Can Your Business Work Without You?

As part of your succession planning, ensuring your business can operate and succeed without you involved in the day-to-day activity is essential. This allows for better work/life balance whilst also proving to potential buyers that the business can easily be transferred from owner to owner, without disrupting operations and profitability thereby ensuring that the goodwill being sold is not totally dependent on the owner only.

So… How do you create a business that works without you? It involves specific measures put in place to ensure you are no longer required at a fulltime capacity. Of course, it’s worth noting that unless you employ a manager of sorts to fulfil your duties, there will always be work to be done on your behalf. However, the goal is to reduce the amount that your business relies on you and only you. Making it more attractive to potential buyers.

• Switch from manual to automated methods

Whether it is email and text communications with your customers, financial tracking, or measuring KPI’s; Find ways to implement automated systems to free up your time, improve efficiency and speed up your processes.

• Employ a skilled team with specific responsibilities

Evaluate your current team and their specific job functions. Tweak their job roles as necessary to ensure that all areas of the business are being serviced both efficiently and clearly. Allowing your staff to clearly understand their role is key. A way to plan for potential disruption is to ensure that all jobs can be done by at least one other staff member. This will allow operations to continue if one team member falls ill or goes on leave and thereby reduce any perceived risks.

• Upskill your staff

As a business owner, it is sometimes difficult to let go of certain tasks and responsibilities if you feel you do a better job than your staff. The answer to this is to upskill your staff so they are well equipped with the knowledge and skills to perform the task in question sufficiently. This will also give you peace of mind, knowing that tasks are being handled professionally and meticulously. A successful manager is one who surrounds him/herself with people who are smarter than them in specific functions. Such as IT, marketing, sales and financials.

• Outsourcing

Related to the point above, if there is a task that cannot be performed by your team, due to time constraints or a gap in knowledge, outsourcing may be the answer. Whether it’s bookkeeping, social media management, marketing or another area of expertise, find someone who can dedicate time to this task to ensure it is performed well, leaving your staff to focus on their roles in the process.

If you’d like to discuss your options and chat through your business succession plan, contact Core Business Brokers today, on (02) 9413 2977, or email Roy on [email protected]. Selling your business is a journey best undertaken with careful and considerate planning. Let us assist you today.