I've been on a path to reclaim my time after many years of long hours. This is a desirable entrepreneurial goal, although in my trade, it's frowned upon. Small business requires passion, connection with the community, intense degrees of product knowledge, and an always-on mentality of monitoring social media and responding to customers. Signs of disconnecting, signs of financial progress, are looked down upon by both customers and industry peers. Well, let them watch.
Step one is deciding it's your money or your life, and you no longer care what other people think. This is not to say you let things slip, disengage, become unresponsive, but you simply value your time away from the business and take steps to maximize that time. This huge psychological barrier, keeping you chained to the business, is often self imposed.
The analogy I like to use is the circus elephant. The baby elephant has a small chain attached to its leg and it learns quickly it can't escape the chain as it pulls against it. As the elephant becomes an adult, it could easily pull up the stake that chain is attached to, but it learned as a baby it couldn't get away. That's what it can be like working in your small business. You can't get away, because you've conditioned yourself to this previous truth, after many years of long hours.
At a certain point in growth, it's entirely possible to simply not work a part of the business you don't like, or take a job your can do from home. My manager had to fire me from the counter in year nine. I was burned out, surly, and didn't belong as the front man of the business. Many people would have quit in this position. I had the luxury of choice, with the chain off my leg. I wonder how many years I worked the counter with that chain?
Step two is developing processes, procedures and most importantly, the culture that allows you not to be there all the time. Policies and procedures are necessary for operational survival with a qualified manager, while the culture is the strategy that leads to more or better processes and procedures. Having a moral compass, understanding employees come first, that profitability is important, that everyone who walks through the door deserves respect, prevents many problems that lead to phone calls in the middle of the night. A solid culture means sometimes staff push back on you, because we don't do things like that here. Culture is not top down, culture is a promise we make to each other.
Step three is figuring out what work, if any, you should continue doing. I spent a couple months traveling six years ago, while the entire store was delegated to a manager. The store did not fail, but it was essentially in a holding pattern. I've been to stores where the manager has left and a new one hasn't been hired yet, and it's like a zombie circus, where employees just keep doing the same things each day, although they've become stale and ineffective. I've been doing this long enough that I can recognize the signs of the undead. A store is a dynamic environment and requires dynamic management. It's unlikely you will get that for long by entirely delegating the business.
My next foray into remote management came four years ago after COVID. I had completely taken back the store as the sole employee for a time, and I identified key elements of the business that drove growth, but also jobs I wanted to do. I wouldn't have understood this without a complete shut down and ramp up.
Buying product was 10% of my job while I worked at the store, a necessary nuisance that interrupted my time with customers. When I took that 10% of my job home, it exploded into a full work week. Thankfully I had new money in the business to support this expansion, which resulted in about a half a million dollars a year of permanent sales growth. I began to enjoy buying, and although I know how I could be better at it if I were there, it seemed to be the key to successful remote management. I could grow the store remotely as a buyer. The down side is it ended up expanding into a pretty normal work week, albeit one that could be time shifted. If you can't make time, at least shift time.
Step four is similar to what one encounters when contemplating retirement. You might have millions of dollars in the bank, as some of my retirement age friends do, but you need something to retire to, not retire from. Without the direction of your next step, you will be like the adult elephant with a little chain on its leg. The same is true when you begin sculpting out time from your small business. If you don't have something you want to do with that time, you will either keep on trucking at the counter, or simply sit around lonely at home. For the vast number of my peers in the hobby game trade, they would honestly rather be at work. Sometimes I would too!
I have a dream of long term travel. Last year I spent four months on the road in my RV with my son. We traveled and lived throughout Central Mexico, exploring 31 Pueblos Magicos, or magical towns (there are over 150). We had adventures, immersed ourselves in the culture, had various hardships and enjoyed an amazing trip with plans for future trips in coming years. The business coincidentally experienced an enormous bubble during this time, making it appear like I must be some sort of financial genius.
On our way back, the bubble burst and there was a realization I was probably a few years out from having the funds to take a trip like that again. It was more expensive than we budgeted, and the business return to normal required a steady hand back on the wheel. From a buyer perspective, we had to analyze and re-imagine some of what we were doing. This year I've lived on half the money I spent last year. Which brings me to another point.
Step Five, which could be in a different order, is deciding what's enough. At a certain point in your life, you may realize debt is the promise of future work. I would like a bigger house in a nicer area, but I don't want to work any harder for it. I would like to renovate my house, but I don't want to work any harder for that. You might want a new car, but are you willing to work harder, put in longer hours or more years working? If you're going to work harder and longer anyway, you can find yourself in a debt trap. I am at the stage where I have enough, granted, I have an expensive RV with payments and fees, but that was part of my escape plan. Anything new in my life needs to be paid with cash, because I don't want to work any more than I do now.
This year I'm on the beach, to use a consulting term. I am taking a year off from travel. I am attempting not to promise myself future work by engaging in new schemes involving debt. Next year I hope to take a trip for two or three months, but it's honestly fifty-fifty whether that will happen.
Step Six, which also could be in a different order, is understanding the limitations of delegation. Anyone who manages people understands the job won't be done exactly as you like. In the case of small business, it's also likely you will be the driver of innovation. If you're not willing to come in and innovate, it's likely you'll know precisely what needs to get done, but it simply won't ever happen. Remote working means you come in and do the innovation yourself, if that's what you want to happen, or accept you don't have the people on staff to make those projects happen.
This is where the absurd degree of small business expectations is compromised by your personal goals. You will not have the best business you could imagine and you will have to live with that compromise. You might know the answers to all the questions, but you'll leave the solutions unimplemented in your environment. So because of this, we don't talk about the topic of disengagement. Best practices are often designed for survival and profitability, not personal happiness. Work-life balance is a term used by employees, not owners. Step six is re-defining what success looks like. Step six is a necessary compromise. Success, in this model, is owning your time completely. I have wealthy friends who are envious I've managed this. It doesn't come without sacrifice. But you might decide to make that sacrifice when you realize what you have is enough.
