Ep 487 | Are You Working On or In Your Business - A Slightly Different Take

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Today I want to talk about the concept of working on your business versus working in your business. Now, this is not a new concept at all. If anybody has ever been in business before and had some conversation with a coach or a mentor or a mastermind, odds are this subject has come up where you feel as a business owner, man, I am so in the trenches and I need to pull myself back and work on the business. It's almost cliché. Keith Cunningham, who wrote one of my most favorite books ever, The Road Less Stupid, has a whole chapter dedicated to this concept of working on versus working in. But Keith has a slightly different take on this on versus in concept. Keith asks a great question at the start of the chapter. He says, when is the last time you were introduced to someone and they asked what business you were on. When was the last time you were introduced to somebody and they asked you, what business are you on? It's never happened because it would sound ridiculous. Instead, people don't walk around saying, I'm on the real estate business, I'm on the real estate industry. They say, I'm in the real estate business, or I'm in the real estate industry. People don't say they're on relationships either. They say they're in relationships. Keith says that, and he's right, I agree with him, that there's this toxic idea that if you own, say, an automobile garage and you're the person who's actually changing the oil, aligning the tires, replacing the spark plugs, and you're in the business. There's this toxic idea that being in your business makes you either inferior or a loser or both. And what Keith goes on to say is, that's absurd. That is absurd. It's true that most small business owners don't spend enough time performing ownership duties. It's, it's true that most small business owners spend too much time operating their business by doing the oil changes, by, by struggling, by being tired, by grinding, by being disappointed. And what Keith ultimately concludes is that the problem's not that small business owners are in their business, Rather, the problem is that they've not learned the critical business skills required to shift from operator to owner. They haven't learned how to prioritize. They haven't learned how to allocate resources. They haven't learned how to hire and delegate and leverage and create culture and read financial statements, create processes, build structure. Install dashboards, create accountability, analyze critical drivers. It's not that these operators don't want to do these things. It's just that they've never been taught how. And so, this change from operator to owner, or as Keith would say, you know, in to on, it's never a smooth one. And that's because it's a lengthy transition. It's not an event. It requires lots of things, lots of things we talk about here at No Days Off. It requires a commitment to learning. It requires a commitment to being a student. It requires a coach or a mentor or a mastermind or an advisor. Trial and error is not going to be the recipe here. Keith concludes this argument by saying business skills are the foundation for business success and create value that far outweighs the value created by changing the oil in this particular example. But all of this stuff has to be learned. When you analyze the wealthiest people in the— on the planet, the wealthiest business owners on the planet, what you'll find, and this might be a surprise to many of you, is that 80 or 90% of the, of the top 10 are all still very much in their businesses. Yes, Michael Dell, for instance, is not still assembling computers, or Phil Knight isn't still, you know, selling tennis shoes himself, but these guys are still in their businesses. They've just got a different job title now, right? Their level of involvement is a little bit, uh, is different, than it once was, but not different in the sense of the effort or the involvement, just it's been channeled a little different. These guys care just as deeply as they ever have. They continue to provide guidance and oversight and wisdom based on, you know, all the experience they've accumulated. They're very much engaged. They are very much involved. And that's what happens when you own a business. So I love Keith's take on on versus in because he's absolutely right. There's this negative connotation for some reason that comes with, you know, when you're in the business, when you're the one changing the oil. But that's the way most businesses operate. And the only reason people aren't becoming more, more like owners is because of their maybe unwillingness or inability or lack of desire to learn critical business skills that would help them transition over the course of time from being the guy changing the oil to being the one that's analyzing the financial statements. So it's a real interesting, uh, thing to think around, in my opinion, because the problem that I'm seeing is that so many of us are trapped in the business. So many of us are consumed by daily operations, solving problems, managing employees, employees, handling urgent issues. And this stuff is necessary at times, but it creates a cycle where the business begins to really depend on you to function. And Cunningham's point, Keith Cunningham's point here is, if you're always in the business, you're not designing the future of it. So, we have to make this shift to working on the business. Working on the business means focusing on the strategy and the systems and the sustainability. Now, you are still deeply engaged. You're just focusing on a different component of the business. So, maybe you're designing repeatable processes so the business runs without your constant oversight, or maybe you're building your leadership team. So it can operate, the business can operate without you micromanaging. Or maybe you're thinking 6 to 12 months ahead rather than just reacting to daily fires. These are great examples of on the business, but they take just as much effort and energy as being in and being the one that's changing the tires. Now, when you fully step out of a business, if that's what you desire, let's be very clear around what that is and what it isn't. When you fully step out of a business, you're becoming just an investor in that business. Some owners try to remove themselves entirely and it makes them passive. And that passive behavior is, is that of a, of an investor, because businesses still need leadership vision even if the owner isn't in the day-to-day. So I think the sweet spot is maybe moving from operator, you know, being in the trenches, to being a strategist. You know, one that's an owner but focused heavily on strategy. So, you're not just an absentee owner. So, how do you go about applying this in your world or making sure that this transition from in to on is proper and it's being done in accordance with these principles that Keith Cunningham teaches? I want you to take some time today and I want you to think about where you're spending most of your time in your business, right? Like, look at your calendar. Where are you spending most of your time? Now, what would break in your business if you took a week off? What would break if you took a week off or maybe 2 weeks or 3 weeks? What would break? Now, once you've identified what would break if you disappeared for a little while, what systems do you actually need to be built in order to fix that. See, what I want you to do is start to think a little bit more like an owner and a little less as an operator, and just take small steps. I want you to make a small shift, whether that's delegating a task or setting aside some time for strategic planning. I want you to just take a step towards working, working on the business in the way that we're describing it here. And not being the one that everything is revolving around. One of my favorite concepts of Keith Cunningham's, I'm gonna, and I'm gonna wind down with this, is that he talks quite a bit about how your business should really be a machine. It shouldn't be a job, it should be a machine. So, the goal isn't just to escape per se, it's to build something that runs with you And also, and ultimately, if you so choose, without you. But you've got to create a business that's a machine and not just a job. Now, there's a process to getting there. You work in and then you build your skills to begin to work on, as we defined it here today. And then over the course of the time, of time, as you continue to succeed and you buy back some more time and you increase leverage and you find more talented people and you go through all of those things that you know, someone that's transitioning from operator to owner ultimately has to do, what ends up happening is you build the business that you've always desired and you're not trapped by it. That's all I have for you today in the No Days Off podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.