How to Address Burnout

In our last newsletter, we broached the topic of burnout for business owners: 

In many respects, burnout is just a new term for mid-life crisis. But in some ways, it’s on a much bigger scale. Whereas you might buy a Corvette to quench a mid-life crisis, burnout can sap your energy to the point where nothing can motivate you. This, in turn, can have negative effects on business performance. 

When you grow a successful business, you may feel the effects of burnout. Even worse, you may feel them before you’re in a position to retire on your terms. Worse still, by the time you’re in the throes of burnout, you may not have the energy to address it! 

Today, we’ll present a process for addressing burnout within the context of planning for a successful future before it hits you. 

Why You Shouldn’t Do Everything

When you started your business, you might have done a lot of the heavy lifting alone. It’s something to be proud of. 

As businesses grow, they tend to become more complex. Many business owners one day realize that, try as they might, they simply cannot do everything all by themselves. Yet, there’s also a fire that might try to tell you, “I’ve done everything before, I can do everything again.” 

Today, we’ll present some of the benefits of letting others help you compared to some of the pitfalls of trying to do everything yourself. 

What Do You Want?

Business owners often know what they want from their businesses: growth, profitability, sustained success. And for many of those same owners, the business is a means to an end, not the end itself.  

But what is the “end”? You can likely answer “why” you started your business—you’re independent, you crave a challenge, it’s in your blood. 

When asked, many business owners struggle to answer the question, “What do you want from all this work?”  

Often, the answer to this important, guiding question comes out in planning for a successful future, like it did for one fictional but representative business owner. 

Building Value Outside the Business

Many business owners find the bulk of their wealth within their businesses. However, planning for a successful future often means wrangling financials outside the business too. This is especially important when markets may not be as favorable to small and mid-sized businesses as they have been in the past. Here are three things to consider to help you build value outside of your business.

Is This Plan Right for You?

A question business owners often ask about planning for a successful future is, “How do I know the plan my advisors are building is right for me?” It’s a good question, and one that we want to help answer for you today by explaining the process of planning for a successful future. 

Why Specific Goals Should Also Be Fuzzy

A longstanding credo for successful business planning is make specific goals. However, there is such a thing as being overly specific in your goals to the detriment of other things that matter to you. Let’s look at how adding fuzziness to specific goals can make your business planning strategies more fulfilling.

 

Keeping the Family Business Running and the Business Family Happy

Running a successful business is complex per se. Adding the element of “family” to a business often creates more complexities, especially as the business grows. Lifelong family bonds and expectations can run headlong into business realities and needs. Today, we’ll share some ideas about how to keep the family business running and the business family happy.

 

The Common Element Among Unique and Successful Businesses

Successful business owners may face a conundrum as they pursue success. “Though my competitors do something similar, they don’t do it the way I do it. So, how do I know the right way to achieve success, especially if I don’t do things their way?”

 

The Virtuous Circle of Improving Cash Flow

If cash is king, then cash flow is the kingmaker.

Cash flow can have a multiplier effect in terms of achieving your planning goals for a successful future. Often, increasing cash flow requires strong performances from key employees. Let’s look at how properly motivating your key employees could cause a cascading effect that creates a virtuous circle of increasing cash flow.