For about a year, I've been somewhere between lost and resting to recover from burnout. I posted this thread, more or less asking for validation to walk away from my core business, a web agency.
In that year I've been dreaming of different business ideas, and while they are exciting, none of them are guaranteed (of course). One day I'll think "It's time to start this one", and the next day I'll discover reasons why it won't be easy, and I'll retreat in a similar pattern to @MTF (I hope it's ok for me to tag you on that as I call both of us out!).
Through all of this the reality remains: I've worked 10 hours or less per week on my agency all year long. Year to date I've had ~1 call per week. I've not been doing operational work and I keep getting paid.
But the backstory is that I have, as my friend puts it, "mental headshit" (aka baggage) in relation to this business. It started as a freelance/consulting business. I have worked with team members, partners and clients whom I've loved and hated (professionally and personally), taken calls at all hours of the day, not been able to switch off mentally, and let it consume so much of my time and energy.
At the same time, it's given me wifi money, allowed me to travel the world, move to beautiful country, retire my wife, and is the income source that has brought the majority of my financial independence, so I absolutely should be grateful for it.
I believed I had to be the face of this business, and that if I wasn't, all of our clients would leave and the business would fold. Now, I haven't been on a single client call for 6 months now, and while we have lost a few accounts, the only reasons they have cited have been budget, our service quality, economy, etc. Never "I had a relationship with the owner and now that has ended, I'm cancelling".
This business has been a cage because I built the cage. It took me 7 years to finally write SOPs. I told myself that "nobody can do the work as well as I can" but in reality I rarely delegated because I didn't have the patience to train someone. I didn't have a hiring process, I just took the easy route each time. I took cheap projects or bad clients because we had a pipeline that was drying up.
I've shied away from saying "no, we don't do that" and taken out of scope work for the team which has completely f*cked our operations. I've been scared about really putting ourselves out there and doing cold email or really any sort of outbound campaign.
Nowadays operations is 90% delegated. I get roped in from time to time but overall the business runs OK without me.
In my other thread, I was asked:
Historically I've brute forced results and sacrificed my values to get the outcome I wanted. This is effective but exhausting as it's just hustling that results in income, not an asset. I'm in my 40s and I'm tired of hustling. The business side of my answer from my other thread was:
I have the foundation. The only thing stopping me from having this is me.
This is what I'm going to do. When I see the grift that some members are putting in I realise how childish I've been. This business could be better but it could be far worse too. Why shut down what could become my ideal business?
My goals are simple:
In that year I've been dreaming of different business ideas, and while they are exciting, none of them are guaranteed (of course). One day I'll think "It's time to start this one", and the next day I'll discover reasons why it won't be easy, and I'll retreat in a similar pattern to @MTF (I hope it's ok for me to tag you on that as I call both of us out!).
Through all of this the reality remains: I've worked 10 hours or less per week on my agency all year long. Year to date I've had ~1 call per week. I've not been doing operational work and I keep getting paid.
But the backstory is that I have, as my friend puts it, "mental headshit" (aka baggage) in relation to this business. It started as a freelance/consulting business. I have worked with team members, partners and clients whom I've loved and hated (professionally and personally), taken calls at all hours of the day, not been able to switch off mentally, and let it consume so much of my time and energy.
At the same time, it's given me wifi money, allowed me to travel the world, move to beautiful country, retire my wife, and is the income source that has brought the majority of my financial independence, so I absolutely should be grateful for it.
I believed I had to be the face of this business, and that if I wasn't, all of our clients would leave and the business would fold. Now, I haven't been on a single client call for 6 months now, and while we have lost a few accounts, the only reasons they have cited have been budget, our service quality, economy, etc. Never "I had a relationship with the owner and now that has ended, I'm cancelling".
This business has been a cage because I built the cage. It took me 7 years to finally write SOPs. I told myself that "nobody can do the work as well as I can" but in reality I rarely delegated because I didn't have the patience to train someone. I didn't have a hiring process, I just took the easy route each time. I took cheap projects or bad clients because we had a pipeline that was drying up.
I've shied away from saying "no, we don't do that" and taken out of scope work for the team which has completely f*cked our operations. I've been scared about really putting ourselves out there and doing cold email or really any sort of outbound campaign.
Nowadays operations is 90% delegated. I get roped in from time to time but overall the business runs OK without me.
In my other thread, I was asked:
Historically I've brute forced results and sacrificed my values to get the outcome I wanted. This is effective but exhausting as it's just hustling that results in income, not an asset. I'm in my 40s and I'm tired of hustling. The business side of my answer from my other thread was:
I have the foundation. The only thing stopping me from having this is me.
This is what I'm going to do. When I see the grift that some members are putting in I realise how childish I've been. This business could be better but it could be far worse too. Why shut down what could become my ideal business?
My goals are simple:
- $30k monthly net profit
- sell a single, clear offer to a clear ideal target audience
- control our sales pipeline, instead of be a passenger
- maintain a low number of calls per week (2 maximum)
- be able to take a 3 month vacation without the business imploding (it's not dependent on me outside of annual filing and strategic business decisions)
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