Working on the business versus working in the business

Be careful… as about 80 per cent of businesses do not sustain themselves the next year, and about 90 per cent die off in the first three or five years. Many theories have evolved to explain the fundamental criteria of business sustainability. I would today bring one such area of discussion to light with regards to women. Mostly, businesses once established, find it hard to sustain themselves. Sustainability depends on the extent of passion and involvement the owner ensures in his/her business. For women, most of the time, their business becomes their life. Hence, women tend to work more and more in their business. They give more time, more effort and more attention to every single detail of the business and eventually most of us get emotionally attached to our business.

We work as peon, as typist, as photographer, as salesman, as designer and as everything for our business. Nothing may seem to be wrong in being totally madly into the business but here we must not forget one thing. Business is not an event. Business is a continuous process that has its own graph. Every business reaches its peak and then it requires attention and restructuring or remodelling. This restructuring resurrects every business and lets it repertory the old records time and again.

While one is involved in the business, it is natural to forget how and when to work on the business. To understand this better let’s consider few things that make a workable successful business. Justine Chase, a small business startup consultant, believes that for any business to be successful it must have three things. Any business aspirant must firstly know what is the best structure that allows my business to start and run with least possible money. This may not mean at all that one has to do all the chores herself to keep the costs minimum in her business. Rather, one must know in which things “I am best at” and which things “I can outsource” (I believe for startups, it is a wise idea to outsource rather than hire people to do some related activities of business). Outsourcing reduces your liability and also accountability towards certain chores.

Secondly, self-sufficiency is ideally defined as the ability of the business to take care of its daily expenses. This is best done by keeping costs minimum, borrowings nil and shortest breakeven time. If we start small, we may not have to borrow money for our business. Once your business is able to earn and sustain itself, you will be able to think of the ways to make money out of your business. If the business has high monthly costs, you may end up only injecting more money in the business to cover the costs and hence will get trapped in the maze.

The third and most important factor that any small business must have is scalability; this is my favourite of the three requirements of a successful business. If I start small, I will earn small and it may not be worth my time and energy. My business must have scope for scaling. I have learned this from my personal experience. I had started a restaurant some years ago. I was extremely ecstatic of having owned a successful business in the UAE. But I had to close it after two-and-a-half years. The restaurant did not have the capacity to scale any further as there was no market in the vicinity to cater to more people. The only way I could have grown was multiplying my units. Now having another restaurant would mean starting a new business with new capital and new anxiety to make it work in new area. I wasn’t ready to invest more in terms of my time and energy for the returns that I was expecting from my second unit. Hence I never expanded.

a business should have a vision and ability of scaling up every few months or year, depending on the business. The right structure will lend your business self-sufficiency that leads to scalability

So to sum it up, a business should have a vision and ability of scaling up every few months or year, depending on the business. The right structure will lend your business self-sufficiency that leads to scalability. When we start with a right structure, have aspired for self-sufficiency and want to scale further, our involvement in our business becomes our priority. This is where the question of working on the business versus working in the business comes. If you are working in the business then your daily chores and activities will take most of your time and energy and there will be less time available to work on the business. Making business self-sufficient is all about working on the business to ensure right strategies, being able to look into scaling opportunities and expanding business.

Okay, so what would change if the owner started working on the business? First, she would not be the first one in and the last one out. She wouldn’t necessarily come to the store/business every day. She would be circulating in the community making contacts with other owners of small businesses getting ideas. She would seek out organisations made up of like-minded business people in her community. She would be joining associations of business owners and become a part of the community. The owner would be expanding his or her circle of associates and yes, even friends, outside the industry.