Key Insights: 4 Lessons from Clockwork by Mike Michalowicz

Are you a solo entrepreneur or small business owner who is drowning in work? Or are you focused on eradicating your entrepreneurial poverty?

Mike Michalowicz, the author of Profit First, The Pumpkin Plan, and host of The Profit First Podcast, just released a new book, Clockwork. The book gives entrepreneurs the approaches and tools to make their business run itself. The Clockwork system includes 7 steps which immediately and permanently brings efficiency to businesses and organizations.

By his 35th birthday Michalowicz founded and sold two multi-million dollar companies. He became an investor and later lost it all. He then started over again, driven to find better ways to grow healthy, strong strategies and eventually created the “Profit First Formula”, a way for businesses to guarantee profitability from their next deposit and forward. The Profit First Formula has spawned the Profit First Professionals, a group of accountants, bookkeepers, and coaches who seek to drive profitability in their business, as well as ProfitCon where Profit First Professionals gather from around the world and learn methods to grow and improve your business.

Michalowicz was recently interviewed by Abby Connect where he discussed his new book and what people can expect to take away from it.

1) Clockwork is most applicable to solo entrepreneurs

“The funny thing that I discovered is that the Clockwork process is most applicable to solo-entrepreneurs. The reason is that solo-entrepreneurs generally carry all the weight of the business on their own shoulders, but don’t need to. The goal is to have other people and, this is the important part, other resources take work away from the entrepreneur. This means software tools, virtual help and contractors, can all bring efficiency to a micro-enterprise. If the solo-entrepreneur waits until they are “big enough” to do less work, they seem to wait forever. They work harder to grow. When the solution is, from day one, seeking ways to work less while the organization works more. The sooner you start working on this mentality, the sooner you start seeing results.”

2) First, figure out what is taking up your time away from your core tasks

“I suggest that you first understand all the work you are doing and what is taking you most away from your core competency (often that is the QBR, or the linchpin activity for the organization). Then remove the biggest “distractions” from your plate first. That activity then is what you seek help with through the most applicable resource, which could be a software solution, something a vendor offers, you through virtual help. In fact, I have found that outsourcing key functions that are “random” interruptions to your flow are critical to outsource. So if you’re scrambling to answer the phone, you need virtual reception. If you are scrambling to respond to emails, then a virtual assistant helps!”

3) 3 quick and easy things you can do to be more Efficient at work

“First, you should plan your big goal for the day. The one thing you will get done over all else. Emergencies and urgent things happen daily, so we need to commit to one thing to move the business forward that is important, but not putting out a fire.

Second, you need to stop trying to “fix and improve everything” in your business. Instead, identify what the biggest bottleneck is and focus on that. As that improves, the entire business improves.

Third, is to simply watch your ego. Stop saying “no one can do it as well as me” and start saying “what do I need to do, so that others can do it as well as me.” That thought empowers the organization to elevate.”

4) Time is the biggest takeaway readers will get from clockwork

“I hope that readers will value their time as the most important asset they have. And that that time needs to be used designing the outcomes for the organization, not doing the daily grind.”

To grab your copy of Clockwork, buy the book off Amazon. You can also gain instant access to the first two chapters of the book by clicking here.

To learn more about Michalowicz and his Profit First Formula, join us at ProfitCon 2018 in Morristown, New Jersey on September 26-29, 2018. Sign up now with our special discount link for the conference and see your business grow!