I Do Everything in My Business, or Nothing Gets Done!

Do you often feel like if you don’t do everything in your business then nothing gets done? This is something we frequently hear from business owners, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

You just need to learn how to set up your business so that it systematically runs whether you’re there or not. At Business Growth Simplified (BGS) we call it building a self-sustaining business. You may be more familiar with the term absentee ownership.

The idea is a simple concept, but it’s not always easy to implement. Let’s look at the major objectives you need to achieve in getting there.

Adopt a Business Owner Mindset

A key factor that keeps most small business owners stuck is an employee mentality. Before you owned a business what did you do? You were an employee.

So, when you started your business when did you take the time to learn to be an owner? You didn’t, so everything you set up to get your business to this point came from the perspective of an employee. As a result, your business is set up more like a job than a systematic profit machine.

Stop Assuming Everyone Knows What You Know

Most people don’t think they’re anything special. But if you own your own business you’re already head and shoulders above the rest who would never take the risk you took By starting your business.

Once again you need to change your mindset and accept the fact that you are not an average person. You need to become tolerant of others and willing to meet them at their level so you can teach them what you know.

This is how you get work off your back and pass it to others.

Create Simple to Use Systems That Others Can Follow

What separates a multi-million-dollar national service company from a single handyman driving around in his own truck? A simple systematic process that a high school graduate can follow!

The reason that you have to do everything yourself is because you never took the time to commit what you know to paper so that you could share it with others. That is, building the systems that drive revenue for your business. This is the first step in creating a scalable business in which others can help you to do more.

This extends by beyond your process to manufacture your product or deliver your service. It extends to every aspect of your business including your marketing, sales, customer service, billing, collections, etc. But, like we said in the beginning, if you never took the time to learn how to be a business owner then lacking the understanding of these other business functions may be the piece currently missing from your business which is why you struggle to keep your head above water.

Assign responsibilities to appropriate roles throughout business

Once you understand everything that needs to be done then you can begin assigning tasks to others throughout your business. This is how you create accountability within your business which is how you’ll begin feeling confident that others can do what needs to be done.

Train For Competency NOT Just Doing the Tasks

Now, you may think that’s easy enough then all I need to do is train somebody. But this is one of the places that we find many small business owners fall short.

Just training someone to follow a checklist isn’t good enough. For the profit machine to work the way you intend, those tasks need to be completed fast and frequent enough to make you a profit. It’s this added level of assurance which is the difference between success and failure. So, you must train people so they are competency, not just so they can complete the tasks.

Monitor Activity to Make Sure People Are Doing What They Need to Do

If you know who’s supposed to do what and how much work each responsibility must complete it becomes very easy in order to monitor performance. Weekly meetings take little time as it’s just a check in to make sure the work that was supposed to be done last week got done and that everybody is on the same page for the week ahead.

On a monthly basis you can a evaluate your overall financial results against your forecast and budget to see if the activity for the month created the financial result that you expected. As you set this up in your company and become competent in it yourself, you’ll feel comfortable in knowing you can manage the person in charge to make sure they’re running your business profitably.

How Do I Set This All Up?

We designed the BGS Growth Framework as a system to help business owners implement this concept in any business. Find out more about building a self-sustaining business so you can become an absentee owner by clicking the button below to get your free ebook: How to Get Out from Under Your Business.

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