Move your business from a hobby to an empire

Every entrepreneur is seeking one thing: to have a successful business that runs smoothly without their daily involvement. They want to stop trading time for money.

Many businesses start as a hobby. You are spending 100% of your time building the company from zero.

You start building the sales, cash flow, & team. You are landing new customers every day and setting new records. You are still spending 100% of your time in the business, which is having a ton of success. You've moved from having a hobby to a job.

This is where the majority of small business owners get stuck. They make great money when they are highly involved but as soon as they step away or go on vacation, the sales & cash flow drop.

To build an empire and achieve true freedom, you must disconnect business success from your time. You need to replace yourself in two ways:

#1 Knowledge Base

As the owner, you are the business encyclopedia. Employees love to call the owner with every stupid question or problem. It's quicker & easier than figuring out on their own

Create a knowledge base & process for every question or problem that comes up more than 2-3 times

  • How to guides

  • Training videos

  • Lists of vendors for supplies or maintenance

  • Pre-authorization for purchases less than $X

Arm your team with the knowledge & permission to make their own decisions that are within the guidelines you've set

They will make mistakes which is okay. Don't freak out. Coach them on what to do next time.

#2 Team

You need to build a rock-solid team. Many new business owners are cheap and hire the minimal amount of people at the lowest possible comp. This may work when you are spending 100% of your time in the business but it will hurt your efforts to grow an empire

To build an empire, you must build a leadership team of intelligent, organized, driven people who share your core values. They solve problems & put new processes into place without your involvement

You become the bottleneck for growth if every decision flows through you. This is a good sign that you need to recognize. Hand over the reins to your team and spend less time directly involved in the business

As the business grows without your direct involvement, you now have more freedom. You could stop here or focus your time building a bigger empire by:

  • opening more locations

  • building a bigger team

  • diversifying your investments

Finally, the money pit: a business that you spend no time on that has no success

Either cut your losses & close up shop or start investing your time. Create success and turn that money pit into a job. Turn that job into an empire.

Summary:

  • Empire - 100% success w/ 0% of your time

  • Job - 100% success w/ 100% of your time

  • Hobby - 0% success w/ 100% of your time

  • Money Pit - 0% success w/ 0% of your time

The Business w/ Beers Podcast

If you liked this newsletter, you’d love my podcast, where I talk about franchising, investing, buying, operating & scaling a business.

Cheers!

Brian Beers