Systems Archives - Kleriti Business Solutions

To Automate or Not to Automate? That is the Question!

by Sarah Krivel | Jun 19, 2019 | Accountability, Goals, Operations, Personal Productivity, Priorities, Processes, Systems, Time

The idea of automating just about any task is an attractive one. You can save time, sometimes hours a day, for you and multiple members of your team.

But then, in the face of changing a routine, finding an automation tool and setting up a new system, you have to ask: is it worth it?

Knowing whether a task is worth automating first requires taking a look at the total time, energy and trouble going into completing it the way it’s done today. From there, you can explore what tools are available to address concerns.

I’m going to break down these three major factors so you can apply them to whatever tasks you’re thinking about automating. Any one of these alone can make it clear that it’s time to automate a process. If you aren’t compelled by one factor, look at the sum of all three. And if you still aren’t sure, apply the questions I’ve listed at the bottom of this article to fully assess your path forward.

Factor One: Total Time

This factor is easy to assess since is quantifiable. For any task you do on a regular basis, there’s usually an opportunity to automate all or part of it, especially since these tasks are almost always repetitive.

For anyone who owns a business, the more tasks you have that require daily or weekly attention, the harder it is to take that vacation you deserve or step back from the daily grind.

My two cents is that any task you’re doing daily can probably be automated to cut the time it takes in half, or eliminate the need for a daily recurrence all together. I’d say the same for many weekly tasks, too.

Here’s a table you can use when assessing how much time you’re really spending on a regular task. Look at the time you could save after migrating that task to an automated solution. Not every task will have an obvious automation solution, and many will depend on other factors like what software is easily available. At the very least this can start to put daily and weekly tasks into perspective of the total time invested.

Table to see how much time you really spend on a repetitive or regular task

Start by jotting down how much time you spend doing regular and repetitive tasks. Especially those that are stressful when you’re out of the office. Better yet, keep a time log for all of your regular tasks to identify room for automation. You might not even realize how many times you’ve performed a single task until you look back over the course of the month.

Expert tip: This concept is so important that it’s discussed in greater depth in the first module of our new online course, DuplicateU: Lay The Foundation. To get additional guidance on this step and what it can mean to you and your business, learn more about DuplicateU here.

Factor Two: Energy

This is where we get into the more open-ended assessments. The energy you spend doing a regular or repetitive task should be a major consideration when looking at automations—after all, you have a lot of responsibilities requiring energy throughout the day. And energy is a finite resource that must be managed with intentionality. If any recurring task is taking energy away from important business functions like strategy and planning, marketing and sales, or financial oversight, it might be worth looking at another solution.

A task can take little time and still be exhaustive mentally/emotionally. Take financial management tasks, for example. One question I answered recently is whether it’s time to upgrade from a bookkeeper to a CFO. If it’s not time to take that step yet, and you’re trying to do away with a few regular data entry tasks, a simple spreadsheet automation might save you energy spent entering sensitive information and validating data fields.

If you’re not sure how much energy a task really requires, ask yourself how you feel after the task is done. Are you able to jump right into something else, or do you need time to “recover” before tackling the next thing? If your answer is the former, it’s likely that task gives you energy. If your answer is the latter, it’s likely that task depletes your energy, and reducing the amount of mental/emotional energy it takes should be a priority.

Factor Three: Trouble (Frustration)

Frustrating tasks and how business owners can automate them The frustration factor comes down to a little self-awareness. Do you complete certain tasks grudgingly? Are there recurring responsibilities that you put off and put off and put off until absolutely the last minute? Do you have to push yourself to get them done with several pep talks? If a regular task is causing you grief or if it feels like you’re “going to the trouble” to get it done every time, that’s a big flag to consider properly delegating or looking to an automation.

If you feel resentful toward a task, or even hateful of sitting down to do it, it’s probably time to get that task off your plate.

