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When I think of successful small businesses I don’t think in terms of revenue, I think in terms of lifestyle. If you’re only taking home $90,000/year, but work eight months you’re in better shape then the guy brining in $250,000/year on 80 hour weeks. We only get to live each day once and if you’re not enjoying it you need to re-evaluate.

In fact Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, wakes up every morning since he was 17, looks into the mirror and asks himself “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” If he says no too many days in a row he knows he needs to change something (link to full speech at bottom of post).

There’s a ton of ways you can reduce your work load, but I thought I’d list three that successful entrepreneurs used.

1. Leave the employees in charge: Paul Orfalea, the founder of Kinko’s, was expanding his company and kept getting calls about every little decision. Finally, he realized he’d never be able to grow the company if he had to do everything so he left. He jumped in his car and went on a vacation. The first week he said people just said “he’ll come back,” week two was “Oh my, he’s gone.” Then in week three something magical happened. The employee’s handled everything. It took Paul a bit of time when he came back to get over the fact that his employee’s didn’t need him. But he was able to take longer vacations and his employees were empowered, a clear win for everyone.
2. Fire a customer: Tim Ferris ran a nutritional supplement website and was working himself insane. One of the tactics he used to go from working 14 hour days to 4 hours each week was to evaluate his customers. He profiled the most profitable ones, then searched for more of those. He also evaluated his most stressful customers who wasted his time and either stopped calling them or simply fired them. He’d tell them that if they weren’t going to follow his process or respect him to go somewhere else. A bit gutsy, but it worked for him. He’s got a great book out, check it out if you have time – The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich.
   
3. Design a better business model: John Chow is another interesting entrepreneur. He started a tech related blog and quickly realized people were interested in how to make money with blogs. A few years later and presto he writes a couple posts a day for his site johnchow.com and last month brought in over $40,000 in ad revenue. With almost no costs, he’s living the life. He’s totally mobile and although he doesn’t state how much he’s working… I can almost guarantee it’s less than you.

So look in the mirror tomorrow and pretend it’s your last day here. Are you looking forward to the day? If not perhaps it’s time to see if you can reduce the hours you spend working. Start looking for little ways to leverage the internet, your employees or your assets. Hire an outsourcing company. Leave a promising employee in charge for a couple weeks. Redesign your business model.

If you have any tips of your own please leave them as a comment. I’m sure the other business owners are interested to see how you’re getting home early or taking that vacation to Europe.

-Craig Sharkton

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