Some business owners are too involved in day-to-day operations of their business. This means that they don’t spend enough time trying to grow the business. Read our infographic to learn how you can avoid falling into this trap in working on your business.
Why Do Businesses Fail?
66% of businesses make it to the 2-year mark and just 30% make it to the 10-year mark. One of the main reasons for this is because very few owners spend the required 20% of time working on their business and this contributes to businesses failing.
We spoke to Adam C from Ignite SEO, an SEO consulting company and he said, “When starting a business, the plan is to make it succeed, failing is never part of the plan. However, success requires a lot of planning and starting the business the right way. This is where most entrepreneurs fail.
Entrepreneurs fail in business without being unaware of where they’ve gone wrong and they only realize their mistake when it’s too late. Thus said, entrepreneurs need to be aware of every activity happening in their business, so that if something goes wrong it can be fixed quickly before the whole business collapses.”
Ideally, one to two hours every day needs to be spent looking at ways to move the business forward.
What’s the Difference Between Working IN & Working ON Your Business?
Many owners of fledgling businesses tend to get caught in the trap of working in rather than on their company. Too much of their time is taken up by day-to-day responsibilities that should be delegated to someone else.
As a result, they are left with limited time for development, and without this much needed top-level innovation the business will be doomed to struggle. Please see the table below for examples of tasks that represent “working IN your business” and “working ON your business”.
| Working IN Your Business | Working ON Your Business |
|---|---|
| Meeting clients | Planning for the future |
| Answering queries | Learning & education |
| Paying invoices | Setting goals |
| Invoicing clients | Automating processes |
| Dealing with conflict | Talking with mentors |
How to Work ON Your Business Effectively?
1. Delegation. Delegation is a difficult but healthy activity and is vital when growing a company. Lisa Firestone, the founder of Managed Care Advisors, put it nicely when she said: “(Delegating) took a while to build trust, but once you do, it is so empowering! We started to grow when I could focus on what I do best and not on daily minutiae.”
2. Find one “number” you know little about. Perhaps you’re a bit unsure about conversion rates, maybe you’re a PPC guru but have been neglecting SEO – pick an area in which your company can improve and rigorously monitor the relevant metric(s).
3. Outsource a time-consuming task. Outsourcing is generally a good idea because it allows you to free up time that you’re spending on mundane tasks. This time can instead be used to brainstorm ways to grow your revenue.
4. Find something wrong. When you’re too familiar with your business, you can lose objectivity. Informal usability testing of processes and operations amongst people less familiar with your business could be an eye-opener.
5. Identify a way to further differentiate. Rather than trying to kill your competition, look at ways in which you can truly separate yourself from other businesses in the industry.
6. Research hard evidence on your assumptions. Owners sometimes assume things won’t be effective before actually testing their theory. Just because you don’t like something, doesn’t mean the numbers won’t prove you wrong.
7. Ask your employees for ideas on how you could improve the company. Employees at all levels will have ideas on how the company can be bettered. They may have ways to bring the company forward that you haven’t considered before.
How to Strike the Right Balance
The below infographic provides helpful tips on ways in which owners can delegate or outsource responsibilities, leaving them more time to drive their business into the future. Read this infographic now to learn how you stop yourself from working in instead of on your business.
Working on your business article and permission to publish here provided by Simon Pleass at 2flow.ie. Originally published on Supply Chain Game Changer on May 9, 2019.
Cover image by Mediamodifier from Pixabay
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