The 3 steps you’re missing to create freedom in business

If you’re someone that got into business to have more freedom but so far have less time and more stress than ever before, grab a cup of tea, sit down and get your head into this.

When it comes to attaining freedom, there are three steps you need to take when running a business.

For me, freedom is the ability to choose the strategic things I want to do, whether that be in my personal life, or whether that be in my business life.

I’m not someone who’s racing towards retirement. I’m not pursuing freedom to travel the world or live on a permanent holiday – I’ve done that and it’s kinda boring for me… You might be different, and I’m not here to judge. But for me, freedom is having the ability and space to be able to focus on the strategic priorities in my life.

But often times we become so busy that these priorities, whether they’re to do with family or work or whatever, start to fall away because we’re focusing on the things that scream the loudest.

So, here are three things you need to do in order to start creating more freedom in your business right now.

Organise the business

The first thing we need to do is organise the business. And by organising the business I’m talking about, let’s get this shit down on paper and let’s create an organisational chart that reflects the business structure that we are working towards when it comes to achieving our mission outcome. It’s not based on where we are at now, but where we want to be in 10 years’ time.

Keep it realistic and keep it sharp.

It has to reflect the talent you’re going to need based on the roles you need to fill. Because when it comes to achieving your mission you might need 10 people, you might need 50 people, or you might need 100 people or more.

But don’t over complicate it. Just get the structure in place so you know exactly what you’re going to need.

You might need an accounts person, a book keeper, 10 sales people and four people to run your social media and marketing.

It’s important that you create a clear chart so you have something to aim for and work towards.

Systemise the business

Now when I say systemise the business, I’m talking about at a role level. This is done by looking at all of the individual tasks are that are required for each various role in the business.

And you want to list these functions as step one, step two, step three and so on and so forth.

Now the reason why we systemise the functions of each role is that if someone gets hit by a bus or gets sick, someone else can come in and look at the system and follow the steps to get the job done.

And when it comes to creating systems, there’s two schools of thought. One is to create the system first and then hire. The other is to hire a specialist and as part of their role, they create and document the system for the standard operating procedures moving forward. That way, when the next person comes into the role they know how things are done.

The approach you take will come down to your own personal skills, because if you’re not a good, let’s just say book keeper, you could be making a big mistake creating the systems around that role.

Delegation strategy

The third step in creating freedom is developing a good delegation strategy.

Often times a delegation strategy will be dictated by cash flow which should be a great incentive for why you should be making more money in your business.

You need to start identifying, based on the organisational chart and the systems you have created, what things you’re good at, and what things you suck at.

Then you need to ask yourself, by you sucking at these things, how is it going to affect your ability to create more income?

The things you suck at that directly affect your ability to make money are going to be the things you want to delegate first.

So, for me the number one thing that I delegated first was book keeping and accounting because I just suck at it, and consequentially if it’s not done well it can cost a lot of money if you don’t keep your taxes up to date.

So, if you’re like me, you might decide to bring on a book keeper. Because a job that might take you 10 hours a week to do, might only take them five.

And if you’re using your hours doing that, not only is it going to be mentally demanding and draining, it’s also going to create a deficiency in other areas where your time could be better used.

Because the reality is, those hours could be used in marketing creating more leads, or in sales generating more money for the money – where you spend your time is crucial.

So, let’s say it costs $80 an hour to get a good book keeper, which might cost $400 a week.

Ok, so now you know you need to increase revenues by $400 a week. But that doesn’t mean the first week you achieve an increase of $400 you go out and press the go button and hire a book keeper. At this point you haven’t proven that you can sustain that cost over a long period of time.

You want to make sure you can prove you can make an extra $400 a week for at least six to eight weeks, and then you can hire someone for that role.

The outcome is that you’re investing $400 a week into someone that can do a better job than you ever could, and you’re getting time back to focus on other revenue generating activities.

Next step, you go back to your organisation chart and you repeat the process.

This time you might need someone to help with marketing for 20 hours a week – ok, that might cost you $800 a week. So, we repeat the process and look at increasing revenue by $800 a week consistently for six to eight weeks. You get someone in to fill that role and it frees up even more of your time.

Now it’s important to mention, you’re not actually making profit because it’s getting diverted back into those roles, but we now have the hours back to spend more time with family, to focus on the mission and to concentrate on even more revenue generating activities.

Follow these three steps and your probability for freedom will skyrocket moving you closer to achieving your mission each and every day.

It all starts with you.