Expert tip: Remember that toxic tasks can weigh down your employees, too. While delegating can serve as a short-term solution, an automation is often the better way to go for repetitive tasks with a high frustration curve.

A final pointer regarding these three factors:

While any one of these factors can illustrate what tasks can be automated, sometimes it’s the sum of all three that point you in the right direction. Imagine an equation: Total Time plus Energy plus Trouble. Label each factor as “high,” “medium” or “low,” and you will feel that much more empowered to invest a little time upfront to move to an automation that will save you time and boost morale in the end.

Questions to Ask if You’re Still not Sure

Automating tasks sounds great. But doing so often require time you feel you don’t have just to get a new system up and running!

If you’re thinking about a specific task and still aren’t sure, or need a few more reasons to justify the time or budget invested in making the switch, ask yourself the following questions:

If you delegated this task instead of automating it, would it be a headache for the person taking it on?
Is the task prone to human error? (Great examples would be bookkeeping and setting appointments.)
Could automating the task improve the quality of work?
Do you know others who have implemented this kind of solution before?

(Expert tip: Making time for a single conversation with a peer or consultant can save you hours of googling, deciphering software features and price-comparing.)

If you answer “yes” to any of the above, that’s a strong indicator that automation could save you time, money and strife.

Looking Toward the Future

Instead of living with frustration or feeling the burnout bubble up, make a move now to automate recurring tasks in a way that is intentional and well planned. These moves will pay off not only in time and energy savings, but also in opening up opportunities to scale your operations. The sooner you have automations in place, the more seamless your ramp to growing your business will be.

Automations often require new software and subscriptions, so weigh these expenses with the benefits these solutions bring and move decisively. If there’s one epiphany that business owners come to time and time again, it’s that we can’t do it all.

Start a time log today to look for tasks begging for automation, or drop a comment here if you already have one on your mind. I’ll reply directly with tips and will be available to point you in the direction of solutions that can help you survive today and scale tomorrow, like the new self-paced online course DuplicateU that will start by working through this exercise. Learn about new automations today to set your business up for a self-sustaining future with lower stress and bigger returns.

5 Steps To Train Staff To Work To Your Standards

by Sarah Krivel | May 9, 2019 | Accountability, Customer Management, Goals, Operations, Priorities, Processes, Systems, Team Management

When applying for a new job or considering a job offer, “opportunity for growth” is the second most important thing people look for—right after salary.

When looking at the millennial audience, in particular, a whopping 46% of survey respondents said they left their last job for growth potential.

The point here is that your employees actually want to work to your standards. They want to learn and grow. They want to be engaged, and they want to get more involved over time.

You would think that this hunger to grow means that each new hire will, thus, always be ready to work and work hard—and even up to your own standards.

And yet, there’s a disconnect somewhere along the way. New hires choose to work with you, having measured what room there is to grow. So, why aren’t they growing? How can you motivate staff to work consistently to your standards? Where’s that hunger gone?

The short answer is: training. You have to train your staff correctly in order to work to your standards, or that expectation will never be met.

The long answer brings us to these 5 essential steps.

1. Know Your Standards

A funny thing happens when we communicate. Whether it’s a conversation, an email, or a job description, we have a very clear idea in our heads of what it is we want to transmit.

But then the receiving side doesn’t always picture what we had in mind.

If you want your staff to work to your standards, you must explicitly outline those standards. Start with a little soul searching to find the words, and take notes: what standards do you hold yourself to? What inspires you to meet those standards?

This exercise is a necessary starting point. Anything we feel or expect in life that’s even a little abstract only takes form when we put words to it. It’s how we catalogue our world. So, take a few minutes, close the door to your office and write out what standards you have. Get specific, and include the “why” and other motivators behind each one.

2. Communicate Your Standards

Now, you’ve done the soul searching. You’ve spelled out your standards, where they come from, and what they mean to you.

Next, ensure you have the right language and channels in place to communicate those standards.

