The majority of business owners will tell you that one of the reasons (and perhaps the main reason) they started their business was because they wanted more freedom. They wanted to be in control, to work their own hours, to be completely flexible. Yet many business owners don’t find this to be the case, and the main problem is that they are working in their businesses and not on them. Although this may not seem to be a big difference to begin with, it’s actually huge; working in the business means taking care of all the day to day admin work, helping clients and customers, and generally working hard. Working on the business, however, is all about growing the business and working out strategies for the future. 

Knowing the difference is one thing, but being able to stop one and begin the other is much harder. Read on to find out just how you can spend more time on your business rather than in it, and become a success along the way.

Define Your Business Strategy 

If you have a good business strategy, you will have a detailed plan of just where you intend to take the business and how you intend to get there. This will include business goals for the short term and the long term.

When you have a good business strategy in place, you’ll be able to use your time more wisely because you’ll essentially have a roadmap to follow. This will help you make decisions and you’ll know what kind of outcomes you need to achieve, and by when. This means you can save time when working on the business so that if you need to work in it as well, you won’t be so overwhelmed. 

Trust Your Team 

If you’re going to truly grow your business and be able to work on it more than in it, you’ll need a team to help you. You won’t necessarily be able to hire people right away, but it is possible to outsource some tasks (especially specialist tasks such as marketing and IT) so that you have less to do. This can be hard for some business owners who don’t like to relinquish control in this way, but once it’s done you’ll see how much more time it gives you. 

Once you do hire staff (assuming you choose to do this), you must be able to trust them to do the work you are asking them to do. If you can, they can take the more mundane tasks off your hands, and you can focus on other things, knowing your clients and customers are being served. Delegating is a skill that has to be learned, but if you have trained your staff and hired them carefully when the time came, this shouldn’t be a problem. 

Use The Right Software 

In this day and age, technology really should be every business owner’s friend. Use the technology that exists to make your life much easier, and you’ll find that there is less for you to do. There are pieces of software that have been designed for every kind of industry, so you should be able to find something that works for you. Dentists can take a look at https://www.pact-one.com/dental-it/, for example. This system makes bookings much easier, taking one task away from a business owner who can use their extra time to work out the ideal growth strategy instead.