As an entrepreneur, the thought of having your business run by itself while you sit back and do all the other things you need and want to do has probably crossed your mind more than once before. Perhaps you wanted to take a breather from all the stressful deadlines and projects that you’ve had to handle up to this point or maybe you just want to learn and brush up on the same new skills that will further help your business.
The thing is, at your current state you are most probably still at the stage where you take a hold of most things and do it by yourself to ensure that all thing will go well according to your plans. This chokes your schedule leaving you with no free time to work on other things not even for working on your skills for yourself.
But fear not! For in this article we will tell you all the necessary steps that you can take to make your business run on autopilot so you can finally get that sweet rest and improvement time for yourself.
Expand your business
Many entrepreneurs fall into the rookie mistake of shrinking their business operations especially when they aim to make their business self-sustaining. The logic goes as follows, “If it has a smaller scale, then it has to be easier to manage, right?”
Wrong! No matter how small or large your business is, there will always be obstacles towards making it self-sustaining and operational. Downsizing your business by letting go of key locations of personnel takes you two steps back instead of one step forward. Letting go of such important human resources can be a deterrent in the long run towards your goals as these people have known your business operations quite well already and can help you in future endeavors.
Sure, expanding while trying to make your business independent of you may be complex and even mind-boggling in some cases, but it’s an important consideration that will truly help you in the long run.
This is why it is important to think of how you will be able to expand your business along the way as it becomes self-sustaining even without you leading them. The next steps teach you exactly how to do just that.
Plan and execute
As a business owner, you know that your time is valuable so any future activities need to be planned well. Even arranging some self-care time need to be properly planned and executed too. However, what if you could somehow ease up your workload and have more time? It’s definitely possible and all it takes is another set of planning and execution.
Now to be clear, planning is not something that you can easily do in just one sitting. Perhaps there are times that you can, but it depends on the scale of what you are planning to do. Remember that great plans take time and when you have the perfect strategy cooked up, you will be able to perfectly execute all of your plans with ease.
Hence, when it comes to your business, you have to look at it from various perspectives. Take everything into account no matter how insignificant they may seem. Take note of your business processes and see how each one of them could be made to be more efficient. BY knowing the intricacies of the processes, you can slowly see how each part of the processes can be independent of you and how you can slowly take your hands off and entrust them to your team.
Empower and be patient
As mentioned in the previous part, knowing your business process allows you to be able to find out how each process can be independent of you. This frees your hands as the processes become more streamlined and give you more time to do other things. However, how can you be sure that the people you choose will do a brilliant job even when you are gone?
The key is to empower them. It’s important for your team and employees to know that you are a reliable leader, but it is also vital for you to let them know that they are needed every step of the way. Let them know exactly what their place in the system is and how they can fulfill that role. The last thing that you need is confusion amongst your team or employees while you are absent. Furthermore, teamwork should also be emphasized during this period.
There may also be some instances wherein your team members deviate from your expected course of action which may or may not be beneficial in your perspective. In this stage, you should offer all the support that you can. If the independent decision made was beneficial, then commend your team and give credit. If it was somehow a mistake, then give them advice on how they can make the correct decision later. This is the type of environment that makes people grow and as your people grow, so does your business.
One thing that you should know and expect is that things are not going to be perfect or smooth right from the start as you begin this stage. There will always be some mistakes, negligence, and even some bickering amongst those in your team. However, these are all essential parts of the process.
As such, you should allow for an adjustment period for everybody to get to sort themselves out. This may take several weeks or even months depending on the scale of you business, but in the end, it will be all worth it!
Conclusion
In order to gain new things, you need to let some go. If you need to gain more expertise to better lead your business or simply want to get some more time to spend with your family, then the only way is to let some of your responsibilities go and the only way to do this is if you have people you can trust.
Trust doesn’t come easily nor is it formed overnight. You need to establish and nurture it within your company. As a business owner, the easiest way that you can trust your employees with new responsibilities is if they can prove that they are capable.
Proving their capability can only happen if you give them the chance to do so. Thus, you need to empower them in order to develop more people capable of lifting the load off of your shoulders. With these steps followed, you can be sure that your business can run on autopilot and let you pursue other things with your valuable time.
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