I read an article this week on linked-in where the writer had challenged herself to take a whole week off and totally switch off from work. And she reinforced the ‘totally’ bit. She wanted to spend quality time with her children for an uninterrupted week and was asking readers if they thought she could do it. My response was, “Yes! Otherwise, what’s the point?!”

And that’s the question I’d like to pose in this blog:
“Why are you really in business?”

With my clients over the years I’ve gleaned there are often three main reasons:

1. To make a difference. As Daniel Priestley so aptly put it, “To make a Dent”
2. To afford a certain lifestyle (financial freedom)
3. To have the time freedom to spend with family and friends.

You could almost combine 2 and 3 into the time and financial freedom to provide a great life for me and my family. And of course ‘be my own boss’ ‘get rid of the 9 to 5,’ ‘work at something I believe in’ are all in the mix.

But for many business owners I meet, the ‘making a difference’ is happening and often the ‘making money' (for financial freedom) is happening but what’s got lost is the pursuit of time freedom. That has often become a vague ideal that will happen somewhere down the line.

And of course when you’re younger you take your health for granted, you’re loving the buzz of your business. You’re energised and focussed and you’re driving your business forward. And that’s great…to a point.

So I would ask you to just pause, take a breath and think about what’s really important to you. Most often people will respond to this with one word - ‘family.’ And you may say that you’re out there working all the hours for your family but given a choice would your children want more money or more of your time? Okay, maybe not teenagers! But younger children; are they going to remember summers of great games on the beach, pony rides and ice creams, and bedtime stories with mum or dad, or a parent who was always too busy?

If you want great relationships with your children you can’t say, “Right I’ve got time now” and find they’re eighteen and about to leave home. And it’s not just about those wonderful memories you want for your children but for yourself too. You’ll never have this time again. Same for your spouse or partner.

Think about what’s stopping you from taking time off:

1. Have you not got people in place who you can delegate to?
2. Is it a trust issue? You have a team but don’t trust them to perform without you?
3. Are you struggling to let go as you still feel the need to micromanage ‘your baby’?

Small business owners are clearly passionate about what they do, so it’s no surprise that they find it hard to leave work behind on holiday. It can be a challenge also to totally switch off from work as technology has made it so much easier to stay in touch. I believe it’s crucial to take proper breaks to achieve an enriched life and avoid business burn out. 

This is why we at MPL exist. Our vision is to make business easier. To enable people to achieve financial and time freedom. 

The right team, recruited to your Big Vision and Values, simple logical and repeatable systems to follow, and a strong second line manager to whom you can delegate are the portals to freedom. 

If you want any help unlocking those door please take a look at our website: 
www.mariannepage.co.uk or email us at: hello@mariannepage.co.uk

Do one thing: Think about what’s really important to you and what may be preventing you from achieving it. Then act.

Good luck and thanks for reading :)

Do you feel like you’re drowning? Drowning in paperwork, in problems, in people stuff? And all because of your success!

When you were starting out you had a handle on everything. Now that you’ve grown you’ve had to take on more people and it’s just not the same. You feel like you’ve lost control. And like any new parent you’re finding it hard to trust anyone with your ‘baby’ - to do things your way.

If it helps, you’re not alone. There are lots of successful small business owners out there who have fallen out of love with their business.  What used to be fun, exciting and rewarding is doing great financially, but not giving you the same pleasure or sense of adventure.

Of course you've always worked hard, but in the early days that hard work was interesting and added real value to the business. Now you’re working even harder and it doesn’t ever seem to move things on.

7 Clear Signs Your Business Needs Simplifying

1. Your business doesn’t seem joined up, you have a group of individuals, but no-one is working as one team
2. Your Customer journey is over-complicated; in the past one person dealt with each customer, now they have half a dozen different points of contact 
3. You have no set ways of doing things; everyone in the team has their own way of doing each task
4. You’re great at what you do but you have no experience of managing people, and it shows. Your people are devouring your time
5. You’ve tried to solve this by promoting someone in your team to manage, but you can’t give them the development or hand-holding they need, so they’re struggling to support you and you’re waste time checking up on them
6. You have no performance measures in place and struggle to give feedback, so nobody knows how they’re doing so engagement is low
7. You’ve simply lost sight of why you started all this in the first place.