When it comes to training staff, you need to have role-by-role key performance indicators (KPIs) in place, communicated openly to each employee. Your KPIs, when clearly identified for each staff member, can help you quantify and qualify those standards you want to train staff to work to.

To measure staff properly on your key standards using KPIs, harken back to the goals and motivations behind those standards. KPIs have to be as objectively measurable as possible, or you risk opening the floodgates of inconsistency that can undo your “standards metrics” altogether.

For example, let’s say it’s your standard to “go the extra mile” for clients. What does that mean? How do you measure it? That could mean a KPI of client retention, or of clients contacted just to “check in” during a given week.

3. Streamline Training

What a buzzword—streamline. What does that mean, “streamline training?”

Streamlining anything means locking in a system to make it happen. This includes an outline of what the process needs to achieve, the steps to get there, and the accountabilities to make those steps easy to follow for all players involved.

In training your staff to work to your standards, your system starts with those same KPIs we just talked about. What training does an employee need to meet all those metrics?

Now, list that training out.

Next, ask yourself, how much time will that training take? Just like you need to schedule in when you check email during the day (and how much time you plan to reply to messages), you need to put real numbers on how much training can be done with your staff and in what frame of time.

Last, and equally important, you have to gather the resources you’ll need for each part of training. For example, if you’re training a client service rep, do you have all needed training documents and tools in one place? Lead sheets? Call scripts? CRM training docs?

This is where most companies’ training stops. If you really want your staff to work to your standards, let’s see what comes next.

4. Offer More Training And Ask For Feedback

One of the standards I’m willing to bet you hold dear is the hunger to continually learn and grow.If you want to support this standard for your staff, the key is offering them opportunities to learn with purpose.

Ongoing training serves two purposes:

It builds staff knowledge and skills
And it keeps staff engaged

Once an employee is trained in and technically knows how to do their job, if you’re at a loss for what other training to offer, there are a couple directions you can go.

First, you can consider adding new responsibilities to offer more training.

Second, you can check in with staff for feedback on what they want to learn. This gives employees a stake in the training they’re about to receive, and emboldens them to view the world through the lens of “what else can I do?”

Share this nugget with your staff, too: asking for advice or training actually makes you look smarter, according to a recent study from the Harvard Business Review. Encourage the company culture where team members know they can come to you (or go to the right person) and ask for more training in order to live up to the standards you’ve set—and even surpass them.

5. Reinforce With Company Culture

This brings us to the hardest part: promoting the same passion you have and getting your staff equally interested in what they’re doing. But how can you get employees to work to your standards, the owner of a business, when it’s not theirbusiness?

For one, make sure you share company successes along with individual successes. You can permit yourself to brag a little if it opens an opportunity to talk about how awesome your business is, along with each of the employees who work there.

Permit me a minute on my soap box. There’s a big difference between confidence and conceit, right? With confidence, you strut and say, “I’m awesome.” But with conceit, you puff your chest out and say, “I’m better than you, and you, and you…”

Most of the time, we want to be confident, but not conceited.

In business, and to create the company culture that will promote standards of excellence, however, a little conceit is a good thing. Tell your brand story and make sure your staff knows the character roles each of them play. If you believe your brand really is better than the competition, how do you back that up?

One of the biggest factors is almost always the team that makes the company up. So make sure your staff knows that.

The right company culture will pay off in many ways. And combined with these other steps, you’ll finally be able to zero-in on that age-old question of how to train staff to work to your standards. If you haven’t already, get out your pen and paper and start with step 1 right now.

Questions? Leave us a comment below!

How to Know When it’s Time to Upgrade from a Bookkeeper to a CFO

by Sarah Krivel | Apr 23, 2019 | Finances, Goals, Operations, Systems, Time

As your business grows, financial management turns into an increasingly delicate task. To stay on top of the books (and stay ahead of problems later), you need a rising degree of financial intelligence.

