Understanding the Difference Between Working in Your Business and on Your Business

It’s all too easy to get caught up in doing the little bits of the day to day work that relate to the running of your business – but if you devote all of your time to those small tasks, you could end up with a business that vastly underperforms. There’s a big difference between working on your business – growing it – and working in your business, and you need to be able to make time to do both.

If you’re content just to get by and pay the bills, then working in your business is enough. You’ll keep it ticking over, service the clients that you have, get some money coming in, and be ‘ok’. But you’ll find that if you lose a customer, it’s a scramble to replace them. If the accounts need to be done it’s a mad rush to sort them out.

If you spend some time working ON your business, instead of just  IN it, then you won’t end up in that kind of situation as often. You’ll have a steady stream of clients because you’ll do more marketing. Your accounts will be in good shape; you’ll always be working on new value adds and new, more efficient ways of doing things.

Yes, in the short term it can be hard to justify spending time on that sort of stuff. Working on your business doesn’t generate immediate income, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth doing. It’s an investment that will pay off over time. Replacing that one low-paying client that you have to spend endless hours on with two higher paying customers will leave you with both more time and more money. Wouldn’t that be a beautiful thing to be able to say?

When you go on a training course, you’re making yourself more appealing to customers. When you work on marketing, you’re reaching out to new clients. When you maintain your books, you’re investing five minutes now to save five hours later. Turn those little investments into a habit and your business will go from break even too comfortable in no time.

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