FEATURED POST OF THE WEEK

Our long-form article of the week. You can always view the current and past featured posts on Empower’s blog.

Breaking it down: Working on versus in your business

If you’re a business owner, you’ve probably heard the phrase: “Working on your business versus working in your business.” Even though the refrain may be familiar, do you fully grasp what it means in practice?

I’ll admit, when I first heard it years ago, I didn’t. It wasn’t until I read Michael Gerber’s The E-Myth Revisited and had several more years of experience as an operator that the concept really came together in my mind.

This week, I’ll break down the concept and share a couple of actionable ways you can make a shift if you feel like you’re too involved in the business.

Let’s start with the quiz

Several weeks ago, Empower, published a quiz to surface whether people leaned more towards working in or on their businesses.

We posed five questions to determine how much a business can thrive when the owner is out of office. If you haven’t taken the quiz, I encourage you to take a minute to think about it.

While the quiz explicitly asked about an owner’s ability to step away from the business, the responses signal how dependent the business is on them, and therefore their capacity to work on it versus in it.

OK, so what does working in the business mean?

I find analogies helpful for these concepts. Since it’s beach season, let’s talk about sandcastles.

Let’s imagine you’re the leader of your family and one afternoon you all go to the beach. Someone decides it’s time to build a sandcastle. Without even a second thought, you pick up the shovel and start building mounds of sand. You’re working in it.

In other words, you completed the actual manual labor and tasks required to build the sandcastle that afternoon. Translate that to your business, and working in it means you’re too often involved in the day-to-day tasks and technical work that keep things running.

Conversely, if you decided to work on the sandcastle, you would take a step back and analyze the right design, structures and approach to getting it built. That’s the more strategic and innovative work. Working on a business doesn’t mean you’re not concerned with the daily operations. It means you’re spending more time thinking about the big picture and how to improve the business, without always being stuck in the “doer” seat.

How can I shift to more effectively work on my business?

Adjust your mindset

This transition requires you to step away from playing the leading role as an expert who can do the work. You’ll instead need to get into the mindset of being the leader who sets direction and guides the team. This involves identifying how you can step away from the direct delivery of products and services and tending to every immediate administrative need.

Prioritize and position yourself to spend a larger portion of your time on growth, planning and positioning what makes you distinct in the market. This is all about striking a balance so your business isn’t overly reliant on you and your interventions.

Develop repeatable systems and processes

Removing tactical work from your plate will require you to develop repeatable processes and frameworks that can be easily adopted. You’ll also need to empower your people with training so they can operate independently.

In The E-Myth, Gerber encourages the notion of imagining you were building your business like a franchise. He’s not advocating the franchise model is right for every business. However, his point is that for you to make the space to work on your business, there needs to be standardization around how work gets done, and those processes should be replicable for any employee in any location. In doing so, your business becomes more system-dependent versus people-dependent and will be more durable.

Building systems and processes like this that scale has other benefits, including:

• Better consistency

• A reduction in errors

• Less confusion

• More predictability

• A more independent team

Delegate

I discussed delegation last week. It’s key to this concept as well. To create the environment to work on your business, it’s crucial to get the right people around you to support everyday operations (yet another topic from last week’s edition).

Once you’ve found them, you’ll need to develop them. This means training and creating those repeatable processes mentioned above to ensure they can effectively execute the required work. Only after this will you feel confident you can pass on tasks that should be in other capable hands.

Focusing on operations is key to unlocking your ability to evolve

If you’ve read this and experienced a sudden epiphany that you’re an owner working too much in the business, now is a perfect time of the year to reassess your focus and tune up heading into a new year.

One of the key themes when discussing this working in versus on thing is the importance of streamlined operations. That whole idea of the franchise model concept relies on a business’s ability to redesign with better systems and processes to free up time and deliver better results.

If it’s overwhelming to think about how to take the next step in this evolution, work with a partner like Empower to design the structure you want and need. Reply to this newsletter and share more about your situation so we can identify ways to help!

