Eight key ideas to stop running your business like a job you created for yourself

Key Idea 1: Don’t fall into the productivity trap.

If your business cannot grow or operate without you, your company has a problem. Putting in more hours and working on your business as if it’s a job you created for yourself is not the ultimate solution for moving your business forward. According to Parkinson’s Law, you will end up doing more work yourself the more time you allow for it–this is the productivity trap. The thinking of more hours you bring into your company, the more productive it is. You must strive for organizational efficiency; rather than producing more by pumping more hours, producing more with fewer hours by designing the work first.

Key Idea 2: Instead of performing the work, design it.

Remember the four D’s in business, doing, deciding, delegating, and designing.

You probably were doing everything yourself when you first began your business. You are the manager, the CEO, and the receptionist. Sounds familiar? Growing a business means moving towards designing the company.

Then, as you begin hiring, you must have been deciding the tasks they would be performing and the quality of their work. Making decisions takes as much time as doing.

Next, you started delegating tasks, having little to no control over whether the work was satisfactory. However, relinquishing control is best for your business because that’s a way to allow yourself to design the company.

The point is that your business should spend most of its time and resources on actually doing the work, the smallest amount of time on deciding, an ample amount in delegating, and a proportional amount of designing. If you spend too much time designing, your staff will be too busy strategizing, and if you spend too much time doing it, you won’t see the work that can improve.

Finding time to design processes and systems for your business and to be the designer is essential. You and your team should follow these processes and procedures and decide on the next action to take for your business.

Key Idea 3: Determine your queen bee role and keep it safe.

In a “bee system,” the Queen bee is prioritized, always the first to be considered. Only when the Queen has been satisfied is when the other tasks performed.

In business, it is similar. It is essential to figure out the “Queen Bee” role.

The “queen bee” role is the most essential role that keeps customers coming back. In a restaurant, this would be the chef who makes food people love. In a managed office service, this would be the office manager responsible for keeping the office running smoothly and keeping clients happy. These roles should never be neglected or sidetracked.

Key Idea 4: Everyone can work to their full potential thanks to standard operating procedures.

If you’ve ever experienced the feeling that if you’ve done something yourself, the outcome would have been better, then your business has a problem.

You need to set standard operating procedures (SOPs) that are well-documented and clearly understood by everyone in the organization. Systemize every significant task and remember all activities in your company fall into four categories, ACDC.

Marketing, for example, attracts clients, meetings convert, shipping and reporting delivers, and accounting and invoicing collects.

Document processes in paper or video format.

Key Idea 5: You can expand your company to the point where it can generate income on its own.

Hiring more people, if done right, is the best way to expand your business instead of getting significant “earnings” alone, which does not scale because you have limited time and energy as a human being. Getting more people on board will increase the total value generation that the company can provide, and each employee added can generate a proportional amount of revenue instead of you doing everything not able to scale.

Picking the right employee is the secret, and adequately positioning them based on their talents is the wonder.

Also, give potential employees what they desire, like some value flexibility, creative freedom, and opportunity to grow.

However, don’t just hire based on talent; it sometimes comes with a rigid attitude. And don’t limit hiring people that only agree or “zing” with you. Hire diversified people, in the end, who will be valuable to your team, looking at different viewpoints and solving problems differently.

Key Idea 6: Find your market niche and concentrate your efforts there.

Focus on a niche instead of beaming all your efforts everywhere, it’s tempting, but not everyone is your customer. Laser light focus is key to finding your customer. Dominate the competition by providing fanatical service to that niche.

But bear in mind to keep the customers that allow you to deliver the best work and drop those that suck up the blood of your business.

Identify and evaluate your customers by understanding which customers spend most of their money on your business. List these customers and identify the features they share.

Profile your clients and zero in on them with extreme attention.

Key Idea 7: Your life is made easier with metrics.

Implement ways to measure performance and track progress. There’s nothing worst than being on the road with no clear end. Remember the ACDC model. It is also applicable to these metrics.

Getting consumers is essential to your business, but equally important to know how many customers come in and out. This snapshot can give you insight into what approach you have to take next to attract more clients.

Figure out how many leads convert to paying customers by setting a time window.

‍Deliver your promise to the customers. If many customers are not returning, you are not providing value.

The final metric is how much cash is collected, analyzing the cash flow movements, looking at who’s paying, and when tracking late payments and non-payments.

**Key Idea 8: Be ready for pushback when your company starts operating on a clockwork. **

Establishing all the discussed key ideas, your route from doing to designing, choosing the Queen Bee role, creating standard operating procedures and metrics, and your business will function smoothly. Still, things won’t be easy from here.

There could be resistance from your teammates, partners, and even clients. Designing doesn’t look like much actual work, and not everyone will see it that way. An hour of brainstorming in a cafe may prove much more profitable in the long run than the nine-to-five work you log on a timecard.

It’s essential to communicate with your team, partners, and stakeholders about this new role and try to convince them to support your goal by explaining the benefits of running a clockwork business. Be open to criticism, keep communications open, and ask for feedback on how clockwork works for them.

The final resistance you might encounter is yourself. After all, when you built your company, you were doing everything, and every decision was yours. Avoid being anxious when the business runs on a clockwork when people can decide for themselves, and avoid falling into productivity trap again. You will remain essential to your company’s success; you’ve just switched to becoming the designer.

Enjoy your freedom to concentrate on the big picture, grow your company… and perhaps take a vacation!

But hold on, there’s one more idea you have to hear. As an entrepreneur, you want to ensure that your business runs smoothly to maintain your freedom and financial security. However, did you know that there are other opportunities to increase your free time (if that’s what you value) or your ability to gain more personal wealth? Investing in other businesses can help the stability of your current venture, especially when it experiences a crisis or is in a growth spurt and may need more capital.

And it’s crucial to realize that a firm is worth investing in if it captures a specialized market. As was said in the previous sections, a business with a niche that functions like clockwork is geared toward profitability instead of offering some futuristic product or technology that adoptions are a decade away. These businesses typically provide answers to a market that can readily adapt to them. The best candidates to invest in those businesses with a long path to profitability are large VCs who want to see a return on their investment after a decade or two.

Entrepreneurs like you might consider better options like investing in businesses that provide shorter returns, say 2-3 years, but businesses that promise returns in months often are outright scams. You need to understand that investment is like a seed, and the business is like the farmer who takes care of the seed and helps it grow until it’s ready to be harvested.

Businesses like Incub8 Space have been “farming” in the coworking and office space market. The market has steadily grown due to the rising demand for enterprise company workforce distribution, remote work, and even freelancing. Not to mention the growing number of entrepreneurs like you that use on-demand workspaces. And it is estimated that this trend will continue due to the total mind shift on how everyone wants to work post-pandemic.