But you’re also running all other aspects of your business. To focus on more critical duties, and—ideally—take a big step back from the business so that it can start to run itself, getting those time-consuming financial activities off your plate is crucial.

You probably already have a bookkeeper, whether remote or in-office, part-time or full. So, when do you know it’s time to delegate all your financial responsibilities to a Chief Financial Officer (CFO)?

Here, we’ll explore the key differences between a bookkeeper and a CFO to understand which will have the biggest impact on your business according to your needs, right now.

WHAT DOES THE AVERAGE BOOKKEEPER DO?

You probably already have a bookkeeper or use a bookkeeping service, and here we’re going to review what their responsibilities generally include.

A bookkeeper is generally employed by a small-to-medium-sized business to record and track transactions and reconcile accounts, including but not limited to payroll, invoices and expenditures.

That said, a bookkeeper’s role isn’t limited to entering numbers into spreadsheets. Especially if you contract a bookkeeping service, their expertise and knowledge also include leveraging key accounting software to take care of things like:

Training you or other staff on accounting software
Cleaning up mistakes and validating accounting data
And streamlining all bookkeeping tasks

These responsibilities take an enormous weight off a business owner’s shoulders. However, you’ll see that these tasks still require someone to manage the bookkeeper and step in when it comes to more complex to-dos.

Spoiler alert: if it is time to upgrade to a CFO, you’ll have more accounting needs than those listed above.

WHAT DOES THE AVERAGE CFO DO?

As your business grows, managing your finances becomes too complex for a bookkeeper to handle. And without the right pieces in place to keep finances managed well, this can become a strain for future growth, particularly when it comes to investments and strategic planning.

This is your first sign that it might be time to hire a CFO.

But back to basics: a CFO is brought into a business as the bearer of all financial activities. The CFO not only has the knowledge and skills to handle accounting independently, but takes ownership in the success of your business.

Ideally, a CFO ends up becoming a right-hand man or woman for your company, with responsibilities such as:

Strategic planning to assess the operational and financial impacts of strategic business initiatives
Annual budgeting and quarterly forecasting, including recommending adjustments, as needed, to properly manage the business
Operational and financial reviews with actuals vs. budget forecasts and operational efficiency metrics to make better day-to-day and strategic decisions

A CFO will be responsible for everything from general accounting to protecting the financial future of your company, keeping a pulse on how stable your company is at a given time.

Though, as you can imagine, hiring a CFO is a big decision for any business owner and has to be done at the right time.

LET’S TAKE A MOMENT TO TALK OUTSOURCING

We can outsource just about everything these days. With a tap of the smartphone, we can open apps to communicate with freelancers and contractors around the globe who are playing an increasing role in capacity building and scaling for small and medium businesses.

Outsourcing is common, too, with bookkeepers. Whether it’s an independent bookkeeper or a service you contract, working from the cloud gives businesses the financial controls they need without having to hire in-office.

Looking for a bookkeeper online today is easier than ever, too, with multiple certifications you can check for and validate. For example:

Certified Bookkeepers (National Bookkeepers Association)
Certified Management Accountants
Certified Accounts Payable Professionals
Certified Accounts Payable Associates
Certified Payroll Professionals
Tax Certification

But did you know you can outsource your CFO, too? This is most appealing for businesses without a physical office, and for those who are aching to get the help a CFO can offer but still aren’t sure about finding and hiring someone local full-time.

HOW DO YOU KNOW IT’S TIME TO HIRE A CFO?

We’ve talked about the increasing complexity of business finances. So what are some of the triggers that might indicate it’s time to start thinking about hiring a CFO?

