6 Ways to Profit from Your Vacation this Summer

Summer is here, and although it may seem strange, now may be the perfect time to increase the value of your

company.

The most valuable businesses are the ones that can survive without their owner. A buyer will pay a premium for a company that runs on autopilot and levy a steep discount for a business that is dependent on its owner.

This summer, consider taking an extended break from your business to see how things will run when you’re not in the building.  It’s likely that some things will go wrong, but use those errors as the raw material for making your business operate more independently of you – and therefore more valuable. 

Here is a 6-Step plan for profiting from your vacation time this summer:

Step 1: Schedule your vacation plus one day

Whatever day you plan to start working again after your holiday, tell your staff you’ll be back one day later. That way, you’ll have a full day of uninterrupted time to dedicate to understanding what went wrong in your absence.

Step 2: Bucket the mistakes

When you return, make a summary of the things that went wrong and categorize them into one of three buckets

 Mistakes: errors where there is a right and wrong answer;
Bottlenecks: projects that had difficulties because you weren’t there to provide your feedback;
Stalled Projects: initiatives that went nowhere while you were gone because you’re the person leading them.

Step 3: Correct the mistakes

The first and easiest place to start is to simply correct the mistakes that were made. Usually mistakes are due to a lack of training rather than outright negligence. The right answer may be crystal clear in your head but not immediately obvious to your staff. Write up some instructions for next time the employees face the same situation. Make sure your instructions are clear, and share them with your team so everyone has them (a file sharing service like Google Drive or DropBox can be a helpful repository for your instructions).

Step 4: Unblock your bottlenecks

If you’re being asked for your personal input on projects, there’s probably going to be a bottleneck if you’re not around. Make sure your staff is clear on the projects where you need to have a say and the projects where you don’t. Some employees may wrongly think that you need to approve all decisions. Make it clear when you want them to act alone and when you still need to have a say.

Step 5:  Re-assign stalled projects

The hardest part of making your business less dependent on you is dealing with projects that get stalled when you’re away. Start by asking yourself if you’re the right person to lead the project in the first place. As the owner of your business, projects often fall in your lap by default, rather than because you’re the best person to lead them. Categorize your stalled projects into two groups: a) strategic projects you need to lead; and b) non-strategic projects you are leading by default. Hang on to the strategic projects, but delegate the non-strategic projects to someone on your team who is better suited to drive them forward.

Step 6: Give every employee a blank check

At Ritz Carlton Hotels, they give every employee discretion to spend – without approval from their general manager – up to $2,000 on a guest.  The $2,000 figure is a large enough number to make the message clear: front line employees should act first, make the customer happy, and ask questions later. Many employees know how to make a customer happy but lack the confidence to act. Giving employees some spending authority will speed up the resolution of customer issues and empower your team to do the right thing when you’re not there.

The sunshine is beckoning, so go ahead and take a vacation – if you follow the six steps here, you may end up with a tan and a more valuable company. 

Business Advice: How to Create an Accountable and Responsible Team and Stop Being a SAPP

One of the keys to business success for an entrepreneur is their ability to build a team of motivated employees that are aligned to the company's goals. 

A common complaint I hear from my clients about their employees is that, "They're not accountable or responsible for anything - getting work done on-time or doing quality work" or "They continuously do sloppy work and running over budget on every job".  "Why can't they be accountable or responsible?"  They are at a loss of what to do and it stresses the hell out of them. 

When you think about it maybe you start wondering, that they don't care or don't want to work hard or they just want to do what is minimally required.  Does this sound familiar?

If we are honest with ourselves, what's holding most of us back from building a success team is, well...us.  Yes, I said it.  It's us!

As a business owner, most of the time, we are the one responsible.  It's our need or maybe fear that makes us want to control everything.  The problem is that when we control everything that turns us into a SAPP - Solving All People's Problems.

 

In business there seems to be a very fine bar between success and failure.  The question I consistently ask my clients is, are you and your team acting above or below this bar? 

We all know people who act below this bar.  They are always BLAMING others, coming up with EXCUSES, or might be in DENIAL that they are the problem.  

On the other hand...  Successful business leaders and teams play above this bar.  They are looking for Opportunities, they are ACCOUNTABLE for the results they need to achieve, and they are RESPONSIBLE for their actions.

The thing that most business owners or managers don't realize is it's with our actions and our speech that we can help raise our team Above the Bar or keep the Below the Bar.

We keep our team (and family members) below the bar by asking judgmental questions like, Why did you do that? What's wrong with you?  Why can't you get this right?  Who did this?  When we ask the judgmental questions all we get are Excuse, Blaming, or Denials that they are not the problem.

The way we coach our team to be Responsible, Accountable, and take Ownership, is by asking learning type questions like, What could we have done differently?  How could we have done better?  How can we prevent this from happening again?  What could we learned from this? 

Have you noticed one thing each of these questions have in common?  The use of the word WE instead of I.  When use WE, as owners, leaders, and managers, we are taking some responsibility and ownership of the mistake.  Instead of putting the focus on the employee, we are focusing on the action and learning what the appropriate action could have been.  This way they learn, we learn, the whole team learns.

Now your team will begin to make better choices and decisions.  They won't have to be standing at your door waiting to ask you how to do things because they are afraid of making a mistake.  The best part is you'll start becoming less of a  SAPP (solving all people's problems) and more of a leader.  Your team will begin to take Ownership of the situation, being Accountable to you and Responsible for their actions.  Now you'll be well on your way to building a more valuable business that can work without you.