WEEKLY DOSE OF EMPOWERMENT

The weekly dose of Empowerment is meant to provide one weekly tip that’s both practical and approachable, to help drive incremental improvement to your day-to-day. We’re always open to your contributions as well. If you would like to submit a tip to be shared with the Empower community in a future newsletter, please reach out at [email protected] with the subject line “Weekly Dose of Empowerment Submission.”

The daily win

When was the last time you celebrated a win?

If that question causes you to look like this —>🤔, then keep reading. You’re probably not taking the time to appreciate what you and your team accomplish frequently. Jotting down just one win every day, even if it seems tiny, is a low-lift way to take stock of daily progress.

I’ll be honest. I struggle with this one myself. I have high standards, get into execution mode easily and the losses sting. That leaves me prone to being critical of my performance and not acknowledging the inches of progress I make each day.

Of all people, it was my toddler who recently reminded me about the importance of taking a moment to celebrate incremental success. I wrote a bit about this topic here.

Why do I think this is important?

Being an entrepreneur isn’t a cakewalk. When you’re going through tough patches, it’s helpful to pull on a string of positivity so you don’t lose your spark or momentum.

Writing down a daily win can:

• Enhance morale: Whether you’re a team of one or 100, recognizing one thing that went well each day can give a morale boost to keep you and others motivated.

• Be reinforcement for more positive outcomes: When you celebrate something that’s gone well, you’re more likely to repeat the actions and/or behaviors that led to that outcome.

• Improve resilience: When times feel tough, it’s easy to get in a negative spiral. If you force yourself to articulate or write down a win, you’ll be able to recognize progress, even if you’re larger goals still feel far in the distance.

To better ensure I make a habit out of celebrating wins, I’m challenging myself to write down one positive thing each day that signifies forward momentum for the business.

So far this week, those wins have included:

• Monday: A valuable networking call.

• Tuesday: Positive momentum on a new revenue opportunity.

• Wednesday: Finished this newsletter and kept my publishing streak going!

I encourage each of you to take the challenge with me. If you decide to embark on it and want an accountability partner, reply to this email and I’ll commit to going on the journey with you.

JESSICA’S READ, OR LISTEN, PICK OF THE WEEK

A little something that got my gears turning this week and might pique your interest as well!

From Forbes: Seven Major Obstacles Small Businesses May Encounter

TL;DR

The title sums this article up pretty well. The author’s primary intent is to highlight seven hurdles small businesses typically encounter so readers can take away how to avoid common pitfalls.

The seven obstacles cited include:

• Financial constraints

• Lack of technology utilization

• Skill and efficiency gaps

• Ineffective marketing and customer engagement

• Market competition and regulatory hurdles

• Attracting and retaining talent

• Navigating long-term goals

A lot of these are themes I’ve discussed in this newsletter. They are also challenges Empower can work with partners to solve. Whether with prospects or existing partners, these are conversation topics I hear emerging business owners and founders frequently surface as holding them back and creating bottlenecks in their operations.

This quote stood out, in particular, for me:

This is exactly how Empower can support businesses.

Think about which of these seven items causes the most stress for you right now. Do you have an action plan to solve it?

If you don’t have a path forward and want a sounding board to talk through your biggest hurdles, set up a time to chat by clicking the link below!

JUST FOR FUN

Really, this section is just for fun. Who knows what will be in store each week?

Next Monday marks Labor Day in the U.S. It’s a day that many will get off from work and serves to honor the contributions of laborers.

I hope everyone has an opportunity to reflect on their hard work and achievements while also taking time to rest!

LOOKING FOR MORE EMPOWERMENT?

You’ve worked hard to build your business. Let’s work together to make it last. We want to be your partner in the journey to build the business that lives into your vision.

If you want to learn more about Empower’s offerings or methodology, reach out to discuss how we can support your goals. 

If you were forwarded this newsletter and enjoyed it, I encourage you to subscribe and join the Empower community.