Adam's Corner: Mastering the ON vs IN

In this special episode of Adam's Corner, we dive deep into one of the most critical yet overlooked aspects of running a successful business: the difference between working ON your business and working IN it. Too many entrepreneurs get caught in the day-to-day operations, sacrificing long-term growth for short-term gains. Adam Ferracane, with decades of experience in scaling businesses, shares actionable insights on how to elevate your role from an operator to a true owner. Learn the strategies that can help you shift your focus, optimize your operations, and set the stage for exponential growth. If you've ever felt like you're stuck in a never-ending cycle of tasks, this episode is a must-listen.

Adam's franchise company specializes in home service franchise opportunities. Learn directly from Adam Ferracane how he built his successful empire and take advantage of his established brand by becoming  an owner with Refresh! 
Website Link Here:  Refresh Franchising 

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Transcript

Working In vs Working On - 8-26-23

[00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of Adam's Corner. My chat with you one-on-one part of the Distilled Wisdom podcast. Thanks for joining me today. Today's an important subject. We're gonna talk about working on your business rather than in your business. If you don't understand what that means, don't worry.

I'll explain it in a little bit. You know, when I started out with Refresh and I started the company, I started with next to Nothing. I started the company from ground level on a credit card, and I obviously had to work every day in the business, right? So I was, I was constantly doing everything. I wore every hat in the business.

I was doing the bookkeeping, the invoicing, developing the processes, and actually going out and performing the services. So, you know, out there doing the actual work all the time, that's extremely challenging and depending on where you start out in your business, I. That may kinda be an in inevitable. It really boils down to the resources you have.

But your goal, your goal should always [00:01:00] be to move yourself beyond working in your business, to work on your business. And there's a delicate balance between the two. Uh, you still need to work in your business from time to time until it gets that level work. And not only sus. Sustain itself, but it can continue to grow without your involvement.

Then you just have to check the pulse on it from time to time. I'm lucky, I'm almost at that point with refresh and it's, it should be the goal of every entrepreneur that goes into business. Let's define working in your business versus working on your business. Working inside of your business means that you're doing the day-to-day tasks within your business.

So that could be if you're a service business, you know, performing the actual service. If you are, uh, you know, if you have a retail store, maybe it's working, you know, the counter at the retail place or doing, you know, sales on the floor. Uh, no matter what it is, it could even be digital marketing. And if you're the one preparing the ads for the client, you're working in your business, [00:02:00] not on your business.

Now working on your business. The other side is developing your business. It's coming up with new processes. It's exploring new avenues for growth. Once you get to a level where you can work on your business, your business will drastically start increasing the momentum and it'll start snowballing and growing and growing and growing.

Right. We didn't go into business just to go do the service or provide the widget. We went into business to, you know, At least I did to, to work on getting a, you know, my own freedom, my own personal freedom, and my time. You know, where I could, I could focus on other things and I could do the things that I enjoy and not have to do all the monotonous tasks day to day.

So let's talk a little bit about getting there. So, like I alluded to earlier, there's, there's a balance you need to work in your business from time to time that's gonna happen. And it's gonna depend on what stage of business you're at, right? So if, if you're early [00:03:00] on in your business, again, it's pretty much inevitable unless you have large capital reserves where you can bring in managers, you know, to, to handle every aspect of the business.

For you, most people, that's not the situation, right? So you're gonna actually have to work in the day to day. Your number one goal should be replacing yourself in these roles as time progresses and as the finances allow for it, right? And when you start doing this, you wanna focus on your weaknesses. So always hire for your weaknesses when you're picking the next role to fill, right?

So an example of this, when I was growing refresh, the number one thing I had to hire for first. Was I had to get technicians out there to do the work, right? That takes all of your time if you're out there performing all the work all day, and that, that prevented me from having to work all night into the night doing the invoice and doing the bookkeeping and all that stuff.

Now I could do that stuff [00:04:00] during the day and start focusing a little bit of time on actually developing new processes for the company. So for me, the number one hire was hiring, you know, a couple technicians to go out and do the work. By the way, that also increased my revenue because I was able to obviously perform more work.

Um, Then you from there I moved on to hiring, um, and somebody in the office, an administrator to help alleviate some of the little tasks like invoicing, answering the phones, things like that. You can't imagine how crazy it is. I'm trying to run a business and, you know, I started in bath refinishing, so I had a respirator on all this equipment and the, the company phone number ran to my cell phone all day, right?