If any of the following are true, that will be a big flag that you’ve grown enough to start thinking about hiring this important team member:

If you have investors interested in supporting your business, they’ll want to see detailed financial statements and financial plans. This is something that almost always requires contracting a CFO, unless you want to be stuck doing all this work yourself.
If your company revenue has increased significantly or rapidly, it’s wise to look for a CFO to help manage your cash flow. Planning appropriate cash usage is another strategic “must” that a CFO can manage for you.
And, as your business grows, banks will start insisting on thorough audits of your financial statements when you come looking for loans. These types of audits can include digging into even the most minute details, and can be intimidating—not to mention a major time suck. A CFO would take care of this for you, also ensuring that financial statements are up-to-date without discrepancies before that audit even comes.
For any company that’s grown significantly beyond “what it once was,” understanding and managing risk becomes more difficult. Hiring a CFO gets you the insights you need for proper risk management, strategizing and protecting you against all the “what ifs” that are likely to occur.

Now that the wheels are turning on the “when” and “why,” the rest is up to your gut. You’ve made business decisions a million times before, and now you have some key considerations on a silver platter. So, what do you need? And what do you want? Do you have the time to handle finances on your own?

If it is time to hire a CFO, this will mean handing all that responsibility off to someone uniquely trained and positioned to not only handle accounting, but the necessary financial strategy to keep your business running successfully.

BONUS: HOW DO YOU HIRE THE RIGHT CFO?

Hiring anyone for your company is a delicate matter. Even the entry-level representatives answering the phones act as the face of your business, so there is no “small” job in your business.

That said, a CFO will act as an especially important player. Looking for talent isn’t as hard as you think, and so if it is time to hire a CFO, start looking now.

And then, pat yourself on the back, because your business has grown so much that you’ve arrived to a major turning point. This will be another day you remember.

Have a financial situation you’re not sure about? Want to learn more about what a bookkeeper or CFO can do? Connect with us today!

Stop Spinning Your Wheels: Implement Your Strategy and See Real Change

by Sarah Krivel | Sep 19, 2018 | Goals, Operations, Processes, Systems

There are two steps to achieve a goal: plan and execute. Yet so often, businesses get stuck in planning mode and never move into action.

This is exactly what happened for years with a new Kleriti client. During a recent strategic planning session with them, members of the leadership team told me how they never gain traction or make progress because they’re stuck spinning their wheels talking about what they should do. This lack of execution paralyzes them, holding them back from realizing success.

For your business to get where you want it to go, both parts of the goal-achievement equation must be in play. In fact, entrepreneur and author Tim Berry goes so far as to argue that, “Good business planning is nine parts execution for every one part strategy.” Without the action, the words — and planning — don’t count for much. They certainly won’t get you to increased profit, a powerhouse team or more efficient workflows.

Overcome this stall-out and translate your strategy into action to realize positive change with these 5 practices.

Determine The Decision-Making Process

Lack of clarity on who is empowered to make which decisions is a quick way to hit a wall when it comes to execution. Decide how decisions will be made up front and by whom, to save your team time, confusion and even contentious debates as you implement the plan. How you handle decision-making will be influenced by your company’s culture. For example, if you encourage employees to share their opinions, you may include them in a vote. If you hold decisions closer to the vest, your leadership may come to consensus and communicate decisions downward.

Establish Deadlines And Responsibility

As you outline who makes the decisions, also decide on other key aspects of each person’s role in the strategy’s implementation. Clearly communicate to every relevant party what you expect from them, and by when. Your team can best implement the strategy when they have complete clarity about what they’re responsible for.

Define 90-Day Milestones

Delaying tasks until it’s absolutely necessary to do them is human nature. Research shows that up to 20 percent of people are chronic procrastinators. So it stands to reason that team members will wait until the deadline is staring them in the face to complete a task. Break your plan into chunks with milestones every 90 days, and to dos every week. This allows you to focus on smaller, immediate steps and to feel the motivation and satisfaction of making continual progress.

