Business owners struggle to achieve work/life balance, believing their businesses will fail if they live the life they were meant to live with their families. Through business coaching, these frazzled business owners can step back and view their situation objectively and come up with apparent solutions that eluded them when they were buried in their work.
Today’s story concerns a business owner struggling to balance a profitable company with other life priorities. Learn how he overcame his struggles, and you can, too.
Listen to this story instead of reading at the MMBIZCAST podcast.
Tim couldn’t believe it. He’d miss another deadline. He was working so hard. And his wife was on his case for missing another one of Peter’s baseball games.
With all that he had on his plate, Tim couldn’t find time to complete an advertising campaign for one of his largest customers. Tim was buried, and he didn’t see a way out. On top of all this overwhelm, he wasn’t making a lot of money with his advertising agency. He didn’t understand what was wrong. He worked hard, and he had some decent customers, but he couldn’t make it all work.
Tim attended a time management seminar a while back held by a guy named Coach Russ. He remembered Russ saying something about vision and goals and all kinds of other nonsense. He wondered, ‘How on earth can I create a vision and set goals when I can’t find the time to meet one of my most important customers’ deadlines?’
Tim decided to shut his office door and ignore the rest of the world for a few minutes while he found Coach Russ’s business card. He needed someone to help him extricate himself from his habitual busyness, and he felt like Coach Russ could give him some words of wisdom.
Tim couldn’t reach Russ on his first try and left a voice message on his phone: “Help! This is Tim Carter. I attended a time management workshop that you put on a while ago, and I’m buried. Please call back.”
Russ called back a few minutes later, “Hi, Tim. It sounds like you’re frazzled. How can I help?”
Tim responded, “Thanks for calling back so soon, Russ. I feel like I’m buried with work, can’t manage to break away to attend my son’s baseball games, and everyone is super angry with me. What should I do?”
Russ knew that it wasn’t time for a long-winded solution. Tim was in emergency mode.
Russ calmly responded, “Tim, take a deep breath and just relax.”
“I can’t relax. I’ve got stuff to do.”
Russ repeated, “Simply take the next 30 seconds and breathe in and out. I’ll still be here, and we can talk when you’re done.”
Tim didn’t feel like he had a choice, so he did as Russ had instructed. Russ led him by telling him to breathe in and then breathe out. He had to admit, this breathing exercise was calming. However, it didn’t do much to solve his problem.
After the mini-breathing exercise, Russ began, “It sounds like you attended my workshop on time management, so you must know that the first step is to create a vision sometime in the future, right?”
Tim reacted, “That’s great! How am I supposed to find the time to create a 5-year vision if I can’t even meet a stupid deadline?”
“Currently, you’re reacting to everything around you. You’re taking control by taking a block of time to create an image of what your business will look like in five years. By taking control, you can deliberately meet deadlines, attend your son’s baseball games, and create substantial personal wealth.”
“That’s a great sales pitch. But I’m not buying. I’m trying everything I can, and it’s not working.”
“Have you tried to write down your 5-year vision?”
“No. But I don’t see how that will change my present.”
Russ could see that he was facing an obstacle with Tim, so he changed the subject, “How many people do you have working in your advertising firm right now?”
“I’m not sure what that has to do with anything. I can’t afford to hire more people.”
Russ repeated the question, “How many people are in your firm?”
“I have five employees, including myself.”
“Okay. What if you knew that to complete the work that you currently have in your firm, you needed ten people?”
Tim chuckled, “Then I would say we’d be out of business because we don’t have enough revenue to pay the salaries of ten people.”
Russ decided to take a different approach, “In the history of mankind, have any advertising firms like yours managed to succeed?”
“Yes. I suppose many have succeeded. I must be doing something wrong.”
“I want you to suspend your disbelief for a few minutes. I know you have a lot of work to do. You must make up for lost time on a client’s deadline. I want you to carve out four hours in the next few weeks to do an organization chart with a financial forecast on how your business will operate in the next five years.”
“I’m not sure how a forecast will help. But you’re the business coach.”
Russ e-mailed Tim some documents to help him create his five-year vision, and they scheduled a call in two weeks.
Russ was surprised when the appointment wasn’t canceled, and Tim called with his homework completed as scheduled.
Russ asked, “How did it go?”
Tim responded, “I did my future vision. But I’m still not sure how this will help my present situation.”
“Let’s forget about your present problems and focus on this future vision of yours. Tell me some details about how your company will look in five years.”
“Our advertising firm will have ten employees and we will be earning $1.5 Million per year in revenue. I’ll have four full-time marketing professionals, two assistants, two administrative assistants, one salesman and I will manage the entire group.”
“Wow, Tim! That sounds wonderful! How much profit is your company making five years from now?”
“We are making $200,000 per year in net profit.”
“Great! Tell me. With your five employees today, how much revenue and profit do you earn?”
Tim hesitated. He knew how disconnected his present numbers were from his future vision, “We’re making about $500,000 per year in revenue, and we have no profit.”
Russ could hear the disappointment in Tim’s voice, “It sounds like you made some revelations about your current situation. Would you like to share them with me?”
“Russ, I know our revenue is low right now, but we’re working as hard as possible. I can’t imagine working any harder.”
“How hard is your crew working in your five-year vision?”
“Not that hard really. In fact, we have assistants and I estimated normal working hours with plenty of vacation for everyone. I even have enough time to catch my son’s baseball games.”