So I'm, I'm in a mask, I'm using heavy equipment, you know, I've got ventilation running, I've got all this, and I'm, I'm trying to answer phone calls to, to [00:05:00] schedule new appointments and, you know, to field the office work. That was horrible. So the next hire I had after the technicians was obviously an administrator.

Somebody in the office that could field those phone calls, take care of the billing, and do a lot of the, uh, you know, the backend tasks like that. I. So there's a flip side to all of this too. You could pull yourself out a little bit too early in some of these roles, and that can be dangerous too if you start pulling yourself out.

You gotta keep a pulse as you replace people and really focus on making sure your training programs for the people you hire are really solid and in place, and you're not just throwing them out there and leaving them hanging, you know, trying to figure out things on their own. So, Early on in your business, make sure your training's there, but keep that pulse because if you pull out too quickly and you start working on your business instead of in your business and you don't have these procedures in place and you're not checking the pulse [00:06:00] regularly, you know, having quotas.

Different metrics to measure KPIs, things like that for use. You, you out there that don't know KPIs means key performance indicators. Um, if you don't, if you don't have those metrics and you're not checking back on your staff regularly, this can have an adverse, uh, effect on your business. So if you start.

Automatically, you know, checking out of the business and only focusing on growth and new things and new items, which is, uh, appealing to an entrepreneur. If you have an entrepreneurial mindset, you're gonna wanna work on that stuff 'cause it's more fun for you. Uh, but don't neglect and your staff or your numbers and make sure that you're checking these regularly.

Because if you do it too quickly, you're, you might come into your business one day and it's going the complete opposite direction. Even though you have all these new things you came up with, uh, the business might be going the wrong direction because you weren't paying [00:07:00] attention to it. So, transitioning from end to on, uh, takes a little bit of time.

And until you can hire again, you, you're stacking new roles in as you go until you can stack somebody in to actually measure those KPIs for you. Again, this all comes with capital, but when you can get a GM or whatever that role looks like in your business into that role, make sure you're not neglecting your team, your staff, and your company as a whole.

So how do you identify something like that when you're working on the business? It's really easy. Again, it goes back to those KPIs and your numbers. If your numbers start having a downward trend, you better fig, you know, dive back into the business really quick. Figure out what those problems are, why you're losing clients, why you're not selling whatever it is.

Find out why things are going the wrong direction. So a key indicator is obviously gonna be your numbers. Uh, then it's gonna be make sure you're taking some time to go out there and get feedback from your [00:08:00] clients. Um, just because you're focused on, you know, the growth and on your business, it's really important to have, again, a pulse on how the customers feel about it.

When you transition outta some of these key roles, uh, the people doing it might be sufficient for the role, uh, but they're not. Giving exactly what the customer's used to, and that that can cause you to lose clients. So make sure that you're, you're going out there and you're getting feedback from your clients from time to time.

Work this into a cycle. Try to do it at least once a quarter, once you get to a, you know, a pretty good size. And by the way, c o should be doing this in Fortune 500 companies. Um, if you've ever watched this show, what is it? Uh, uh, not undercover, billionaire. What's the other one? Um, Undercover Boss. So if you've ever watched the show, undercover Boss, I know a lot of it's staged, but you know, when they go undercover like that, a lot of times they are discovering stuff in their [00:09:00] business that they just weren't aware of because, you know, we, we get def tuned as your business gets, you know, larger and larger and larger, you start missing some of this stuff down on the ground level.

So it's important to do stuff like that. You don't have to do it as part of a TV show, but it's important to get yourself back into the mud from time to time and go back into your business. I, they always tell you, you know what I'm telling you, which is to, you know, work on your business, not in your business.

The reality is, is there's a balance to the two. You wanna work in your business and on your business, you just wanna minimize the amount of time that you have to work in your business. But it's crucial if you're still that point person, you know, until you hire a new c e o to run your company. Until you, until you're at that level, uh, no matter what, you do have to take some time and cycle back into your business and make sure that everything's running the way that you want it to run and that your clients [00:10:00] expect it to run.

Right? So that's really, really, really important when you're thinking about working on verse in. Now, to the flip side of that, if you're. If you're only working in your business, your business will never grow. Uh, you can't do everything. That's just reality. And honestly, I see this over and over again when I meet different business owners, uh, they, they get scared to bring in other people.

'cause nobody can do it as good as I can. Right? And the reality is, is they're gonna, they, they bought themselves a job. If, if you can't transition from working in your business to working mostly on your business, you, you essentially bought yourself a job and you might as well just go get a job. Uh, it's not worth running a business.

