Networking Now

This one is fast becoming a major player in my day, i get more inquiries about clients wanting to break away from their businesses than any other, is this because people are scared about whats round the corner, hey if Dubai is in differculty then what hope do the rest of us have.
some questions to consider about your business

Would you buy a business which comes with a 80+ hour work load?

Would you buy a business which earns you under the minimum wage?

Would you buy a business which means no more holidays, time with family?

You may be able to cope with working long hours and believe that you're doing well,but if you described your day to another person would they be envious or run a mile,

Think about how long you can keep it up for before burning out.
remember your health, if you keep it going this means you could be sat at a desk for long periods of time eating convenient things with no time for exercise.
running a business should mean a happy balance between work and play and if you can't break away your doing something wrong, this will be hard to accept for some people ( i used to be one of them), you know who you are, your the ones who get very defensive about it and try to explain your working pratice to people.
you need help to keep things seperate whether that be your partner in life or business, a coach, or a friend.
What to do next:
simple, make a form up inwhich you can make a note of your working day, do this for a week, then sit back look at it and see where you can make changes whether it be outsourcing (lots of brilliant posts by Helen etc on this), or if some jobs were really needed to be done( did they acheive anything). you have to be critical don't be over protective of your own actions get someone else to go through it, you will be bias. Go through your list of things to do differently, which ones are cost effective and which ones aren't, measure your results. sometimes you have to spend money to make money. At the end of the day thats why we do what we do, to make money, we can't do alot without it.

When you get your list down to nearly nothing this will ensure when you decide to sell up, your business will become more sort after and earn you the money back for all those years building it up. This is only one way to help become more efficient during your day,

Good post, Colin. Not a lot to add - you've summed it up very well.

Definitely a problem when selling a business, if the bottom line doesn't seem attractive. If you've got that right, the 80 hour week seems less of a problem.