MBA2447 Q&A Wednesday: How do I take time off from my business without everything breaking down?

0:09Heyo, welcome to the$100 MBA show, the business podcast that's always got your back with our practical business lessons. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zinhome. And today's episode is Q &A Wednesday, where we answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you've got a question you want to ask, go ahead and email me over at omar at 100mba.net. Today's question is from Clark, and Clark asks, how do I take time off from my business without everything breaking down? Thanks for your advice, Clark. I want to start by saying that this is a very common question, and it's a good question because a lot of people are suffering from this issue.

0:45They feel like they're very integral to the business running smoothly. And if they take time off, things will suffer. They'll lose money. They'll lose customers. It'll be more work than it's worth. And maybe they won't even enjoy the break because they're worrying so much that the business is going south. This is especially a issue if you're in the first few years of business, first three years, I would say, because in the beginning, you are doing everything yourself and slowly you start working with a team and other people on your staff, and you're still very much involved in the day-to-day. So in today's lesson, I'm going to break down a step-by-step plan to be able to take time off from your business and not worry that things are not going to go right and not worry that the business is not going to actually function the way it should.

1:31I'm going to share with you exactly how I started to do this in my first few years in business so I can recharge my batteries and take a break. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. About three years into running Webinar Ninja, the software company that I built and sold recently, I was dying for a break. Nicole, my business partner and partner in life, was dying for a break. And I said it in passing to another entrepreneurial friend of mine. I said, man, I really need a break. I'm burnt out, but I just can't afford it. I just can't leave the business because it needs me. And this friend of mine told me, that's a problem.

2:07And I said, yeah, it is a problem. And I kind of just thought, yeah, he's just sympathizing with me. But he was like, no, no, that's a problem in your business. You should be able to leave your business. This is broken. You need to fix this problem because you don't have a business, you have a job. And that hit me like a ton of bricks. I was like, oh boy, I really needed to hear that because essentially I built myself a job. I was self employed, quote unquote. And even though I had a team of people helping me build Webinar Ninja, I was shackled to it. I couldn't leave it. And in that moment, I decided I need to fix this problem.

2:41I need to be able to step away from the business, at least for a few days to a week, to recharge my batteries and come back and not really worry that things are going to go south or break down. And not only worry that's going to happen, I don't want it to happen. I don't want it to actually happen in the business. So I'm going to share with you what really works. So the first thing is that you actually have to change your mindset first, because this doesn't work if you don't believe it will work. OK, and that was that moment for me where I realized I have to change this. This is wrong. Right. So the first thing you have to do is you have to realize that your business is broken.

3:15Your model is broken. If you can't step away for a week without worrying or without anything going wrong in your business that can't be fixed by somebody else. Listen, a week is not a long time. A week, even if there's a problem that only you can solve, it could be something that can get remedied in a week. People can wait. I know that sounds really nerve-wracking just hearing that, but your health and your mental stability is the backbone of the success of your business. Let me say that again. Your health and your mental stability is the backbone of the success of your business. if that goes wrong.

3:53If you are not healthy in those areas, if you don't recharge those batteries, your business will break down. Not the other way around. You see how this mindset stuff is important? You can't think that if I go and take a break, the business will break down. No, if you don't take a break, your business will break down because you will make poor decisions when you're burnt out. You'll make mistakes. You'll not be a great leader. You're not going to be creative and innovative and stay competitive in the marketplace. That's just not going to happen if you are tired, if you're fatigued. So the first thing is I had to really believe that I need to make a change.

4:25So therefore, a change can happen. Second, every business has some sort of downtime in their market. And they also have a busy time. If you sell toys, then Christmas time is a very busy time for you. But maybe February is not really a busy time for you if you're a toy store. Or maybe it's certain days in the week. Maybe it's a certain holiday. For sure, there's going to be a couple days in the week where it's slower than the rest of the week. For example, the corner pizza restaurant near my house, it's closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Why Mondays and Tuesdays? Because it's the slowest days of the week.

4:55No one really eats out those days in our community. So they take off those days. So take a look at when is the slowest time in your business in the year, as well as during a week or a given time during a month. Why? Because you can bridge off those days off that time. So say, for example, for you, it's the least busy on Saturdays and Sundays. and Monday is the third slowest time for your business or slowest day. So you have three days here in a row. Maybe there's a holiday on a Friday that you can bridge and just take one day off, which is Thursday, and have five days straight. That's almost a week.

