Good news and bad news...

The good news is, you are your own boss. 

The bad news is, you are your own boss. 

When you're the boss, everything comes back to you. You’d think that gives you a whole lot more choice and freedom. That’s what everyone else thinks, too.

No-one else sees that you're working way too many hours. When you first started out, you knew it would be hard work to get started, but now you think that working long hours, maybe even weekends, is normal.  At least for business owners. It's just the way it is. 

You might have thought that you'd start getting more organised and controlled as the business gets bigger. But growth brought even more pressure and that in turn brought its own new stresses.  

After all, how can you be selling more and yet have less control of cash?

Can you imagine to whom you could hand over some of your tasks? Or do you think that if you let go of some activities it will all fall apart?  

At some point in the growth of the company, it will get to the point where if you don't let go, it really will fall apart. 

Your business can't grow if you still have a grip on absolutely everything. You're probably feeling that you have had to keep all the plates spinning for so long you can’t imagine anyone else being able to take over even part of the load. 

It’s easy to think you either can't afford the best people to do the jobs, or you just don't know how to get the right people in to support you. For many business owners, it starts with having the wrong people in their business and that means they don’t have the confidence to delegate the important decision making.

Thinking that no-one else can do what you have to do sets you up for further pressure and ultimately your business growth will stall. Doing everything yourself will keep your business smaller and less effective than if you start employing the right people and just delegating.

Start by getting control of your numbers. Even if you were rubbish at maths in school and you've never understood finance, it's really not that complicated. 

And when you understand it, you will finally feel in control of your numbers and your business. 

Selling leads to more cash if you have profit margins to support the business.  

Growing your sale on margins that are too low means you're on a slow decline to bankruptcy. 

Getting a grip on your business, your cash and your time is all about planning.

You might feel you don't have time to plan; you've got enough on your plate as it is. But if you want to feel in control of your business, if you want to feel like you really are your own boss and that your business is controlled by you, rather than you being controlled by your business, there are a few simple steps to take.   

It takes less time than you imagine. It’s not complicated if you have someone working with you who knows how to do it. And when your plan is in place, it can be liberating for you and your team.

It means you can let go of some of the things on your plate and focus on the big picture, and still have more time to spend with your family and doing the things you enjoy.  

I know all this from first-hand experience.

My first business started from a feasibility study to having a ￡4.5m turnover in less than 18 months, and ￡7m in under three years. I couldn't have done that without letting go of some of the management tasks. 

Trust me, I didn't find it easy. I was firefighting every single day. As the business quickly grew, I knew I didn't have the right people. But I also didn't feel like I had the time to get the right people.  

I was constantly putting up with second best. Actually, what that meant was I was treating myself as second best. I didn’t feel like I was the boss. I was less master and more servant to the needs of the business. In my previous jobs I’d taken for granted the support that bigger businesses seem to have built in. I resisted implementing those structure into my business because I didn’t want to have more unnecessary overheads or red tape.

I was teetering on the edge of burnout when I got a mentor who showed me how I could get my business running effectively and efficiently. I recognised the benefit of getting the right people doing the right things at the right time. I also realised that setting goals and sharing them meant my team could work towards a common aim without me being constantly on their case or being the bottleneck for decision making. 

If you recognise yourself or your business in all of this, we should talk. You and your business could be a few simple steps away from the changes your business needs to get flying, bringing you the freedom of time, the freedom of money, and the freedom of choice that you expected when you first started your business.