589: When's the right time to work on your business?

I’ve sat down with a few businesses recently for introductions and after chatting for 30 min or so, they have each said something along the lines of, “man this sounds awesome! I’d love to get through this busy summer and start up with y’all in the fall.” That’s great, so what’s going to be different in the fall? If you can’t make the time right now, what happens in the fall where things magically slow down? So, this raises the question…”When is the right time to work on your business?” That conversation has probably happened 25 times. And I’m being more direct than I probably would be with them, but the truth is right there. Nothing changes in the future. Life doesn’t magically slow down and give you this green light to finally work on your business. At least not with any of the businesses we work with. It’s fought for and scheduled and followed religiously until it becomes ingrained into the fabric of your business. You know, just like I do, that your business doesn’t care if you have a vacation planned or were hoping for a date night with your spouse. Nope…it slings chaos at you just as frequently as the sun rises in the east every morning.  So…how do we find the time to make all this work? Because what we ask Business on Purpose clients to work through is DEFINITELY work! In fact, we ask for 2-3 hours a week of “work on your business time” every single week. There are ones that limp along for a bit, and then there’s one where it looks like they are in the fast and the furious movies as they just fly through our roadmap and see change in just a few short months. So what’s the difference between the two? Well, we asked our clients that question. And here were their top 3 answers. 1. Schedule time every week and don’t allow anything to invade that time. I know it seems overly simple, but putting it on your schedule every week, letting your team know that you’re diving into work that ONLY you, the business owner, can do, is a game changer. Then shutting out email, texts, calls, interruptions of any kind so that you protect that time and can do valuable deep work! That’s what moves the needle. 2. Stop making excuses for why you can’t find the time.  This may come across as harsh and it’s not meant to. I’m guilty of this, too, as we all love excuses! I’m too tired, we were gone all weekend, my kids are too young, my kids are about to leave the nest and we don’t have much time left with them, I have too much work right now, I don’t have enough work right now, we have the wrong employees, we just aren’t ready yet…trust me we’ve heard them all!  What we heard from our clients is that the day we stop making excuses is the first step towards freedom from the chaos. Because you take charge of owning your business and start moving the right direction. There’s no way to get rid of legitimate excuses, but you can stop them from preventing you from moving forward. 3. Follow the plan. Early on in coaching, most people fight certain things we tell them. Whether it’s team meetings that they’ve tried and failed at before, or opening up multiple bank accounts, or delegating responsibility for things to employees that you don’t know quite how it will turn out. And yet we have taken hundreds of businesses through our Roadmap and everyone that has committed to all of it. Not a la carte pieces of it, but the system as a whole has come out the other side free from the chaos.  But it takes trust and commitment. Each of them, looking back, wished they had stopped fighting it and gone with it, trusting the plan. Now, hindsight is 20/20. We all look back and wish we had done things differently, but once people commit to the plan and gain momentum there’s no looking back. So…what changes for you this fall, or in 2023? What’s holding you back from working on your business this week, today…shoot right now!?! If you ever expect anything to change you have to schedule the time, stop making excuses, and follow the plan. And as always, we’re here to help! It’s what we do best…liberating business owner’s from chaos. A plan to walk alongside you the whole way! If you’d like to see how your business stacks up on the things that we value, take a few minutes to take our healthy business owner assessment at boproadmap.com/healthy. Hope we can touch base soon!