So…are you stuck? Or are you drowning?

I hope you’re neither, but if you are, let me throw you a lifebelt.

It doesn’t have to be this way. You can have time freedom and a business that runs like a well-oiled machine, manned by a high-performing team. You just need to systemise in every area of your business and develop a strong second line of management. That’s not as daunting as it sounds. 

In fact, there are only 10 steps to your Freedom - that freedom to scale, grow or sell your business, or run it from a beach somewhere if that's what you really want.

Fancy a bit of that?

Do one thing: Our Systems Mastery Programme works around you and your life, giving you the freedom to work ON your business, not IN it. Read more here: Systems Mastery Programme

‘Systems are not chains to tie you down, they are wings to help you fly.’ 

This week I delivered a keynote presentation at the prestigious north west business club the ‘K-Club’, posing the question, ‘What if business was easy?’  It challenged the thinking of the 80-strong audience of business owners, and led to an interesting Q&A.

So I wanted to ask you if it’s something you’ve ever considered?

What if business was easy?

What if you didn’t have to miss another school sports day or parents evening, if you never had to make an excuse for pulling out of a day out with friends or date night with your other half?

What if you didn’t buy into the school of thought that says that the only way to grow or scale your business is to work harder and harder and to make more and more sacrifices?

What if easy was a choice?

I know that easy is possible, because that’s what I experienced at McDonald’s – easy, flowing, well-oiled machine. Easy is good…really good…when you get there. Easy makes things more efficient, more profitable, more scalable.

During the late ‘80s and early ‘90s I witnessed massive growth and scale at McDonald’s – one new restaurant a week, with a constant stream of crew and managers needing to be trained and deployed to run them.

Since I left McDonald’s, I’ve seen business owners who came to me because they wanted to sell their business, fall back in love with it when they realise that business can be easy; that they don’t need to work in it all the time; that they don’t need to slog through the day-to-day of their operation; that they can free themselves completely.

I’ve seen complete control freaks take eight week holidays; people who would maybe leave the country, but have their laptop with them, checking in every single day to make sure their team were doing things right.

Going away, and just letting the business run because you know that everything is in place for it to run well, that’s really what ‘easy’ is all about.

And how do you get to easy?

First, you have to believe that it’s possible. 

You have to believe that your people are smart, capable and resourceful; that they’ll work well as part of your team; that they’ll try their hardest for you when they know that you trust them. 

And you have to believe in the power of systems; that systems in every area of your business will free you, and your team; that systems are the foundation of every business that wants to grow and scale.

Believe that systems are not chains to tie you down, they are wings to help you fly; a launchpad for freedom – freeing your people, making things easier for your customers, and certainly freeing you.

Once you’ve sorted your mindset, then it’s time to take action – to create simple, logical, repeatable systems, to run your operation, to train your people, to free them to take ownership; to make your life easy.

Are you ready for that sort of action?

Are you tired of being the block in your business – the person that everyone has to come to to get things done – the person that has to check everything before it’s signed off?

Are you tired of missing out on stuff – of working on your holidays – of being ruled by your phone and your inbox?

Are you ready to make your life easy, but you’ve hung round with the people who tell you ‘the only way to success is through harder work and more sacrifice’, for so long that you’re just not sure?

Then why not invest 70 minutes of your time and let me share with you how simple and straightforward it can be to get to ‘easy’. 

Join me for one of the two webinars I’m running over the next two weeks, and in return I’ll give you simple tools and strategies that will have an immediate impact on your life and definitely make it easier.
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Do one thing:  Take action!  Check out the dates and times for the webinars and get yourself signed up HERE.  Look forward to seeing you there.