Are You Working On or In Your Business?

As a small business owner, it’s easy to find yourself caught up in the daily grind, dealing with customer inquiries, managing staff, overseeing orders, or handling endless administrative tasks. Before you know it, you’re bogged down by the day-to-day operations, and while you’re certainly working hard, are you really moving your business forward? The difference between merely working in your business and strategically working on your business can be the key to its long-term success.

In this blog, we’ll explore what it means to work on your business instead of just in it, why it’s crucial for growth, and how you can make the transition.

Understanding the Difference

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

When you’re working in your business, you’re involved in the operational tasks that keep things running. You’re managing orders, serving customers, troubleshooting, and ensuring that everything functions smoothly on a daily basis. It’s important work, but it’s also reactive and often short-term in focus.

In contrast, working on your business means taking a step back to think about the bigger picture. It’s about strategic planning, growth opportunities, system improvement, and innovation. Rather than reacting to immediate issues, you’re looking ahead to how you can make your business more efficient, scalable, and profitable in the future. You’re building the infrastructure that will allow your business to thrive without needing you to be hands-on all the time.

The Dangers of Only Working In Your Business

Many small business owners fall into the trap of spending all their time working in their businesses. This often happens for understandable reasons: the business needs attention, tasks are piling up, and there’s always something urgent that needs doing. But while this keeps the business functioning in the short term, it can be detrimental in the long run.

Here are a few risks of getting stuck in your business:

1. Burnout: Handling every detail yourself can quickly lead to exhaustion, as there’s no real separation between your work and personal life. If you’re always running from one task to the next, it’s difficult to find time to recharge.
2. Limited Growth: When all your energy goes into day-to-day tasks, there’s little room left for innovation or scaling up. You’re too busy running the business to grow it.
3. Dependency: If your business can’t run without you being present at all times, you’ll find it difficult to take breaks or step back when needed. This makes your business highly dependent on you, which can be problematic if you ever want to sell or pass it on.
4. Missed Opportunities: By focusing only on the present, you may miss opportunities to expand, diversify, or pivot to meet changing market demands. Staying caught up in operations limits your ability to think creatively or strategically.

The Benefits of Working On Your Business

By shifting some of your focus from operations to strategy, you create room for your business to grow, innovate, and operate more independently from you. Here’s why working on your business is so important:

1. Scalability: When you work on improving systems, training employees, and automating repetitive tasks, your business becomes more scalable. This allows you to handle more clients, offer new services, or expand into new markets without needing to increase your personal workload.
2. Sustainability: A business that can run smoothly without you is much more sustainable. By building a team and putting the right systems in place, you can ensure that your business continues to thrive even if you take time off or eventually want to sell it.
3. Innovation: Working on your business gives you the opportunity to experiment, innovate, and introduce new ideas. Whether it’s a new marketing strategy, a product line, or a service offering, innovation is what keeps your business competitive and relevant in the long term.
4. Better Decision-Making: Taking a step back allows you to evaluate the bigger picture. You can make decisions based on long-term goals rather than being influenced by the immediate issues of the day. This proactive approach leads to better financial planning, resource allocation, and growth strategies.

How to Transition from Working In to On Your Business

Making the shift from being an operational manager to a strategic leader requires a deliberate change in mindset and practices. Here’s how you can start working on your business rather than just in it:

1. Delegate Tasks

Delegation is key to freeing up your time. Consider which tasks are taking up most of your day, and whether they could be handed over to someone else. If you don’t have a team, it might be time to hire or outsource certain roles. Administrative tasks, marketing efforts, customer service, and financial management can often be delegated to free up your time for higher-level strategy.

2. Systemise and Automate

To reduce your involvement in the day-to-day running of your business, create clear processes for repetitive tasks. Write down your workflows, and make sure your team follows them. Look for ways to automate as much as possible, whether it’s scheduling software, automated invoicing, or customer relationship management (CRM) systems. The more systems you put in place, the less you’ll have to personally handle.

3. Schedule Time for Strategic Planning

It’s important to dedicate regular time to working on your business, just like you would for any other task. Set aside a few hours each week to focus on growth strategies, financial forecasting, market research, or innovation. During this time, ask yourself questions like:

• Where do I want the business to be in 6 months, a year, or five years?
• What systems need improving?
• How can I increase profitability?
• What trends or opportunities should I be capitalising on?

By setting aside time to answer these questions, you’ll begin to shift your focus from the immediate to the long-term.

4. Work on Developing Your Team

A strong, competent team allows you to focus on higher-level strategy. Invest time in training your employees, improving communication, and developing leadership within your team. When you trust your team to handle operations, you’ll be able to step back without worrying about the day-to-day.

5. Develop a Growth Mindset

Working on your business requires you to think about growth constantly. This might mean improving customer retention, expanding your product lines, or finding new markets. Always be on the lookout for opportunities to scale and expand, and be willing to invest time and resources in these ventures.

Conclusion: A Balanced Approach

The reality is, as a small business owner, you’ll likely always need to spend some time working in your business. However, by prioritising time to work on your business as well, you set yourself up for long-term success. The key is to find a balance that ensures your business continues to grow and evolve, without you burning out or being stuck in the day-to-day.

Ultimately, working on your business is about thinking bigger, planning ahead, and creating a business that can thrive independently of you. When you make this shift, you move from being a business operator to a business owner, and that’s when your business can truly flourish.