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Do You Own A Business Or Own A Job?
Just about 3 hours ago I got off the phone with a vendor I work with. She mentioned in passing that it was her birthday today. I asked,
“Why are you at work on your birthday?”
She said,
“You must have forgotten, I own the company, I work everyday.”
Our conversation continued as we laughed a little about the difficulties that face small business owners.
After I got off the phone with her I thought to myself, “What a sad situation”. A business owner who should have the freedom, wealth and peace of mind is forced to work on her birthday. Why? Because she doesn't have the systems in place to run her company for her. She owns a job, not a business.
The reason for all the work and study, investment and hours, risk and time away from family should be to achieve autonomy. Autonomy is the ability for a person to make the income they desire along with the freedom to enjoy it. Autonomy is answering to no one.
In everything you do when building your business you must be vigilant in building it around systems not around you.
Remember it is just as much about lifestyle as it is about money.
I know too many people who sacrifice everything to make money, then end up with bad health, broken relationships, unhappy lives and a full bank account.
How do you avoid this? Admittedly, it is not an easy thing to do. Anyone with an ounce of drive and desire to achieve will be inclined to work a little more than they should, and spend less time with family or other obligations.
The best way I have found to deal with this never ending-balancing act is through the following formula.
- Identify what is most important in your life.
For most people it includes things like: time with family, financial security, vacation time, religious beliefs, and hobbies/fun stuff you enjoy doing.
- Understand that in order to be happy you need to have time allocated to each of those things.
- Build systems within your business to allow you freedom to do all those other things.
Ask yourself, “How can I make a system to fulfill this portion of my business?”
If you are the business, you have no business. You only have a job. Period. If you answer all the phone calls, and you check all the emails, and you handle all the customers, and complaints, sales, paperwork, etc. You are chained to that business.
One area to free up time almost instantly is to change your cell phone number. Keep the old phone number active and route it to someone who can take the calls for you and handle the items that you don't absolutely need to be involved in.
It is a proven fact that most business owners are more attached to their customers than their customers are to them. I hear it all the time “My customers won’t like it if they don’t talk to me when they call. They want to talk to me, not anyone else.”
Fortunately this is not the case. For the most part, the customers just want to be taken care of. As long as whoever answers the phone is competent and can take care of the customers then you don’t have anything to worry about.
The smaller retailers out there may be saying to themselves, “There’s no way I can afford to pay an employee do all those things for me.” That may be the case for now, but not for long. Applying our kinda marketing will put more money in the bank that you’ve ever had before, it will give you the chance to build a business, not just a job.
You can start small, hiring a cheap part time “Executive Assistant” or “Office Assistant” is a start. If you already have clerical staff doing their regular full time duties, don't just go throw a bunch more stuff on their plates. You are much better off hiring another part time or full time position that is specifically designed to you and no one or nothing else.
Use the assistant for anything and everything you can think of. Remember the 4 D's of the Iron Curtain Time System that came with your Profit Systems Toolkit. (If you haven't ordered the Furniture Profit Systems Toolkit you can do so by calling 1-800-393-2054)
Delete
Delegate
Defer
Do
You can look at each item you are faced with and apply one of these 4 D's to it. Delete as much as you can. Then Delegate as much of what's left to the proper people.
DON'T BE AFRAID TO DELEGATE!
To put it bluntly, most people suck at delegation. They suck because they don't do it. They think they can do everything better themselves. Which most of the time they can. That's why you are the business owner, not the employee. However, if you want any level of freedom in your career, you must learn to delegate.
Lastly 3 & 4 either defers it to a later date or Do It. Get it done and off your plate. Don't mistake Deferring for procrastination. Procrastination is not an empowering act. Deferring is. You decide what date it will be done and then you get it done on that date. Procrastination is putting it off, over and over again because you don't want to do it.
Whether or not you use my system or someone else's it doesn't really matter. What does matter is that for you to be successful. You Must Use Systems to free up your time and allow you to work on your business, not in it all day long.
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