buy from you. A confused mind does not purchase.

Also, take a look at your business from the customer's perspective, so that you can find out where the holes are, where you are not serving your customer properly, where you don't have your systems set up properly.

Compare all of these things to your competitors. Do you have the same holes? Are you not serving the market in the same way they're not serving the market? Because then you're just a copycat, and eventually you'll go down and so will they. So even if you do find that you have holes in your business, you want to make sure that they're not the same as you find across the aisle. You want to look at all of your competitors and then take the best aspects of all of their businesses and fold them into your business.

Folks, those are the tips that I have for you today on how to stop spinning your wheels, get yourself into motion and start, build or fix a business that you are absolutely going to love.

Ladies and gentlemen, I also want to thank you for joining me today on this week’s episode of Your Business, Accelerated! I’m attorney Shaune B. Arnold. I invite you to follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter X. In all of those places, I’m known as S.H.A.U.N.E dot Arnold.

In the meantime, and in between time, I am, …as always, reminding you to MAXIMIZE your COMPETENCE to get the CONFIDENCE YOU NEED to succeed.

I’ll see you right back here next week, on Your Business, Accelerated! Bye-bye, friends.