Literally, the rewards are not gonna be there unless you know [00:11:00] how to get out of running the day-to-day. Otherwise, you literally should just climb up the corporate ladder with a, you know, a good company and get yourself into, you know, a high level, high paying position and just stick there. Uh, not everybody's suited for business ownership and.

You're, you're not really building an asset at that point. The reality is, is if you're the one doing everything in your company, your company really doesn't have much value. Uh, you didn't. Again, most people don't go into business to. To do the, the task, whatever that is, the service they're providing or to, you know, to sell on the sales floor.

They went into business to build something for them and their family to build a future, to get more independence, to be financially free. Uh, there's a lot of motivators, but there's other ways to do that without. Going into business for yourself, [00:12:00] um, you could put together a solid investment strategy and you could still set yourself up for financial freedom without actually running a business.

So just bear that in mind. If, if, if you can't pull yourself out of working in your business. You might wanna think about going a different direction. That's just the reality of it. And this is why so many businesses fail. This is one of the reasons, right? There's a couple primary reasons that cause a business to fail.

Lack of capital's huge, but this is another one. You know, you've got the plumber that did plumbing for decades and decides to go into business for himself, and he doesn't realize that business ownership. It doesn't matter what it is, is different than being the plumber. So owning a plumbing business is a different thing than being an excellent plumber.

Uh, you still need to understand the trade, but you, I can go into plumbing tomorrow and I can, I, I guarantee you, I could open a plumbing business. I can [00:13:00] scale a plumbing business. And I'm not a plumber, and I guarantee you it'll be more successful than most plumbers that have been doing this for decades.

And that's because I understand business. So. You need to get yourself out of working in your business and work on your business. If you don't enjoy the creative side of being an entrepreneur and building systems, processes, leader, leadership roles, building a team, and. You have to be risk adverse. If you don't have those qualities, uh, you really, again, should not go into business.

So I and my whole channel's about, you know, talking about business and going into business for yourself, that doesn't mean everybody should do it. Just because I give this advice doesn't mean that you're capable of doing it. You have to think about your personality and who you are. So I'm getting a little bit off topic right now, but let's jump back into working inverse on.

So let's talk about some [00:14:00] signs. You're stuck, right? So you're stuck in either direction. So you're either stuck working in your business or you're stuck working on your business and you're neglecting the other one. What are some signs of this? I think I already kind of alluded to this earlier, and some of these are gonna be, you know, obviously your numbers are suffering more on a day to day is look at your schedule.

Uh, take a look at what your tasks are and what you're working on regularly. And if it's all development, I. And it's all, you know, research and development or new avenues, financing, you know, more of the, you know, the c e O type responsibilities and you don't have anything in there to go check the pulse on your clients to have meetings with your managers.

Um, You know, to really get a feel for how your business is doing. You're probably working too much on your business and not enough in your business. So at that point, you might wanna allocate some time to your, or allocate, I'm sorry, allocate some [00:15:00] time for yourself to go check the pulse of everything I.

Now on the flip side to that, if you look at your schedule, your calendar and everything you're doing on your calendar is related to the day-to-day operation of the business. Uh, you need to really work on getting outta your business a little bit more. I. If, if you're doing bookkeeping tasks, things like that, I mean, this stuff isn't expensive.

It is when you start out to you, but it's not that expensive to get yourself somebody to do some bookkeeping or to, you know, uh, handle the invoicing or a number of different things. Right. But if you're, if you're. Daily schedule is reserved for doing estimates, uh, booking, ordering product, things like that.

You need to, you need to really focus on getting yourself out of that role. Um, obviously you have to ana, analyze your finances and do it, you know, smart. [00:16:00] And do it one step at a time. But let's talk about moving out. So if you are that individual that's doing everything in your business and you're focused on day-to-day operations, how do you start transitioning out of that?

The easiest way to do that is to identify which tasks are taking up the majority of your time. Right. So this is after you've already replaced for, you know, some of the key things that are obvious right out of the gate that are gonna help you with growth and to get revenue in, right? So you have the income producing activities, like in my example, hiring technicians.

After that, you have to start looking at which tests are you doing that are occupying a whole bunch of your time. That are not moving the company forward. What are those tasks? And again, usually I, I know I keep saying bookkeeping, but that's just a really simple example of it. If you're doing bookkeeping tasks for Christ's sakes, go hire a bookkeeper.