5:34That's pretty good. And if you leave wherever you go to recharge on Thursday afternoon or evening, you kind of get five, almost six days off almost a week. This is just your first time doing this because I know this is going to be nerve wracking, first time going away, first time kind of stepping away from your business, do it this way. So you know that there's a holiday, no one's going to really be needing you. There's the weekend, it's slow, Monday's slow usually. You come back on Tuesday, you're going to be back at it. Believe it or not, those five to six days are really going to make a difference if you do this right.

6:07Next, your biggest worry about going away is that if there's a problem, you're going to need to fix it or need to attend to it. So what you need to do is before you leave, you need to assign somebody to basically have the keys to the castle, be the manager while you're gone, make decisions while you're gone, or at least be the person that you speak to while you're gone. Okay. So this is what I do. I actually assign somebody say, Hey, this person is the person in charge while we're gone. Usually somebody who's senior in the business. And I tell this person, Hey, you can contact me via email or via WhatsApp or via phone.

6:40I like to just choose one method so I could just choose one area. So I could say like, just contact me on WhatsApp. If there's an issue, if there's an emergency. Now, the other thing I did in the beginning was I just said, give me an update every day, every day I'm gone at this time, just send me a message and tell me, you know, everything's good. Or there's something that needs resolving, but it could wait or whatever it is, but there's just give me a daily update. So I can be like, okay, every 24 hours, feel like everything's going fine. I'm fine. I can enjoy myself. And this is what we did after So that three year stint with no breaks, Nicole and I went to Costa Rica and we just went for six days, really.

7:14But it really recharges batteries and we got reports every day at nine o 'clock in the morning. And it was like, wow, everything is fine. Everything's OK. And it was really relaxing because I could relax knowing the business is fine. Nowadays, when I go away and I want to take a break, I want to shut off. I tell that person that's in charge, hey, if the aliens take over, then give me a call. Meaning only if there's an emergency, give me a call and let me know. So if I don't get a call, everything's going fine. I'm happy. They're happy. Everything's okay.

7:46Next, expectations and batching. So before you leave, you want to do what's called a away from desk or vacation mode on your email. So anybody sends you an email, they know that you're not available right now. So this is very easily done in settings in Google email, where you could just send an automatic reply to any emails that you get. They say, hey, I'm away from the office or I'm occupied or whatever message you want to say, I'll be back on this date to reply to any emails. If this is an emergency, if you need urgent help, speak to so-and-so who's the person that's in charge in your business while you're gone.

8:19And you just set it up from this date to this date, whatever dates are going to be away. And that way, everybody who gets that reply when they send you an email, they have an expectation that, okay, you're not going to reply right away. Life is all about expectations. If you set expectations, they won't get upset if you reply next week or in a few days. And remember, you are doing this during a slow time, during the weekend. You're not going to get many people that are looking for a reply. Also, you're giving them a way to contact somebody just in case this is an urgent matter. The next thing is batching.

8:49And batching is one of the best things ever invented in business, which means you're going to do all the work in advance in batches so that when you come back from your break, you don't feel like you have a lot to catch up on and there's so much work to do and I wish I didn't go away and all that kind of stuff. So most work can be batched, whether it's emails, whether it's writing copy, whether it's recording podcast episodes like this or videos, whether it's posting on social media, that can be scheduled. And basically it means before you go, you do all that work and you schedule it out while you're gone.

9:23Now you don't have to do it yourself. You can get someone on your team to help you with that. And there's a lot of great tools, software for that. Buffer does great social media scheduling, the Edgar. There's a whole bunch of tools out there that do it. Most email software, email marketing softwares allow you to schedule broadcasts so you can just schedule your emails out so you don't have to write it that day. You can schedule podcast episodes and videos on YouTube. So a lot of stuff you could do the work in advance, kind of front load it so that when you get on your plane or you get in your car to go on holiday, all the work is done for the days that you're gone.

9:54And even then sometimes I could to do is a little bit more than when I'm gone. So when I come back and I'm kind of getting back into work, I'm not burdened with the work I normally do. Now, when you're gone, I do this. I always bring my laptop. I always bring my mic because I do a podcast and sometimes I need to do an insert, a fix, a last minute read for a sponsor, whatever it might be. I always bring my essential tools with me. Now, do I use them? Most likely I don't. Sometimes I don't use my laptop when I'm on holiday. I just took a break for a few days and I didn't open my laptop at all, but I like to have it with me just in case.

