How I'm Building My Business To Run Without Me
so I can eat, sleep, travel and do anything while cash is flowing in
In the last 10 years, over 100s of people have asked me how I run my business while watching the kids, going windsurfing, traveling, sleeping, and more…
My answer? I don’t
My business is running without me 90% of my time.
This year, I’m bringing that to 100%.
The formula? Most people are the bottlenecks of their careers.
So what exactly are they and how do we remove ourselves from our businesses and still have them running like a well-oiled machine?
In this newsletter, you’ll learn the following:
Why most of our business can’t run without us?
What are the bottlenecks?
How to remove these bottlenecks
First and foremost, before we learn the how, let’s figure out why some business owners think they can’t remove themselves.
Here are the biggest reasons I’ve made them myself in the past:
Why Our Business Can’t Run Without Us?
Drop In Quality
Most people think if they are not the ones doing the work, the results will turn out horrible and the business will soon close shop.
It’s normal for anyone to think that way, who cares about the business most other than the owner? It’s tough handling or managing a team while keeping up with work quality.
This is usually the number one reason why most of us prefer to remain as freelancers or business owners who work on the deliverables.
Passion
Most people are so in love with the doing process that they want to do that everyday, it’s not like work to them.
They enjoy it so much, it’s fun and brings in the income, what’s not to love. I’ve made this mistake too.
I used to get lost in creating design work for clients that I forgot to give myself time and space to do strategic reflections, help the company to grow and reach out to prospects.
Lose Clients
I used to have the mindset that my clients will not want to work with me if I’m not the one directly helping them with their designs, their copy or their websites.
Once in a while, I used to have clients asking if I would be the designer or would I outsource the work. This gave me the impression that they prefer me to be the sole creator.
I did not hire anyone else for a very long time because of this. It was only later that I realised it didn’t matter to them at all.
It’s on my part to come up with a plan so there’s no need to fight fire every day and earn their trust that I am still delivering what they are asking for.
These are all mindset blockages that prevents anyone from starting a business, building it to run on it’s own while making an ongoing income from it.
The solution is to shift that mindset out of the way and remove these bottlenecks:
What Are The Bottlenecks?
1. Client Communication
I used to think I must be the one chatting with my clients, must have phone calls or personally travel to them to meet them and discuss ideas. I thought they would go to someone else if I was not the one doing this!
2. Deliverables
I was a graphic design freelancer, sometimes doing websites as well. These were fun, but I can’t get them to my clients if I was not the one sitting down to churn them out on a daily basis.
Worst of all, I couldn’t get over my ownself to delegate them because I thought nobody is able to create what I could create.
3. Decision Making
I had to get my control-freak persona out of the way. I used to think I must be in control of it all. Even with a VA (Virtual Assistant), I did not feel safe allowing her to make day-to-day decisions between client and the team.
One time, all work stopped for the day waiting for me to be available to give them the go ahead. That was a waste of time and resources.
4. Lack of Boundaries
10 years ago, I thought I could do everything and I made sure to respond to every email, calls and issues in minutes. All edits to designs are free, can you imagine that? If I can do that, clients will flock to me in droves.
But really, they did, I was swarmed! Good problem to have, but I wasn’t ready to serve them. I couldn’t travel, I must work on their tasks when I was sick. I was working alone and always pushing myself to deliver.
I love my work and working with my clients. But it was hard to keep up, and it was neverending.
5. Hourly Billing
I used to give myself a goal of making $4000 a month. I used that to pro-rate the fee I would charge clients per hour. Worst idea ever.
My per hour rate came up to $22 per hour but my work took up to 16 hours a day, and I really only get $4000 per month, nothing more. How liberating!
6. Creating Proposals
Still creating free proposals with a wait-and-see approach if clients will take up your offer?
I used to take 2 to 3 days creating proposals that include displaying my services beautifully on a deck and wondering if the client is keen to work with me. Most never came back, some took my proposals to another designer.
We’ve gone over the reasons business owners can’t remove themselves from their businesses.
Next, how do we actually get rid of the bottlenecks.
Let’s get to it now:
Power To You To Remove The Bottlenecks
1. Leverage Systems
These are working parts that can have separate scopes but are connected together to lead to a desired outcome.
I created systems for everything from onboarding clients to designing a graphic, to delivering their requested designs.
Without systems in place, the work will require someone, who’s most likely the business owner to prevent missed deadlines, mistakes and communication breakdown.
2. Document Processes
After 20 years in the graphic design service industry, I learned not to believe in relying on memory. I could use a process to provide a design solution, impress my clients and forget all the steps the next day.
The price to pay? Another one day gone trying to figure out the processes all over again.
The lesson learned? Create a manual and put down all processes in black and white without leaving anything out.
This manual must be so clear that anyone other than the one creating it can look at it the first time and execute everything in it without asking you.
3. Hire and Delegate
This was the hardest part for me. When I first started building a team, I had to delegate design work in bite-sized parts to my team designer.
It was excruciating because I didn’t know how to tell my designers what I had in my head.
So I created a series of training materials to show them what I would do if I were to create a piece of design for clients.
4. Create A Scalable Business Model
Take hourly billing and proposals out the door. I’ve packaged offers and services into different plans, similar to how you can sell products and SaaS. Then, payment has to be made upfront before service starts.
Instead of chasing unpaid invoices, creating long proposals that nobody reads, the business brings in revenue to pay for expenses on time.
The result? An extension of me on autopilot.
Thanks for reading,
Marilyn
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Thank you, I’m using notes, Google sheets and docs, and sometimes Notion. Notes are easier for me to use than Notion, even though the last one has much more features.
Thank you Marilyn, my favorite parts were the part about documentation and creating a Scalable Business Model, I’ve recently learned that documentation is so important, what tools do you usually use to keep things in one place?