3 Ways to Improve Your Work/Life Balance & Build Value

What does your workload look like these days?

I was visiting a regional area in Australia and had a conversation with a restaurant owner. He had a hard time finding good staff and was working more and more hours in the business than he had ever done. He had brought in several business partners to help him out.  

The last few years have had their toll on SME’s and their business owners, and it may have forced you back into the weeds of your business, and no, you’re not alone! Many owners are again doing tasks they haven’t done in years because they have had to lay off front-line staff or their employees have fallen ill or are caring for someone in need. And now it just seems very hard to find good people.

Being back in the middle of things is neither healthy for you nor your business long term. Personally, it’s a recipe for burnout, and professionally, your business will be less valuable with you are doing all the work.

When the owner works more than 55 hours per week in their business and there is an unbalanced personal and professional life, the business is highly dependent on the owner.

Hopefully things are starting to look better soon. And now is an excellent time to retool your company so that it can start running without you again. Let that business become independent of you again. These three steps should help:

Step 1: Sell less stuff to more people.

Most companies become too dependent on their owner because they offer too many products and services. With such a full breadth of offerings, it’s hard to find and train employees that can deliver. The secret is to pick something that makes you unique and focus on finding more customers, not more things to sell.

Step 2: Systemize it.

Next, focus on creating systems and procedures for employees to follow. For example, Nashville-based Bryan Clayton built Peachtree, a landscaping business. Most lawn care companies are mom-and-pop operations, but Clayton built Peachtree up to 150 employees before he sold it to LUSA for a seven-figure windfall.

What made Peachtree so unique? Clayton focused on documenting his processes. For example, one of his customers was a McDonald’s franchisee who owned 40 locations. He was frustrated by how many people discarded cigarette butts in his drive-through, so Clayton offered to clear the debris from the lanes as part of his lawn care process. He then trained his employees on the drive-through clean-up process he had created so it was followed across all 40 of the customer’s locations. 

Step 3: Outsource it.

Next, consider outsourcing what you’re not very good at. For example, at Baby Importer & Distributor Exquira there was always the challenge of having too much warehouse space or not enough. In addition, supply chain issues meant working with flexible warehouse staff, which made it challenging to plan, especially at the end of the month where the company wanted to get as many orders out as possible, which meant that the owners were frequently seen in the warehouse.

Outsourcing the warehouse seemed difficult, as it was perceived as loosing too much control, however it ended up being the best flexible solution, as it freed up essential time that could be used to grow the customer base. It also made the logistics process much easier to manage and was a cost effective solution.

It’s natural for a leader to step in during a crisis, but that’s not sustainable for the long term. Pull yourself out of the doing, and you’ll build a valuable company for the long term that’s a lot less stressful to run along the way.