One of the big trade-offs of working for yourself is knowing that when you take a vacation nobody is paying you. You only get paid when you work. How nice would it be if you could have both the freedom of working for yourself and the payment when you take the much needed and much deserved vacation?
This is possible if you are able to free yourself from your business.
And just so we’re reading from the same page, let me be clear about what I mean by freeing yourself from your business. If your business is entirely dependent upon you to run and make money, you are your business. To free your business you need mechanisms in place for the machine to keep running in your absence, at least to some extent.
So how do you do that? What are those mechanisms?
There are some tried and tested methods for creating that independence. First you should consider identifying all of the different roles in your company, detailing exactly what each one is responsible for. Second, with your detailed org chart in hand, start documenting how everything gets done. Be as detailed as possible.
Within reason, you should be able to take those processes and procedures and give them to someone with very little training or experience. If you’ve explained and documented everything clearly enough, each person should have no problem starting out strong.
As you go through this exercise don’t forget to include your own roles and responsibilities. What precisely are you doing and how do you do it? Who in your current organization can pick up those responsibilities in your absence if they’ve been given the right tools and your documented processes?
Depending on your workload, should you consider hiring someone to help pick up some of the burden you carry? Bringing on another person to take a share of the work from you will do more than just give you much needed redundancy for vacations. It means you can breathe. It means you don’t have to handle everything yourself.
Once you get a taste of the good life, why not let go of a little more? What would be possible for you, or for your business, if you could let go and focus on other things? You can finally consider opening a second location, or expanding your scope significantly. The opportunities are limitless.
Every small business owner deserves to have the success, and the life, that they dreamed of when they started, including you.
PS: This is one of the various ways I engage with people. Many small business owners want to grow their business and improve their lives, but they’re overwhelmed and they don’t know how. As a result, I provide support and guidance to help them drive their business forward so they can focus on what’s most important.
Here’s how you get started:
- Reach out on LinkedIn or via my website to schedule a call
- We get to know each other a bit and you tell me about yourself, your business, and what your current challenges are
- Schedule a low-risk 60-90 minute coaching session to take the first step toward a solution and experience what it’s like to work together
Additionally, I’ve created a straightforward 3 step process to help you change the trajectory of your business. You can gain free access to it by clicking here.