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I realized that for IBM to become a great company it would have to act like a great company long before it ever became one.
each and every day we attempted to model the company after that template. At the end of each day, we asked ourselves how well we did, discovered the disparity between where we were and where we had committed ourselves to be,
the start of the following day, set out to make up for the difference.
Every day at IBM was a day devoted to business development, ...
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It tells us that the very best businesses are fashioned after a model of a business that works.
the Entrepreneurial Perspective
What’s important is the business: how it looks, how it acts, how it does wha...
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That most people who go into business don’t have a model of a business that works, but of work itself, a Technician’s Perspective, which differs from the Entrepreneurial Perspective
The Entrepreneurial Perspective asks the question: “How must the business work?”
The Entrepreneurial Perspective sees the business as a system for producing outside results—for the customer—resulting in profits.
The Entrepreneurial Perspective starts with a picture of a well-defined future, and then comes back to the present with the intention of changing it to match the vision.
The Entrepreneurial Perspective envisions the business in its entirety, from which is derived its parts.
To The Entrepreneur, the present-day world is modeled after his vision.
Each step in the development of such a business is measurable, if not quantitatively, at least, qualitatively.
The business operates according to articulated rules and principles. It has a clear, recognizable form.
What exactly is the Entrepreneurial Model? It’s a model of a business that fulfills the perceived needs of a specific segment of customers in an innovative way.
The Entrepreneurial Model looks at a business as if it were a product, sitting on a shelf and competing for the customer’s attention against a whole shelf of competing products (or businesses).
the Entrepreneurial Model has less to do with what’s done in a business and more to do with how it’s done. The commodity isn’t what’s important—the way it’s delivered is.
Customer experience as the result of the business, rather than the thing itself. How the business is perceived and exists in the world to the customer rather than what it makes for the world.
A solution in the form of a business that looks and acts in a very specific way, the way the customer needs it to look and act, not The Entrepreneur.
“How will my business look to the customer?”
Thus, the Entrepreneurial Model does not start with a picture of the business to be created but of the customer for whom the business is to be created.
It understands that without a clear picture of that customer, no business can succeed.
The Technician, on the other hand, looks inwardly, to define his skills, and only looks outwardly afterward...
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To The Entrepreneur, the business is the product.
To The Entrepreneur, however, the customer is always an opportunity. Because The Entrepreneur knows that within the customer is a continuing parade of changing wants begging to be satisfied. All The Entrepreneur has to do is find out what those wants are and what they will be in the future.
As a result, the world is a continuing surprise, a treasure hunt to The Entrepreneur.
if the model is to work, if the model is to awaken The Entrepreneur within each of us to begin to rebuild our businesses around the Entrepreneurial Perspective they so desperately need to flourish, The Manager and The Technician need their own models.
Because if The Entrepreneur drives the business, The Manager must make certain it has the necessary fuel for sustenance, and that the engine and chassis are in a good state of repair.
If The Technician is to be satisfied, on the other hand, there must be a mode...
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work that satisfies his need for direct interaction with ...
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Because the Business Format Franchise is built on the belief that the true product of a business is not what it sells but how it sells it.
The true product of a business is the business itself.
Driven by his desire to buy a business, the franchisee only wanted to know one thing: “Does it work?”
most important concern then became how to make certain his business would work better than any other.
A systems-dependent business, not a people-dependent business.
A business that could work without him.
That secret is the Franchise Prototype. It is in the Franchise Prototype that every successful franchisor builds his future.
it is in the Franchise Prototype that you can find the model you need to make your business work.
The system runs the business. The people run the system.
It’s a place to conceive and perfect the system. To find out what works because you’ve worked it.
The system isn’t something you bring to the business. It’s something you derive from the process of building the business.
To The Entrepreneur, the Franchise Prototype is the medium through which his vision takes form in the real world.
To The Manager, the Franchise Prototype provides the order, the predictability, the system so important to his life.
To The Technician, the Prototype is a place in which he is free to do the things he l...
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It’s been there in the form of a Proprietary Operating System at the heart of every extraordinary business around you, franchised or not.
It is a proprietary way of doing business that successfully and preferentially differentiates every extraordinary business from every one of its competitors.
The question is: How do you build yours? How do you put this powerfully liberating idea to work for you?
How do you build a business that works without you?
The point is: your business is not your life. Your business and your life are two totally separate things.
So what could your Prototype do that would not only provide consistent value to your customers, employees, suppliers, and lenders but would provide it beyond their wildest expectations?
