This point could easily be the single biggest reason for businesses to stagnate, because we all know what is needed, but the choice of doing it now vs. later always ends up later, mainly because of the cost. If everything was free, you would have already done everything you needed to do, no?

Let’s start with the simplest system - a page with a checklist. It would cost probably a few rupees. Or you could even scratch it in the sand for free. But, the value it could provide is not the same as the cost.

For example, if you were in the medical field, that same little note with a bunch of items to check could be the difference between life and death for an emergency case. The value is immense.

Similarly, when building systems for your business, look at what value they hold, not the cost. Let’s break this down a bit to understand it better.

Let’s say you started the business purely because you enjoy being your own boss and having no limits on earnings. All your focus will be on profit and growing it. Whether you have an elaborate system that makes the business run itself will be relevant only if it delivers much more profit, so you might not even need one.

On the other hand, there is another situation — you started the business so it can run itself, and you can do what you want in life. Then all the things that make it self-sufficient become important. This is where you will need checklists, task trackers, people’s performance tied to KPIs and managers to take ownership for each area of business.

Now, if you were selling a task tracking system, could you really charge the same to both of them?

A task tracking system that works may be a huge deal for the second one. Their business depends on it. Their dreams depend on it. So, they might happily pay a full million dollars if it gives them freedom.

But for a purely profitable outcome, just squeezing out every drop of productivity will obviously not result in 10x or 100x profit. At best, it could go up by a few percentage points. They would need to focus on other kinds of leverage to generate that kind of profit, which for sure will not be a task tracking system. A performance marketing system might be worth a million dollars to them.

So, in other words, if what you want is getting delivered, how much are you willing to pay to get it? This DOES NOT mean you have to pay that much, but you need to know it for sure.