The overnight success of many small businesses is the end result of many years of relentless sacrifice and hard work. It is therefore, not surprising, that many small business owners want to leave the business they have fought so hard for after they have achieved some degree of success, especially when all they can see is more of the same on the horizon. A better option may be that they take the time to develop appropriate solutions that enable them to work smarter - not harder.
The driver for many entrepreneur's, when they first go into business, is to create the freedom to do what they want when they want. To achieve this goal they need to develop the business to a point where it can operate successfully without them.
Start by reviewing your systems and to see how they could be made more efficient. It is possible that they could be better streamlined, by taking you, as the business owner, out of the process. Entrepreneurs often fall into the trap, as the business grows, by failing to assess their continued relevance in a process and continue on with the old processes, simply because that is the way it has always been done. There are some processes that the small business owner should never abdicate, but there are usually many, many more that benefit from streamlining.
In reviewing your processes, assess whether any of them would be better served if they were automated. Typical tasks that benefit from automation are those that involve repetition. Other targets, are those that take up too much time. Both the business and it's owner are better served by the reduction in process cycle times. It not only reduces the time to complete tasks but it also frees up resources.
The process review, infers you have documented all of your business processes. If you haven't formalised your business systems and created a Standard Operations Guide that is readily available to all staff, it means that you, as the business owner, are the Standard Operations Guide.
That means every time somebody needs to know something, they will need to go to the source of that information - the small business owner. By creating a Standard Operations Guide for your small business you will capture the processes and procedures for all the operations in your business in one central repository. Making this information readily accessible enables your staff to operate independently, encourages them to be self-reliant and lessens the day-to-day demands your staff have on you - so you have time free to apply yourself to more strategic matters.
Another area that needs to be considered is the redistribution of roles and responsibilities as the business grows. If a business starts as a solo affair, the more mundane tasks are usually picked up by employees along the way. Sometimes, this is done without any real thought as to how this impacts the small business owner in the long-term and the business just grows in an ad-hoc kind of way.
The better solution is to review the business in terms of the functions required to operate it. Group like functions together and allocate appropriately qualified staff the responsibility for those functions. Formalise this by creating job descriptions, and making them responsible for the strategic business goals relating to their areas of responsibility. If this has already been done, you may simply need to assess whether more of the entrepreneur's role can be delegated to other staff members.
It may also be that the current workload is more than the current staffing levels across the business can handle. If so, you may want to consider casual, temporary or contract staff for temporary increases in demand on staff (for example, short-term projects) and for ongoing growth it might require the addition of full-time staff.
Working extreme hours in your own business should not be a permanent situation for small business owners. After all, life is for living and working simply enables our chosen lifestyle. Take the time out to re-assess your personal goals and review the business in light of those goals. Then look for appropriate solutions that enable you to work smarter - not harder!
Karen L. Paiyo is an Australian Small Business Counsellor, supporting and nurturing the spirit of entrepreneurship in the Asia Pacific Region. Karen empowers small business owners by transferring to them the skills and expertise needed to help them take their business ideas from creative concept to profitable reality, faster and with less risk.