Russ persisted, “Why is your future company working so well, but your current staff of five is frazzled, missing deadlines, and you’re missing your son’s baseball games?”
“You’re the business coach. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to tell me?”
“I have some thoughts, but it does no good for me to tell you what I think. It’s more important for you to make this revelation yourself.”
“I just don’t know the answer to your question.”
“I’ll tell you what. Think about it, and call me tomorrow. I’m sure you’ll come up with some amazing answers.”
They ended their call, and Tim took the rest of the day off to think about Russ’s question. He was frustrated that this high-paid business coach was not sharing his wisdom.
Tim called Russ the next day, and there was some excitement in his voice.
Tim started, “I can’t believe it. I’ve been such an idiot. We currently have three people doing marketing work for our clients: me and two others. When I added up the hours, I noticed that I’m doing most of the work. I’m not sure what the others are doing, but they’re hardly billing any hours. I always thought that we were all swamped. It must have just been me doing all the work.”
Russ responded, “Interesting. What do you plan to do about your new revelation?”
“If I fire them, then I’ll have to do all of the work and find two marketing professionals that aren’t deadbeats.”
“What role do you play in the fact that your other marketing professionals are not billing more hours?”
“What do you mean? I’m working my butt off because they’re slacking.”
“When a new client comes in, how do you delegate the workload to your current staff?”
“Russ, there are some accounts I don’t trust to anyone but me.”
“Tim, you either need to trust your employees to do the work; or you’ll be forever having time management problems. What will it take for you to trust your employees?”
Tim was silent for about five seconds and then responded, “I suppose I need to check their work. But won’t that take even more time?”
“You created a vision of your company five years from now, where you’re checking the work of four marketing professionals. You admitted that you were a manager, not a DOER. In this vision. You said your future firm earned $1.5 Million annually with plenty of profit. When I asked about the cause of your current overwhelm, you found you’re doing all the work.”
“But I told you, Russ. I just don’t trust my employees to do as good of a job as me.”
“Bingo! You don’t trust your employees. It’s not your employee’s fault that you don’t trust them; it’s your thinking that needs to change for you to grow your company without feeling stressed out.”
“How can I change?”
“I’m glad you asked.”
Russ went on to explain how Tim needed to delegate and check the work of his employees. He couldn’t allow himself to DO any work that was given to his company. He could only fill the roles of salesman and overseer. He wouldn’t DO any creative work, regardless of the size of the client.
Over the next six months, Tim struggled to avoid doing his firm’s work. A few of his customers left because they wanted his work and not the work of his ‘flunkies.’ Tim resisted the urge to give in—even to these demanding customers. He held to his promise to Russ and delegated everything.
He did need to fire one of his key employees. This employee had grown accustomed to watching Tim work instead of doing his job. Tim hired an amazing replacement.
The firm grew to $600,000 in revenue over the next year and then $750,000 the year after that. Tim decided to hire a salesperson to replace himself, and their firm continued to grow. The customers who had left when they discovered Tim was no longer doing the work came back because they saw that Tim’s firm was doing outstanding work and meeting deadlines.
The best part of Tim’s transition was that he was able to see all of Peter’s baseball games; and decided to take ALL Friday’s off. It was a completely different life than he had only a few years earlier. His company was doing better, and he was working half the time without the stress.
BUSINESS LESSONS LEARNED
Let me quickly summarize Tim’s dilemma. He was strapped for time and missed deadlines. It turned out that he had a few employees who weren’t doing their work because Tim didn’t trust them to do a quality job. After Tim delegated his work, he lost a few clients but then started to grow without doing all the work himself.
Tim’s story seems so obvious as we read it. Yet, this story is familiar to most business owners.
Tim’s core problem wasn’t his employees or his problem with trust. Tim’s problem was that he was so busy doing his firm’s work that he couldn’t see his firm from an objective perspective. Once he took a four-hour break to create a vision, he finally discovered the dysfunction in his current way of operating.
I find that business owners err in one of two ways. Either they plan all the time and fail to execute their plans. Or they work all the time and forget to take time to plan. Either error will kill your business.
Planners
Most planners sit in front of their computers and write plans. They use spreadsheets to make grand forecasts and can be quite analytical. In many cases, these brilliant planners can create an entire reality in their minds. As personalities go, most planners are introverts.
If you are a constant planner, I encourage you to connect with people in your business. This could be phone conversations with customers, prospective customers, or vendors. It can also be conversations with employees actively doing the work in your business.
Workers
Most workers have grown up in their profession doing the work of their industry. If you’re an engineer, you do engineering. If you’re a plumber, you do plumbing. Most workers feel that everything will be okay if they continue to work. They believe customers will pay them for their work and that payment will feed their business. In our story, Tim was a worker, and you see how he got trapped.
If you happen to be a worker, I encourage you to block out time at least once a month and possibly once weekly, where you do nothing but plan. This planning can be done by looking at your monthly or quarterly financial statements. It could be drafting an organization chart. Or, you could create an economic forecast or plan a new marketing campaign.
Conclusion
No matter what your current habit is, worker or planner, you’ll gravitate toward planning to grow your company. In business coaching, we call this “working ON your business instead of IN your business.”
This post is part of a Coach Russ story series by Jeff Schuster, a business coach with Mechanics & Mindset Business Coaching. Jeff has published several more blog posts, podcasts, and videos on business mechanics, mindset, and coaching. Please set up a complimentary coaching session with Jeff if you’d like to share your business situation and gain insight into what may help you grow your business to the next level.