10:30Why? Because it gives me peace of mind. I know that if there is an emergency that I need to fix, it might take me five or 10 minutes or maybe an hour. I can get it done quickly, even if it's needed. Now, if it's not an emergency, I could wait. I usually wait until I get back, but there's something about having the tools you need just in case there is an emergency. It's like having a spare tire in the back of the car, just in case you of a flat, it's there. A lot of people, they make the mistake and they say, I'm not going to take my laptop. I'm not going to take anything. That way I won't work.

10:58That way I won't be forced to do anything. You've got to have a little bit more self-discipline than that. I bring my laptop. I bring my tools. I don't work just because it's there, but it's there just in case. It's an insurance policy and it allows me to relax better. It allows me to relax and know that, hey, if something happens, I'm prepared. I'm ready. I can help. This was especially important when I was running webinar ninja, the software company, because sometimes I would have to go in and fix something on the website or do something or make a decision or jump on a call real quick with my team to decide on a way forward with a fix to a bug or something like that.

11:32And when that did happen, when I was away, when I was on break, it was a quick thing. It was a five minute, 10 minute type of conversation. I was done. My laptop was closed and I was back to relaxing. Now, my last piece of advice on this topic is training. You need to start training your team to start doing everything that you think only you can do, okay? Believe it or not, you are not special, okay? Believe it or not, anything can be trained. You can teach anybody to do anything. For the most part, all the tasks that you do, they can do. So start forming out these tasks. Start documenting how you do anything.

12:07Even if you just do it by video and then you get somebody or team to document on a document, taking that video and making it into a standard operating procedure, an SOP document, That is gold. It's going to seem tedious. It's going to seem hard work, but it's worth gold. I'll tell you why. There's a few reasons. The first reason is your business now has an instruction manual, right? Anytime it has any questions, they can go to the instruction manual. They can go and see how anything is done, how to do anything. There's an emergency and they've never done it before. Go to the instruction manual step by step.

12:37They could do it and emergency avoided or catastrophe avoided. Easy, right? But that's only because the instructions were there. If there's no procedures documented, it's very hard to do. You're going to have to step in. You're going to always say, oh, I'll just do it rather than tell somebody else to do or show somebody else to do it in the moment while you're away. You're going to be frustrated. Like I could be faster if I do it myself. No, no, no, no, no. Have everything documented. And this is something that happens over time. You don't have to have everything documented before you leave on your next holiday.

13:07But my point is, is that you can start documenting so that you start building this library over the years. And it's not only the things that you do, but the things that other people do in their jobs as well. So everybody can technically look into the manual and do somebody else's job or task. Second thing is that by having this manual, having all these procedures, it adds an incredible amount of value to your business. When one day you want to sell your business, this is gold. I know because I sold webinar ninja. and when we have everything documented, we have everything recorded, everything set to go, it made the acquirer, ProProfs, super happy that everything was organized and easy to pick up and follow and it made the sale easier for them, easier for us.

13:51So it adds a lot of value to your business. Thirdly, everybody who joins your business is now going to work there until they die, right? They might leave, right? And you need to replace them and that replacement is gonna have to learn how to do something. And if everything is documented, It's going to be easy for them to be trained up and to get up to speed quickly. Well, there you have it, guys. I hope that answered your question, Clark. And I encourage you to set a date in your calendar right now to take your next break. Even if it's just a long weekend, three, four days, and you implement these practices and these strategies I shared with you today, see it as an experiment.

14:23Go for your little break. Recharge your batteries. Come back a couple months later. Extend it a little bit more. Go five, six days. Go a week. Next time around, go two weeks. You get the point. here is the chance for you to do it, but put it on the calendar so it happens. If you want to get really bold, book a ticket, book a flight so that you have to go on that holiday. If you've got a question you want to ask here on Q &A Wednesday, just go ahead and email me over at omar at 100mba.net. Or if you just have a struggle you're having, send me an email. I actually reply to all the emails that I get personally.

14:58It takes me a bit of time, so have patience with me, but I like to reply to email. I like to be in contact with our listeners and be in contact with you, my people, people that are working hard, dreaming big, and are willing to fight for their dreams. So go ahead and send me an email if you need some help. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Remember, business, this whole idea of building a business, being an entrepreneur, is a vehicle. It's a means. It's supposed to work for you, not the other way around. You build a business so it works for you. So it's an asset that runs on its own with its team so that it earns you an income, earns you revenue, and earns back your time.

15:35You have to have your own time again. You're not trading time for money anymore. That's a job. You're trading value for money. You create value by creating a great team that provides that value to others. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll check you in the next episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

15:55Thank you.