Before starting a business, we have a budget for preparing our beloved new shop/restaurant. Quite often this is borrowed money, yet we spend it like there is no tomorrow. After a few years, profits are withdrawn and there is no money left to keep refreshing it.

Money in a business is like oxygen to humans; we don’t live to breathe, but we have to breathe to live. The business does not exist only to make money but without money the business wouldn’t even exist. The problem with entrepreneurs and business owners is that they have this grand idea for a business, but they often lack basic knowledge of how money works and how to manage money in their business!

Puregym is a great example of a Stand Back Company that works without the owner. It has over 200 locations, so the owner physically cannot be running all the gyms at the same time. It is also the first UK gym to gain 1,000,000 members and I am one of them.
In this video I show the solutions that have allowed this business to become such a success.

Kanban comes from the lean manufacturing concept advocated by the Toyota Production System and invented by Taiichi Ohno. It is used in various ways and one of them is using them as a placard that automated the replenishment of consumable. Here I show a successful Kanban system for re-ordering office supplies at my company www.steelo.co.uk.
Kanbans are great for automating operations in your business, because your business should work without you.

We use car parks regularly, probably without noticing how the marked bays make them so efficient and user-friendly. Imagine a car park without any markings… It would have been pure chaos!
The painted lines are a great Stand Back solution. It is worth copying these kind of simple solutions that automate processes, as they will take a lot of pressure off you as the business owner.

When we start a new venture we are full of energy. At the end of the day, our dream is coming to life! In the early days, everything is kept clean and tidy and somewhere at the top of the priority list is having the shop front window clean. With time, if the owner does not Stand Back, things start to deteriorate. At some point, the owner couldn’t care less about the state of the window, as there are other more important fires to fight.