Build a Business You Love summary

All business owners start here: at the Treadmill Operator stage. Maybe you’re there now; maybe you were a year ago. No matter what, you’re inevitably familiar with the stage of running a business where everything depends on you. You’re keeping the revenue coming in, you’re putting out the fires. If you stop, everything stops.

Dave remembers this phase well. Early on, his days were packed from dawn till late night. He’d wake up before sunrise to read the Bible and drink his coffee, head to work at 7:30, then put out fires all day till it was time for the radio show. Then he’d rush to the shower, set up for the finance classes, teach the classes, then counsel people afterward who needed help. 

Dave loved the work – but he was completely exhausted. And his business couldn’t grow because he was too busy with the day-to-day. Sound familiar? If so, you’re probably on the treadmill.

So how do you get off? Well, first, you’ve got to get to a place where your business can run without you being in the room. In other words, you get people, products, or processes that generate revenue without your direct involvement. Four key skills can help get you there: time management, delegation, budgeting, and hiring.

Let’s start with time management. The first thing to ask yourself here is whether you’re using your time effectively. If you’re always putting out fires, you’re not moving your business forward. A time audit can help reveal where you may be wasting hours. So, for one week, set a timer for every thirty minutes and jot down what you’ve done in the previous half-hour. Then, analyze your notes to discover what you’re actually spending time on and how you can be more effective.

This will inevitably reveal some tasks which are ripe for delegation. As a leader, you must delegate. That doesn’t mean pushing your responsibilities onto someone else. It means telling someone what needs to be done, why it’s important, and how much time you expect them to spend on it. This frees your time up so you can focus on the things only you can do. 

This detail-oriented approach also applies to your budget. If you’re not hyper-aware of your income and expenses, you won’t know whether you can afford to hire help. And if you can’t afford help, you need to focus on increasing revenue until you can. 

That’s because hiring the right people is what ultimately gets you off the treadmill. Emphasis on the right people – because a bad hire is worse than no hire. So, slow down. Get referrals from your current team members; award them cash rewards if their referrals turn into hires. Use testing tools to see whether your candidates really have the right skills. And for bigger positions, do yourself a favor and make the final interview a dinner with the candidate and their spouse. The spouse will often eagerly share things about their partner you might not otherwise have learned. Plus, you’ll find out whether the candidate is married to someone unpleasant. If they are, think twice about that hire.

Put in the work to master your time, work on budgeting, hiring, and delegating. If you do that, you get yourself off the treadmill – and into a place where most of the results don’t rely on you alone.