Uh, [00:17:00] there's no reason for you to be doing that. That's just a complete waste of your time. You, you can allocate all of that time that you're doing on the bookkeeping to, you know, figuring out your marketing plan or, um, you know, Anana analyzing the costs and looking for cost savings there, there's a million other things you could be doing.

Uh, hire a good bookkeeper, build a relationship with 'em, and voila, that's off your plate. But look for those types of things. Uh, another example of something that you might be doing, you know, in the day-to-day operations, if you're estimating all your jobs, so if you're in a service business, right, and you're the one going out and doing the estimating or you're doing all the.

Sales efforts, you're still working in your business and it may be something you enjoy. Uh, you might enjoy doing the sales aspect, but you're still working in your business. Maybe it's time to think about hiring a salesperson and training that [00:18:00] individual to go out and do the sales for you. Your job is to replace yourself.

I actually tell my team this all the time. I wear a bunch of different hats and I just kinda rotate through those hats and I check the pulse in those departments, right? But my job, the reason my business has been able to grow to where it's at, and I have one of the fastest growing companies in the country.

Uh, we were on Ink 5,000 this year. That was really exciting. And the reason we're able to get there and we were able to get there so quickly is because I've put a focus on replacing myself in every single department as I go along. Right, so I started with technician level. I was outperforming all the work, doing all the administrative, doing everything right.

Number one, I replaced technicians, you know, myself as the technician. And I hired technicians and I trained them, and I put the technicians out on their own. Then I still had all the administrative tasks, so I replaced myself on those. I [00:19:00] hired somebody in the office to do the invoicing. To do the billing.

Then I was still doing the bookkeeping tasks. I replaced myself on that, and I built a relationship with the bookkeeper while I'm still training the technicians and everything. So I'm still overseeing the technicians. Now I move to a manager hat. Right. Uh, then I hired a manager to run the technicians.

Now I no longer have to manage the technicians. I just have to check in on the manager and so on and so forth. We continued to scale this all the way to, I have four different divisions with four different, uh, direct managers that oversee the divisions. I have multiple people in the call center and the business for the most part, kind of runs itself.

You know, I was able to go to Italy earlier this year and spend a month and a half, uh, just traveling around Italy. I checked in on my company twice while I was there, and the only, the only way you're able to do that in a business and still earn money is if you'd scale. To [00:20:00] the level where you can check outta your business and it's still be there and growing.

Right. So I came back to a business that was still functioning just fine and had grown while I was on vacation. That should be every entrepreneur's goal. You can only get there if you start replacing yourself in every single position in the company as you go. And I still have a few that I have to replace myself on.

Right. Um, I recently tried to hire a C O O. Uh, that didn't end up panning out for us, but I, I'm gonna have to visit that again in the future because I'm moving on to the franchise side of our business. Uh, our company's in the process of selling franchises. And I'm gonna have to be very focused and I'm putting a whole bunch of new hats that I gotta rotate through on the franchise side.

So at some point in the near future, I'm still gonna have to fill that role to have somebody overseeing and measuring all the local metrics and somebody that can handle, you know, those, those really big situations that come up [00:21:00] that I generally still have to get involved with, which is usually just like legal and things like that.

You can do this. The way you're able to build a business, scale it out. By the way, I don't think I've done a good job of explaining how what we've built in the past, you know, seven years refresh has been around now seven years, and it started as a bath finishing company. So that's the only service that we provided was one service, one department.

I now have four. So I actually have four separate brands. So I essentially have developed four different companies over a seven year period. Uh, we're doing millions, millions of dollars in revenue, and I was able to do that with this process because I work on my business, not always in my business, right?

I, I still check in on my business, but I don't work in it. Um, I work on it and I, I push it forward and I, I act as the, uh, you know, the leader to the marching band, and I'm the one walking it through. [00:22:00] So you need to get yourself into that position, and your business will just drastically start increasing its growth rates.

Really, I mean, that was my main message was just to express this to you guys. Talk about working inverse on your business. I know I've said that like 3 million times throughout this podcast. I hope somebody got some value out of this and it, it, it knocks something loose. 'cause again, I see this over and over and over again with business owners, uh, that don't replace themselves in the roles in their company and it.

It's hurting themselves. It drives me nuts when I see it. Um, so I hope this knocks something loose for somebody out there and they really, you know, learn something from this. Anyway, this has been Adam's Corner, my chat with you one-on-one. I.