Hold Regular Check-Ins

Keep your team (even the procrastinators!) on track with ongoing check-ins. We suggest structured weekly meetings — one for leadership and one for each team or work unit. This drives appropriate focus at all levels of the organization. Confirm whether the previous week’s to dos were completed or not, and allow team members to share the issues facing them. That way you can overcome challenges and continue moving forward.

Avoid ‘Shiny Object Syndrome’

It’s easy to become distracted by a new idea or change in direction. Avoid this tendency like the plague, and keep your eye on the ball. Don’t allow anything else to come into the plan unless it passes the litmus test of aligning with your company’s vision and mission, and supporting the goals you’ve set. And if you do opt to add something, take something else out to help keep your team and the action they’re taking on track and manageable.

Does your company struggle to translate your strategy into action? Contact Kleriti Business Solutions to get you moving. Our consultants will partner with you to break the trend and realize execution momentum like never before.

What Improv Classes Taught Me About Business and Life

by Sarah Krivel | Aug 7, 2018 | Goals, Operations, Processes, Systems

I recently wrapped up Level I improv classes at the Bovine Metropolis Theater in Denver. Going in, what I knew of improv came from “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” – a show I used to love! I admired how the artists on stage created real life out of thin air. They cracked the audience up, while seeming to genuinely have a blast themselves. I wondered how they could possibly think and act that quickly. My introverted, planner self who thinks everything through first decided that now was the time to find out what this art form was all about (“There’s no time like the present” and all)!

While I did, in fact, learn how the comedians on “Whose Line” did it, I also came away with much more.

Here’s what I learned from improv classes that carries over into business and life.

Let go of expectations

One of the foundational tenants of improv is, “Yes, and…” When you or your scene partner put something into the world (“Wow! Look at this beautiful purple river,” or “Hi, what brings you into Lucky Mart today?”), the one thing you CANNOT do is explain that the river is in fact clear or that we’re in Lou’s Bakery. You accept what is given and build onto it, which, to me, means remaining open and accepting and going with the flow. And when you’re in that state, what you cannot do is hold onto your expectations of what’s going to happen. There’s no place for expectations in improv. You have to let them go — all of them.

You may think you’ve started a scene as an office worker, when all of a sudden a college student enters the scene to apply for a job at your bank. And wham, bam. You’re in a bank. This is also called “give and take” or “win and lose” in improv. At the end of the day, sometimes you have to let go of your expectations and your ideas in order to make a great scene. So you do. You have to let go of your ego and what you think might be right in service of your fellow players and the world you’re creating together.

Bovine Metropolis Theater in Denver - photo by Sarah Krivel Kleriti Business Solutions - Improv Lessons for Business and Life

Tune in

In order for a scene to be believable (dining in a restaurant or pulling in a fishing net), it has to truly look to the audience like you’re really there doing it. This means that every part of your body has to be engaged. You have to see it, taste it, and especially feel it (the fork you’re eating salad with, the slippery floor of the fishing boat). No matter what it is, you have to be fully there. It goes from being make-believe to being your reality. And when you step out of a scene and realize how fully you had embraced being inside of it, like you really were enjoying a delicious meal with a friend or hauling in a giant catch at the end of the day, you realize the ultimate presence. If that presence breaks for even a second, the impact is palpable to the audience. So you stay there.

Trust yourself to make the best choice you can in that moment

Early on, we played a game where one partner acts out an everyday repetitive activity (think brushing your teeth, driving your car) and the other partner mirrors them until both are in sync. Then the second partner evolves that activity to something entirely different. Our teacher, Holly, coached us to slow down the action and listen to our body to change it. We don’t change it, our body does — a truly crazy concept for someone as heady as me to grasp. And that’s exactly the point.

