You’re a business owner. And as a business owner, you should be planning on removing yourself from your business as soon as possible.
“Wait a minute, what are you talking about? Remove myself from my own business!?”
That may sound surprising, but it’s true. And some of the most successful business owners out there have taken this approach.
According to Robert Kiyosaki, the multimillionaire author of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, there are a few different ways to make money.
The first is to be an employee. Show up, go home, get paid. It’s the traditional 9-5 job. But if you’re reading this blog, you’re likely not there.
The next is to be self-employed. Truthfully, this isn’t much different than an employee, except for the fact that you own your job. You won’t get fired by your boss, but you’re still stuck working a job.
The most interesting, though, is the business owner. One of the greatest differences between a self-employed person and a business owner is the fact that a business owner can walk away from their business for weeks or even months at a time, and when they return their business is still running as well as it did before they left. Sometimes even better!
When a self-employed person goes on vacation, on the other hand, they stop making money.
Which would you rather be: self-employed, or a business owner?
It seems pretty obvious that the business owner is better off. But how can you become a business owner?
The truth is, many business owners start off as self-employed people. But there are a few different important steps along the way that make the difference. And for the most part, they involve removing yourself from your own business!
Systemization
One is systemization of what you do. If you can distill your business processes down to a system, you can make it so that anyone with the proper training can do it. And when that’s the case, anyone with the proper training and knowledge can step in and do your job.
This means you no longer have to do that job. Someone else can take care of it for you, and you can focus on the aspects of your business that really do need your input, like developing and growing it.
T. Harv Eker, author of the best-selling business development book “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind”, has said the following as one of his basic “power principles”:
“If you’re the major cog in the machine then you’re automatically the major clog in the machine”
What this means is that if your business can’t operate without you, you’re then standing in the way of its growth. After all, if you end up getting sick one day, have an accident, or just need a day off, everything grinds to a halt!
It’s a hard thing to wrap your head around, but if you let go of some of the money you make in your business, you can free yourself up to make even more money with the free time you have.
Outsourcing
Next is outsourcing. And I don’t necessarily mean outsourcing to a foreign country, though that’s sometimes an option. Rather, outsourcing in this context just means getting people to do a job who are the most qualified to do it.
Why outsource? When you have someone doing a job who’s most qualified to do it, you can make sure you’re getting the best results from that department. Too many people take the mentality that they need to do everything themselves in order to get anything done, and that’s what gets them stuck in the self-employed realm. They’re too busy working IN their business that they don’t have any time to work ON their business!
But if you want to build a successful business, you’ll need help! After all, you may have founded your business, and you may know the most about what you do, but you don’t necessarily know the most about how it runs behind the scenes.
Here are two things you should consider outsourcing right away in your business. (Hint: you may have outsourced one or both of these already, and if so, you’re on the right track!)
Accounting
No matter how good you were at math in high school, you shouldn’t take care of your own accounting.
Why?
A trained accountant knows all the strategies to make sure your company stays within compliance of tax law, and can help advise you on how you can keep your finances in the best order. They can help you pay the lowest tax rate possible (legally, of course), and warn you of any risks involved in your financial house.
Do you have time to learn all that? And do you have time to run your business at the same time? I don’t think so.
And, if anything should happen and the tax man comes to audit you, you’ll be thanking the heavens that you had the foresight to have an accountant keep things neat and organized.
Marketing
The world of marketing has changed a lot since the invention of the internet. Gone are the days where you could buy an ad in the Yellow Pages and watch the new leads roll in. Everything is online now.
But where should you market yourself online? Is it Facebook? After all, people have been talking a lot about Facebook recently. But is Facebook even the right place for you to market yourself? Or should you be somewhere else?
And even if Facebook is the best choice, how should you go about doing it?
Online marketing tools are available for anyone to use, but it takes time and energy to learn them.
And just like with accounting, do you think it’s the best, most efficient use of your time to learn how to do it?
Instead of fumbling around in a trial-and-error marketing method, why not speak to a team of marketing professionals? At the very least, they can point you in the right direction and help you discover the best way to get a return on your marketing investment.
But what’s more likely is that you’ll gain access to proven successful marketing strategies to help your business grow!
Become A Successful Business Owner!
These are just a few of the steps involved in becoming a more successful business owner. It’s not for everyone, but if you take the time to systemize your business and outsource jobs to those more qualified to do them, you’ll be well on your way to building the life of your dreams.
