It's Monday night at 7:30. I'm in my hotel room at Lowe's Miami for the Catersource/TSE conference that is beginning to start. I spend all day at the Leading Caterers of America meeting, and I am so looking forward to gathering with friends for dinner. As I'm washing my face, I hear the clacky clack alert of House Party on my phone. House Party is a face-to-face group video chat app that has kept my five sisters connected throughout the pandemic. My younger sister appears on the screen first, screaming, then a low growl, "April, I can't understand you." She catches her breath and struggles to get out the following sentence. "Denise is in the hospital; she had a brain aneurysm." What? What? What?... Whaaat? My body starts to tremble. Soon the other sisters join, and disbelief sets in. So healthy, so young, so unexpected.
She was Tango dancing, collapsed, and never regained consciousness. We are heartbroken.
Why am I telling you this?
For years I've been showing my clients and students how to set the business as if you are running a Fortune 500 company. And then put your business on autopilot, which means that it can thrive without you; the owner needs to show up to work in the business every day. Many entrepreneurs wish to grow a business that will one day run without them by stepping out of the daily operations.
Case in point, I'm working with a catering company where the owner has a full-time job, not in the Special Event Industry, and has a successful multi-million dollar business. A solopreneur planning company scaled into six cities across the US and manages from an office in Puerto Rico. A business that thrives with less than 10 hours per week of the owner's time working in the business is ideal as long as it's set up correctly from the beginning. It took me ten years of trial-and-error to learn how to realize this pipedream and step away from the daily operations.
If your employees count on you to make every decision, they will rely on you and continue to seek your input. Before you can even consider pulling away from the day-to-day, you'll need to stipulate a sense of autonomy and ownership in the employees who will be responsible for your business while you're not there daily.
If you feel inundated by employee demands and the minutiae of daily management but want to get away from it while keeping the business afloat, it can seem like a fantasy at best.
As the leader, you are responsible for identifying problems and delegating solutions. It is your job to set goals and be the visionary of the company's future. The only person in your business who will be indisputably motivated to grow your company is you. Every moment you spend working on everyday jobs that you should delegate is a moment when you are not strategizing to regroup, refocus and rebuild.
Life is unpredictable; you never know what's coming next. Treasure every minute and run your business wisely.