Spend Time ON Your Business So That You Can Spend Time IN Your Business

Have you ever used the phrase, “feast or famine,” when talking about your business? Solo business owners oftentimes face this issue.

You go out and build your sales funnel, Then suddenly you are so busy doing the work for the clients you closed that you no longer have time to add to the funnel. Once you finish that work, you start over and go and build your sales funnel again. That gap between finishing the work and getting your next client is stressful. Cycling through feast or famine makes running a business even harder. You cannot predict your income and, during famine time, you worry about covering your bills. The uncertainty and unpredictability adds another level of stress to an already stressful situation.
Many business coaches offer a framework for addressing this situation. They talk about working ON the business versus IN the business. IN the business means the work of the business like delivering the service for your clients. For a photographer, it means the shoot and editing. ON the business means working on tasks for running the business. For a photographer, this may mean thinking through the types of clients they want to have, the marketing for those types of clients, analyzing whether the studio rent make sense for the budget, reviewing session booking tools to determine if they would add benefit to the business, etc.

When you are not doing everything, from taking out the trash to the books to the marketing to providing your product or service to your clients, you have time to grow your business. Whether you are the primary service deliverer (attorneys, consultants, photographers, etc) or you have a team to also help (associates), you are still the primary person for growing your business to your goal size. You must be sure to dedicate sufficient time to working ON the business.

If you are and want to stay the solopreneur, delegate all other tasks that take time and energy away from delivering your service/product and growing the business:

Bookkeeping
Invoicing/paying bills
Website updates/posting your marketing material
Scheduling meetings/confirming appointments
The backend support/research for your service/product

Use that extra time to:

Work on and execute your marketing strategy
Build out the strategy and vision for your company
Nurture any relationships needed
Identify improvements to be made for your business and a plan to do so
Continuously fill your sales funnel​


If you want to grow your business to the point where you are running the business and have associates working with clients, also consider:

Structure the roles so the clients are not always coming directly to you
Delegate ALL of the tasks listed above with your guidance and vision

Regardless of your exact business structure, it is imperative to not only be in your business but you must also spend time on your business. By delegating administrative tasks or creating systems and workflows, you will improve how your business runs. Therefore when you are in the business, there will not be as many bumps on the road because you spent time on the business.