9 Secrets Every Entrepreneur Must Learn To Transition From An Operator To An Owner

I woke up and instantly experienced the recurring flood of stress pouring back into my head as I had been experiencing every morning for several months in a row. Almost as quickly as I would gain consciousness, I would start feeling anxious about everything I had to do that day. I was spinning dozens of plates and on occasion, a few would spin off and crash on the floor.

I had fantasized for years about what it would feel like to be the owner of my own business. I imagined long lunches at fancy restaurants and then taking the rest of the day off. My reality was inhaling left overs out of a container at 3pm and working until long after midnight.

My experience of owning my own business was not at all like what I had imagined it would be. I was making almost no money for how many hours I was working and I was constantly stressed and fearful of everything falling apart.

I didn't know it yet, but that constant feeling of fear I had was from not knowing what to do. If I had known what to do, I could have started getting to work at what needed to be done instead of feeling lost.

In this article, I'm going to tell you the exact 9 things I did next that changed my life forever.

The first few years of growing my business I was working from 5:00am to 3:00am seven days a week. I worked all night, every night, all weekend, every weekend. Like a lot of entrepreneurs I was willing to fight for my dream, and for me that meant doing everything it took to get my business to grow.

Unfortunately, what I did not yet understand at 31 years old was that even though having a strong work ethic and paying your dues are all great virtues, when you are working 80+ hours a week, you’re not as effective of a business leader as you might think and might even be destroying your company’s valuation at the same time.

When my wife gave birth to our first child, I'm embarrassed to tell you that I had to drive to the office the next morning because I was so entrenched in all of the details. I told her it would only take an hour, but as always, there were more fires to put out when I got there. I returned to the hospital hours and hours later.

At the time, I had been featured in Fortune, CNN Money, The Business Journal, my company had more than quadrupled in size, I had been named as one of the top 40 executives under 40 and we had expanded the company nationally - all within only a few years. With all of those accolades, I could not have felt like a bigger loser on that drive back to the hospital. A few months later I would eventually even break down in tears in my wife’s arms promising I would figure out a way to make things better and that I would take more time off whenever we had our next baby.

Around that same time I also learned that the value of a business was directly tied to how critical the owner is in that business. I learned that if my business was the kind that would fall apart without me, the value of my business could drop by as much as 40% if I tried to sell it. The way I saw it was that if I get myself to the point where I’m barely doing anything, my company could sell for 40% more!

Here are the 9 things I did to go from 80+ hours a week to eventually only 8. 

1. I became fanatical about creating systems and processes instead of everything we did being inside of everyone’s heads only. Document what your people know from their experience.

2. I used software to automate everything that is possible to automate. Ask yourself at all times, could technology automate this?

3. I dramatically improved my delegation skills. Ask them to repeat back to you what the task is. Give a clear due by date or time instead of assuming they know to hurry.

4. I improved at saying no to things that were not in alignment with my top objectives. Stop caring so much about what other people will think if you say no. Do what you have to do for you to get what you're wanting.

5. I kept a journal on my desk listing every single task I did. I wrote down every question I was asked by anyone. Once I had that data I either automated, delegated, eliminated or outsourced EVERYTHING.

6. I started reading everything I could on each one of those topics.

7. I created a place in the cloud where everyone in my company could go to find the answers to questions they had. This was also the place where processes and systems were kept and explained to people in screen capture videos, documents and actual videos.

8. When our clients wanted to meet with ME specifically, I brought a capable employee with me and introduced them to each other and let the employee lead the meeting.

9. When one of my employees asked me a question, I handed them a camera and had them record my answer. The answer to their questions was then added to the appropriate place so others could access it as well so I'd never have to answer it myself again for the rest of my life. When people came to me with that question, I rerouted them to the place where those kinds of questions get answered. It was no longer from my mouth to one person's ear holes - EVER. If they asked a question that we didnt have an answer to, we created it and added it.

I got my working hours down from 80+ hours a week to 40 hours a week, then I started not working on Fridays as a permanent thing and eventually, I got myself to the point that I was only coming in one day a week. Seriously.

A few years later when we did have that second child, I took multiple weeks off and I'm pretty sure I stayed in my pajama pants that entire time. A few years after that, because I had built a business that relied on systems and processes and not me, I was even able to sell the company completely.

If you know someone who owns their own business or is starting one now, please like this article, re-post it and share it with others.

Jeff Davis is a serial entrepreneur and founder of 12Mavens.com, a by invitation only community of CEOs and PlanTheAttack.com the annual all day growth planning event for business leaders. He can be reached with questions or comments at [email protected]