Frank was ex-Special Forces with a fine arts degree—an unusual mix. He achieved a lot in his business career by following five simple principles that he was able to apply to any business, and many have achieved a lot by learning to do the same.

If you can apply these same principles consistently to your organization, you will find that you can move away from being a micro-manager and instead become far more strategic in the way your run your own business.

So what are these magic principles? Really, they are just good common sense, but as Frank was fond of saying, “Good business is just common sense, unfortunately common sense is not common practice.”

Principle 1: Define your role

Too often, business owners do not have clarity on the difference between management issues and ownership issues. Management issues are things like dealing with the daily human resources concerns, accounting and administration, and the sales process. They are seemingly urgent matters that must be dealt with in a timely fashion. The person overseeing these functions can be the business owner or an appointed manager.

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