Hey, y’all! Brent Perry with Business on Purpose.

A couple of definitions for the word margin according to Merriam-Webster, 

“a bare minimum below which or an extreme limit beyond which something becomes impossible or is no longer desirable”

“the limit below which economic activity cannot be continued under normal conditions”

“the difference which exists between net sales and the cost of merchandise sold and from which expenses are usually met or profit derived”

As a business owner, you are probably well aware of the margin in which you run your business. You look at cash flows and profit and loss statements. We even have some tools specifically for some of our clients at Business on Purpose that calculate exact margin ratios for each job being bid or finished. 

But that’s not the margin I want to talk about today. There is another definition in Merriam-Webster for margin, 

“to provide with an edging or border”

“to provide with an edging or border”

If you want to see your business Flourish in 2022, you have to be willing to draw some borders for things that matter in your business. Your weekly schedule, your people, time to work on your business, not just working in your business. 

This is Building Margin in Your Business that I want to talk about today.

I was working with one of our clients a few weeks back who started a non-profit organization that has really taken off in the last year. She has a full-time job at a university teaching business ethics, while she also sits as the Executive Director and on the Board of Directors of this non-profit.

We started talking about her weekly schedule and the balance of her roles and responsibilities during our coaching time together. As you can imagine she feels, as most of y’all do too, there is just not enough time in the day to get everything done. 8 pm the night before she had gotten the kids ready for bed, was about to jump on a zoom call for a PTA meeting for her kids' school, still had papers to grade, and work on a board of directors meeting coming up…this is what a long night looks like when running a business.

The bad news is that we can’t get you more time in the day…the hours are set. The days and weeks and months will continue to fly by. BUT we can help set boundaries in the day to day that will allow space for taking care of the things in your business that are potentially being neglected or glossed over.

You have to own your schedule! 

You have to make time for team meetings or they are not just going to happen. 

You have to set aside time for onboarding a new team member.

You have to create margin in your day to bid on projects, or prospecting, or cold calling…keeping your pipeline full. 

These are just a few examples that may relate to your specific business, but chances are you already have in mind the tasks that need to have space to be completed, but so often they get pushed to the next day or the next week.

Own your schedule.

Wherever you are listening or watching right now, do me a favor. Get your calendar out and start adding some time in your week. Protected time that cannot be moved. Treat these times as if it’s lunch with your best client…somebody calls to get on your schedule it can’t be moved. Just like you wouldn’t cancel that lunch, you cannot cancel on yourself. 

Let’s make the time to work on your business. Let’s make the time to care for your people. Let’s make the time to learn and grow and equip yourself as the leaders in your business. 

Thanks for listening. 

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