When it came my turn to evolve the activity, I did what Holly instructed, and literally came up blank in my mind. I had no expectation, nor clue, of what I was going to change it into. I felt confused, at a loss, and a bit bewildered. And instead of fighting those feelings, I stayed there. I slowed it down and listened to my body until low and behold the barbell lifting activity my partner sent me became painting a portrait. After the fog came incredible clarity. But I had to slow it down and remain open to the process to get there. In improv, there’s no right and wrong. There’s no pre-meditation. You just have to “jump” – to enter a scene, to start to speak, and believe that it will come. It’s amazingly freeing to have a space where nothing is wrong, and everything is right.

It can be scary to get outside your comfort zone and force your brain into a new way of thinking like I did with improv, but the new insights you gain from it can be amazing. Fortunately, Kleriti Business Solutions can help you see new perspectives on your business challenges — and we won’t require you to put yourself out there in an improv class to make it happen! If you feel stuck with where you are in your business and want to break through to greater success, contact us today for your free Spotlight Session.

As for me, it’s on to Level II!

Is there a business challenge that you’ve struggled with for too long and could use outside perspective on? Tell us in the comments below.

Get Out of the Owner’s Trap and Get Back to Your Life

by Sarah Krivel | Jul 17, 2018 | Goals, Operations, Processes, Systems

You started your business to be the boss and call the shots. To find flexibility and fulfillment. To create and to help others. But after a while, it started to control you. It sucked you into working around the clock to keep up, sacrificing time with family and friends, your favorite hobbies, and more.

Some recent anecdotes I’ve heard from business owners facing this dilemma include: “I’ve been working until 10 p.m. each night” and “I’ve worked seven days a week for 29 months.” And the worst part is that even though these businesses are growing, staff is ramping up, and profits are strong, they would collapse if you took the owner out of the equation.

It’s a scenario I often find business owners in, and one that brings them to realize they need Kleriti. Because there’s nothing worse than putting in so much tireless work to realize there’s nothing left if you step out. Simply put, a business that relies on its owner to run is unsellable, and all your hard work and sacrifice will be lost. But fear not — there is another way!

Here are 3 practices to get into right away to help build a sustainable business that will allow you to step out for that much-deserved vacation, passion project or eventual exit.

1. Define and Document Your Way

After I had a project returned to my desk no fewer than three times in a past job, I found myself marching into my boss’ office declaring, “I’m never going to get to what’s in your head. So can you please share it with me?” The fact is that people need to clearly understand what’s expected of them to succeed in your organization.

So what is your way? Define it and put it on paper. That makes how you do what you do every day teachable and replicable.

2. Don’t Be the Lynchpin in Your Process

If every document requires your approval, every meeting requires your attendance, or every decision requires your OK, you’re just as stuck as if you were doing all of the work yourself.

Hire right. Train well. Then let the people manage the process and the day-to-day.

Empower people to raise their hand when they identify an issue/lapse/areas of opportunity, and have them propose the solution. This helps you step back rather than be seen as the only one who can solve a problem.

3. Step Into the Role you Really Want and Don’t Go Back

When a long-time client of Kleriti’s first engaged with us, she said, “My ultimate goal is to not to have to be here. I’m working 60-70 hours each week now, and I want this to run without me.” Last month, she looked at me and asked, “What should I be doing now?” With standard operating procedures, checklists and forms, a restructured team, and clear internal and external accountabilities, her business is operating like never before. Employee turnover is down 17 percent, and monthly revenue is up 24 percent — and she’s out of the work she had previously been doing for over 25 years.

She got what she asked for and is now fully stepping into the CEO role, embracing this as the new normal without slipping back into old habits.

Business is an evolution — it’s never perfect, and it’s never 100 percent “landed.” As an owner, you’re constantly learning, shifting, getting closer and closer to where you want to be.

Once you break free from the trap, incredible potential opens up for exploration, creativity, innovation and impact. You owe it to yourself, your team and the world to get out!

If your business is running you and you need help flipping the situation, get in touch with Kleriti Business Solutions today to learn more about how we can help you get off the work treadmill and into your ideal role as a business owner.

Is something keeping you in the owner’s trap? Tell us what it is in the comments below.

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