Success Is Working On & Not In Your Business

How often have you heard a trainer, coach or consultant say that as the owner of the business you should be “working on your business, not in it?” I’ve said it often myself to my clients.

All business goes through a start-up phase, a settling phase, and a growth phase where business owners looking to scale their business to the next level building a long-term sustainable business. During the start-up phase business owners tend to look at a ‘lean’ start and it is the very definition of a lean start-up that you push yourself to the limit. The problem is you spend all your time working in the business and not working on it.

This is when overwhelm kicks in, which leads to a feeling that you are running out of time. If you want to run a successful business, you must know how to play to your strengths. It’s easy to micromanage everything. You may think that you can get things done better and more efficiently than anyone else. That might even be true, but all the time you are spending doing jobs that other people could be doing is time that you are not running your business. When you get bogged down in simple details that others could be working on, you are not being an effective business owner.

As the leader of your business, you are responsible for spotting problems and delegating solutions. You are responsible for setting goals and thinking about the future. The only person in your company who will be genuinely motivated to grow your company is you. Every minute that you spend working on tasks that can be delegated is a minute that you are not planning, strategizing, and building the best business possible.

Therefore, it’s important to work on your business, not in your business. You oversee the big picture. When you see areas that need improvement, delegate the workout, so you can continue to be the trouble-shooter and visionary that you need to be. It may take some practice if you’re used to getting really hands-on in your business, but the benefits are well worth pursuing!

As a business owner, you should set time aside to set goals and work on your long-term strategy which is virtually impossible while you are working in your business. Think about this… if you are working in your business all the time then, are you not just an employee of your own business?

Business owners don’t necessarily have a very clear job description for their role in their own business. Few were trained to be business owners. Their tasks are self-appointed and, based on my observations, quite varied from owner to owner.

The result is that many owners work in the business sometimes, and on the business at other times. It appears to be a matter of priorities and fires.

All too often the owner spends much of his or her time-fighting fires. Rather than an owner working on the business, they have become crisis managers. Spending all your time working IN your business can harm it. Why? Because it’s not about what you’re doing. It’s about what you’re not doing.

Do you know where you want your company to be in five years? Ten years? Do you want to take the company public, or sell it, or pass it on to future generations?

So how exactly do you go from working in your business to working on your business? What would change?

The first, very clear benefit is that you can start to see your business from a distance, and you can then measure the success of strategies being implemented to address challenges your business is facing.

In turn, if you can measure, you can improve as the need arises. Working on your business should mean that you have the tools to measure and manage.

So where would you find these tools? This is where you as a business owner needs to do some research on what is available, what addresses your immediate needs, and more importantly…how relevant is this to the needs of your business.

Carlos Batista

Business Transformation & Growth Specialist

BusinessCoachingHub.co.za