It’s a well worn and almost cliched little sentence, yet somehow even though they’ve heard it repeatedly, most small business owners aren’t able to extract themselves from the day to day running of the entity they created. There’s no new ground breaking news here, this is a doctrine most business owners already know, yet staggeringly don’t practice very well if at all.

SME owners are predominantly very much hands on managers and workers within their companies, refusing to place any trust in their staff for fear of total destruction of their life’s work!

The problem is exacerbated by a lack of future vision for the company and staff whose purposes and roles within the company are muted and stagnant. A downward spiral of mistrust by the owner and denial of responsibility by the employees festers within the company culture and the owner becomes forever trapped as a worker for his own business.

That being said, there are those old school tradesmen type business owners who are completely content to have things stay just as they are, earning a good wage and saving enough for a secure retirement one day. And that was ok… for decades.

Nowadays nothing stays like it is for very long.

Since technology crept into even the smallest and most rural of businesses, the landscape and ethos of business has changed drastically. Not only are your competitors chasing your clients with inflamed vigour and the latest tech, but your staff are now more street smart and hungry for opportunity and wont be hanging around while you build your nest egg.

If your business isn’t constantly growing, innovating and creating a reason for your loyal customers and staff to stick with it, then there is serious risk of it reaching its sell-by-date long before your planned retirement!

To rescue the cause and save the company before it’s too late, start with possibly the most important step you can take from being just self-employed towards the role of a Business Owner:

Staff empowerment. Handing over a title and responsibility to someone worthy within your organisation not only relieves you of some of the day to day workload, but also gives that person a much needed feeling of appreciation, importance and achievement, a reason to give more and try even harder. Sure, that person may not be totally capable straight away, but if they have shown any aptitude in the past, in most cases a little training and mentoring will get them there. Even if they don’t make the cut in the end, the exercise will have shown your other staff that there are opportunities to grow within the company and they have a brighter future ahead if they are prepared to stand up and take some responsibility for the good of the company.

And so a culture of encouraging successful motivated individuals is born into the business. Staff start becoming more productive without needing constant supervision, the company makes more money and growth mushrooms exponentially. As the owner you finally have more time available to concentrate on any other projects you choose.

Obviously that’s an oversimplified screenplay of what it will take in the real world to achieve a meaningful transition from a one man owner/manager to a business owner with a management team in place, but it does all start with the staff you trust to run the show with less micromanagement.

That first step affords you time to look critically into the current operations, where do you make your money and how much time are you wasting on unprofitable exercises. It also gives you the time to step back into the shoes of the person you were when you first started the business, review your initial vision for the business, assess your successes and failures and revisualize, now with some hindsight, where the business needs to go in the future. What infrastructure, resources and support will you need to get it there.

After years, maybe decades of being self-employed, you will finally be a business owner!