Can you switch off from your business?
Can you take a proper holiday without worrying about the business?
What happens when you try to step away from your business, even briefly, tells you how dependent your business is on you.
When Were You Last Able to Switch Off From Your Business?
I don’t mean where you kept checking your inbox, or took a long weekend where you only checked messages once a day, but a proper week off. Where you put your phone away and were out of contact.
For most business owners, it seems impossible to switch off, and the story is the same every time.
You book the trip and tell yourself this time it will be different. After a few days of worrying how things are going, something comes in that needs your input, and you actually feel relieved that you have heard. It means everything had been going ok, but now there’s an issue and you are the only one who can do what’s needed to fix it. So there you are, standing outside the restaurant at 8pm, explaining something while your family eats without you.
It could be the laptop, that you open on a Sunday morning to clear a few things “so you can relax”. Except that turns into three hours, and by the time you‘ve finished, half the day is gone.
Or it’s the notifications you didn’t turn off, because turning them off just feels wrong. What if something happens? The business needs you to be available and contactable.
None of this is unusual and for a lot of people, this is what running a business looks like. It’s been this way for so long that it’s become normal and you can’t imagine a different way. But not being able to switch off from your business is a problem, one that you need to fix.
What you can learn from the Holiday Test
If you can’t step away and switch off from your business for a week, without things grinding to a halt, the business needs you. You are not able to get away and relax. That’s not a sign of how dedicated you are, but a sign of how dependent the business is on you being involved in everything.
If you told your team on a Monday morning that you’d be unreachable for the rest of the week, what would happen?
Would they handle it, make the decisions, solve the problems, keep your clients happy, and update you when you’re back? Or would something break and they need to check with you, or ask you to fix it? Is the business set up to run without you making the all of the calls?
Think about your answers to his, as it will give you an insight into how your business runs.
If you can’t switch off from your business, you have a business that depends on you running it to survive. This is not an asset. It’s a commitment you carry with you, everywhere you go, including on holiday, to the pool, to the restaurant, and on a Sunday morning you were hoping to spend doing nothing.
Is Your Business Dependent On You?
Take the free Dependency Test and get detailed results.
It takes less than 3 minutes and will give you a clear answer.
The Two Things Owner Dependency Costs You
The personal cost is the more obvious one and is the one most owners feel. It’s the tiredness that doesn’t go away, not having the head space to be fully present anywhere, because there’s always something that needs you. It’s the family dinner where you’re there, but your mind is elsewhere. You built the business to have freedom, but the freedom never arrived.
There’s also a second cost and it’s the one that matters more if you ever plan to sell or to take a step back.
This dependency reduces the value of the business. A business that only works when you are present isn’t a business, it’s a service you deliver. Buyers see this quickly, In fact, experienced buyers are looking for this, because it tells them what will happen to the business once you leave.
When you leave, performance will drop, the clients will follow the person not the business. How will decisions be made if the person who made them isn’t there anymore? If so, the business revenue becomes uncertain, and the business gets valued accordingly.
This is one of the things covered in What Buyers Look For In A Business. The gap between what you thinks you business is worth and what a buyer is willing to pay depends, at least in part, by the level of owner dependency.
This is Fine in the Early Stages
Some owners are closely involved in their business because they want to be. If you’re at an early stage of business, your involvement is essential. You’re still building something and you need to be involved. In this case, your hands-on leadership is needed and it’s not a choice.
The business most owners have is different. They’re not involved because they want to be, but because the business falls apart if they’re not. They don’t have a choice.
The difference between the two is sometimes obvious and sometimes subtle. But one is an owner who runs a business, whilst the other is a business that runs an owner.
If you can’t step away and switch off from your business, you have a real problem, even if you’ve managed to convince yourself otherwise.
What Needs to Change
A business needs to be able to function when you’re not there. Not because you don’t want to be involved, but because when you are there, it should be because you want to be, and not because you have to be. You should be able to switch off from your business.
This means building the systems to let other people make decisions without checking with you first. It means your clients speaking to other people in your business and letting those relationships develop. It means being willing to let things be handled differently from how you’d handle them, without you stepping in to correct it every time.
How To Document Business Processes looks at building that kind of business, including five areas that make the biggest difference and the order you should tackle them. If it’s the team that feels like the bigger issue, Get Your Team To Take Ownership shows how to build a team that takes ownership, instead of escalating everything back to you.
None of this happens quickly, and it requires some effort, but it can be easier than you think.
What if I went away for a week?
If you took a week off, without your phone or a way for people to contact you, would your business still be running when you got back?
I don’t mean thriving, or growing, I just mean running as usual? Would your clients still be looked after the same way, would the problems handled, and would decisions have been made?
If the answer is no or probably not, that shows that it is dependent on you. The holiday problem isn’t about holidays or time off, it’s about whether you’ve built a business or built a job that has staff.
If you’ve built a job, it’s fixable. You can start to change this and come out the other side with a business that runs if you’re there or not. The owners who get there fastest are the ones who stopped hoping that the current situation was sustainable, and decided to do something about it.
When did you last take a full week off and step away from your business?