"We didn't do business at IBM, we built one," declared IBM founder Tom Watson.

As an entrepreneur, you may find yourself sucked into the day-to-day activities of doing business. I know I am. It likely happens because there are always limited resources, and you, as the main figurehead of the company, become the point man on many things - if not all things.

Don't get me wrong, I think doing business is a good thing, but you should get others in your organization to do as much of that as possible. As the entrepreneur, you need to be building the business as Watson exemplified. This includes, among other things, building the vision of the company, setting the strategy for how to attain that vision, and then developing the key relationships necessary to execute the strategy. You may be the only person in your organization really capable of completing these important tasks.

I have a good friend who was an officer on an aircraft carrier. He has explained that the captain of the ship is responsible for all things pertaining to the ship he heads. However, he spends most of his time setting the strategy associated with any given mission. He does not spend his time charting courses, gathering pertinent data or even steering the ship. He manages a full team that completes all of these tasks.

In a perfect world, you should approach your business the same way a captain approaches his leadership of the ship. Even it you are dealing with limited resources and are at least partially responsible for doing business, you can force yourself out of the doing-business mode on a regular basis so that you can work on building your business.

• Get together with business-minded people outside of your company. I find conversations with members of a board of advisors, mentors, friends, formal and informal network groups and so on to be extremely valuable. Since these people are not in the day-to-day activities of your business, they can help you look at things from a bird's-eye view (since that is the only view they have).

Let these people ask you questions and then tell them your thoughts. You will find that just verbalizing some of your thoughts will give you additional ideas for building your company.

• Visit your customers, vendors, partners and other stakeholders. Seeing their operations and how you fit into their organizations will give you additional ideas as to how to further grow the important relationships that you have.
• Go to conferences and trade shows in your company's space. Attend the sessions given by experts in your area of focus. Visit the exhibits. Learn as much as you can about your industry. Think about how you can enhance your offerings and consider possible strategic line extensions to your existing product offerings.
• Study the successes of other companies that are related to yours. One of the best sources for this is through award programs like the Inc. 500, for example. Identify the reasons for their successes and consider mirroring those in your own organization.

In addition to the ideas above, you might want to surf the Web for industry and competitor news, read industry newsletters and rags, study good books and find opportunities to exercise creativity.