Let’s face it, no matter how much time, effort and money you put into your business, you’re eventually going to hand it off to someone else. Whether you decide to sell your company or appoint a successor, you’re likely going to hand it off to someone else in the future unless you decide to burn it to the ground before you retire (definitely not recommended!).
But you might also just want to take a break from your business. It’s not uncommon for entrepreneurs to take an extended break from their companies, and it’s certainly not unheard of for business owners to go on frequent holidays and leave someone else in charge of their company for a while. Here are a couple of ways to help your business stay afloat even when you’re not around.
Plan For It
It’s important to look at what your true goals are for your business, but also your life. A business that actively requires you to make decisions and think is going to be a lot more difficult to handle than a business that you can run by making just a couple of decisions here and there. Productivity in the workplace is often defined by the business you actually run, and it’s crucial that you plan ahead if you want to run a business that doesn’t actually need you all the time.
For example, the hierarchy of staff that you’ve set up, the autonomy that you give your workers and even the number of standby employees that you have are going to affect how well your business operates without you. By prioritizing their autonomy first, you essentially give them more power to make their own decisions so they don’t need to confirm things with you all the time.
Plan a Successor
Unless you don’t care at all about your business once you retire, it’s important to become a mentor to someone and plan your successor well in advance. Whether it’s your children, a co-worker or someone completely unknown that you bring into your business early on, make sure you look at what is knowledge transfer and consider teaching your successor how to run the business from an early stage. This can help you lead to an earlier retirement and gives you plenty of room to teach them how to operate your company.
Even if you’re a small business, finding a successor and make your entire company easier to run and gives you more time to do what you want. You can take breaks more often, you can split decision making between you and your future successor, and you can teach them new skills as your relationship develops. You might also find that your successor isn’t’ the right fit, and that’s perfectly normal. You might want to turn them down because they’re not doing their part or maybe because you don’t see them as the right person for the job. This situation is completely normal and shouldn’t put you off trying again in the future.