You Don’t Need a Big Company’s Budget to Borrow Its Best Systems. Here’s How.

At some point, every business owner has looked at a successful company and thought, “I wish I had thought of that.” Maybe it’s Salesforce. Maybe it’s Costco. Maybe it’s Patagonia. Maybe it’s a competitor that seems to have figured something out before everyone else.

The problem isn’t admiration. The problem is where most entrepreneurs focus their attention. We study founders. We listen to podcasts. We read leadership books. We analyze personalities, habits and morning routines. What we don’t study nearly enough are the systems that made those companies successful in the first place. That’s where the real opportunity is.

Several years ago, one of our larger business partners launched a philanthropy initiative that caught my attention. Community involvement wasn’t an occasional activity. It was built into the company’s culture, and it was reinforced by a measurable process. My first reaction was the same one many small business owners have when they see something impressive: “That’s great, but we’re not them.” They were a much larger organization, with resources, budgets and staff we didn’t have. Replicating their program exactly wasn’t realistic. But then I realized I was asking the wrong question. Instead of asking whether we could copy the program, I started asking why it worked.

The answer was simple: It encouraged employees to engage with their communities and consistently rewarded that behavior. We didn’t need the same structure to accomplish the same goal, so we created our own version. Today, we track volunteer hours and reward team members for community involvement. The program looks different because our business is different, but the principle is the same. It’s also a smart investment. A 2024 Deloitte survey of 1,000 U.S. office professionals found that 87% consider workplace volunteer opportunities a factor in deciding whether to stay with their current employer or pursue a new one.

That experience taught me something many entrepreneurs miss. The companies you admire aren’t valuable because of what they do. They’re valuable because of the systems that make their results repeatable.

Most entrepreneurs study the wrong things

We’ve turned many founders into celebrities. We study Steve Jobs’ black turtleneck. We analyze Elon Musk’s work habits. We obsess over leadership styles and personality traits.

Meanwhile, the things that actually drive performance get far less attention: communication systems, accountability structures, documented processes and performance standards. None of those topics makes for an exciting keynote speech. Yet they’re often the reason one company consistently outperforms another. The next time you admire a business, stop asking what makes the founder special. Ask what allows ordinary people inside that company to perform at a high level, again and again.

That’s usually where the lesson lives.

Steal clear communication

One of the biggest differences between large organizations and small businesses is communication. Large companies can’t afford to keep information inside the owner’s head. They answer to shareholders, boards, investors and thousands of employees. Priorities have to be communicated. Expectations have to be documented. Goals have to be clarified.

Small businesses often work differently. The owner knows where the company is headed and assumes everyone else does too. The result is predictable: Team members fill in the gaps with their own assumptions, work gets misaligned and leaders get frustrated that employees aren’t executing a vision that was never clearly communicated.

Here’s a simple test. Ask your leadership team to write down the company’s top three priorities for the next 12 months. The results may surprise you. In a 2015 study of more than 250 companies published in Harvard Business Review, researchers found that only 55% of the middle managers they surveyed could name even one of their company’s top five priorities. And those were larger organizations with formal communication processes in place.

If everyone on your team gives a different answer, you don’t have a people problem. You have a communication problem. The companies we admire create clarity. Small businesses should do the same.

Steal standards, not personalities

It’s easy to admire leaders who make tough decisions, hold people accountable and maintain high expectations, and to assume their success comes down to personality. What often gets overlooked are the standards guiding those behaviors. The strongest organizations define what success looks like before performance becomes a problem. They set expectations, communicate priorities and coach people toward those standards. Most importantly, they address issues when those standards aren’t being met.

That kind of clarity is rarer than you might think. According to Gallup, just 47% of employees strongly agreed that they know what is expected of them at work as of mid-2025. Small business owners often struggle here because accountability can feel personal. You know your employees’ spouses. You know their children. You know what’s happening in their lives. That makes difficult conversations uncomfortable. But avoiding them creates confusion, not kindness.

You can be direct without being harsh. You can hold people accountable without being militant. The best organizations understand the difference.

Steal process discipline

Large companies create structure because they have to. They document workflows, establish procedures and define ownership. Small businesses often wait until they feel bigger to do those things. But structure is often what allows a company to grow in the first place.

If your team can’t answer these questions, there’s work to do: What are our top priorities? Who owns each one? How do we measure success? What process do we follow when problems arise? When those answers are unclear, people spend more time guessing than executing. The businesses we admire remove that uncertainty.

A simple exercise every entrepreneur should try

The next time you find yourself admiring a company, ask four questions:

1. What behavior are they trying to encourage?
2. What system reinforces that behavior?
3. How could I build a smaller version inside my business?
4. How would I measure whether it’s working?

Those questions shift your focus from admiration to implementation. You’re not going to become Patagonia or Salesforce, and the goal isn’t to become the next famous founder. The goal is to identify the systems that help great companies succeed and adapt them to fit your business.

The most valuable things to steal from successful companies are usually hidden behind the scenes.

At some point, every business owner has looked at a successful company and thought, “I wish I had thought of that.” Maybe it’s Salesforce. Maybe it’s Costco. Maybe it’s Patagonia. Maybe it’s a competitor that seems to have figured something out before everyone else.

The problem isn’t admiration. The problem is where most entrepreneurs focus their attention. We study founders. We listen to podcasts. We read leadership books. We analyze personalities, habits and morning routines. What we don’t study nearly enough are the systems that made those companies successful in the first place. That’s where the real opportunity is.

Several years ago, one of our larger business partners launched a philanthropy initiative that caught my attention. Community involvement wasn’t an occasional activity. It was built into the company’s culture, and it was reinforced by a measurable process. My first reaction was the same one many small business owners have when they see something impressive: “That’s great, but we’re not them.” They were a much larger organization, with resources, budgets and staff we didn’t have. Replicating their program exactly wasn’t realistic. But then I realized I was asking the wrong question. Instead of asking whether we could copy the program, I started asking why it worked.