Escaping Business Burnout

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:00

Imagine a glass of water with sand in it. When you’re constantly moving as in fighting fires and the business working in the business doing all the day to day stuff, you’re stirring up the water in the sand, and it’s really cloudy, which means you can’t see clearly. So you actually need to let that sand settle down. And then you can see again and gain some real clarity. And so we use a little tool in the US called Clarity brakes. And this is where you actually remove yourself from the day to day to allow yourself time to think. And we talked about making time to save time. So when you’re clear on your bigger objectives, you really gain the confidence and simplify your procedures and create your efficiencies. So this clarity break is about actually taking yourself out of the business, getting rid of all the distractions that you have in the business. For me, it’s about going and sitting in a park or going away to a batch that we have that is away from all of the technology, all of your internet, anything that can kind of distract you. And you literally sit there with it with a blank piece of paper, or I actually have a remarkable which I love. And I use as well. So just sit there, I can’t be distracted by text, by emails by anything going on the business. And with this blank piece of paper, you just sit there and you think and then you start to ask yourself the questions that you’re seeing up on the screen right now. So the questions that we have to ask ourselves is What is your vision or your plan on track? What’s the number one goal? And most focusing on the most important things? Do I have the right people in the right seats to grow? What’s the one people moves that I must make this quarter? How strong is my bench? If I lose a key player? Do I have somebody for me to fill the seat or my processes working? Well, what seems overly complicated that must be simplified to I understand what my client my direct reports truly love to do? And a greater doing? And by leveraging their strengths? What can I delegate to others in order to use my time more effectively? What can we do to be more proactive versus being reactive? What can I do to improve communication? And what’s my top priority this this month and this week? And by doing that with a blank piece of paper without any other distractions? You just you ask yourself these questions, and you just let it simmer. And then all of a sudden, it’ll just come to you. And you’ll start writing the answers to these questions. And it gets you focus back on that bigger picture again. So you’re not you know, fighting the fires in the business. But the second part of the question was, how do you make sure you make the time for it, it’s not that you’ve actually got to book it into your diary, there is no easy way to do this, you actually have to commit to it and say, I am going to make myself at this time. And that could be for somebody, but it’s once a week, I’ve had clients who do it every single day for half an hour, it could be once a month. So it’s up to you to decide what is feasible. And then literally book that timeout in your diary and force yourself to take that time out to allow that sand to settle. So you get the clarity.

Rachel Wilson 02:42

Great. And following on from that importance of time out. What we often hear from a lot of business owners is that they’ve got family and friends in the business working with them who kind of unproductive. And they don’t know how to change their business mindset to make them productive and make them as if they were any other staff member within that business. So do you have any tips on how a business owner can move their mindset to that either a business mindset rather than a charity?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  03:18

I think that’s also a really good question. I mean, I think that I’m I’m an accredited family business adviser with lots of family businesses. And I think that actually, Kim alluded to it is that sometimes we know we have people in the business, who are our family members, they’ve got to actually love what they’re doing. And this is the most important thing. So in the business, what we always recommend is, first of all, you take a view of the business and go, What is the number one goal for this business? What do we want to achieve in the next or 10 years? And then you build a simple plan around how you’re going to do that we’ve got a very simple two page plan that we use, but you aren’t. So the question is, you know, Why do we exist? How do we operate around here? What are we planning to achieve? And then once you’ve got these eight questions kind of answered, you’ve then got to actually develop the structure that will deliver on that. And so we have this thing called an accountability chart. And what we do is we goes where we go, what are the all of the main functions in this business? And who is going to be accountable for that? And at this point, when not looking at people, we’re looking purely at functions? And what are the accountabilities of the business? And once you’ve built this structure first, then you can start to say, right, do we have the right people that actually need to go and fill these accountabilities? And we ask the three questions on people who want to do this role. First of all, do they get it as in? Do they truly get what this roll is about? Do they understand what’s required of them? You know, is it sort of in their DNA in terms of what they’re doing? Second, and most important, do they actually want it? Because if they don’t want it, they’re never going to show up and give 100% And so when I say want it, I mean you jump out of bed in the morning god I can’t wait to go on a buying trip for you know, for my business, that’s a one two of your business, and then finally, do they have the capacity to do it? And capacity is not time capacity because we We all have the same amount of hours in a day. But do we actually have the technical knowledge, the expertise, the experience to actually do it. And if you haven’t got any one of these, or any one of these, it’s missing, you’ve got a real people issue as and that person is not the right person for the job. And you have to be really tough on this. Because if you allow a family member or friend, to continue to do a role that they don’t do, WC get one to have capacity to do, they’re actually going to have an impact on the entire business. Because people will see them getting away with not doing the right things, people will see them getting preferential treatment if you like. So get the structure right. First, think about the right people for it. Give them measurables. Within those accountabilities, we’ve got the accountabilities the functions in the business, and actually give them some measurable. So go, Hey, in your role, this is what we expect of you. This is what Michael was looking at the numbers, or the numbers were expecting of his win sales. We need lead generation, what does that look like me this money per week, and you give them really, really strong accountabilities and scorecard and measurables. And then you hold them accountable for it. And if at any time, they’re not achieving that, you’ve got to ask yourself, do you actually had the right person in the right seat?

Rachel Wilson 06:15

Yeah, some really great points. Yeah. Yeah, I even think about, you know, my business, this things you that I can use right now. So yeah, awesome. A lot of our business owners at the moment, and the day to day, how do I get them to go from day to day in the business to achieving the end game

Debra Chantry-Taylor  06:37

is his, this is the bit about sort of, you know, make sure you’ve got the right mindset, but also, again, removing yourself from the day to day business. Because if you’re working always in the business, and not spending time on the business, you’re not looking at the bigger picture. And if you think about achieving the end goal, but we really, really sharply focus on what that long term is. And we talk about the fact that, you know, we, we always underestimate what we can achieve in 10 years. And then we overestimate what we can do the short term. And so if we can keep bringing ourselves back to the 10 year target of what we’re trying to achieve, we can then start to focus on it. But also, more importantly, to the slotless screen. Now, we’ve got to make sure that as an entrepreneur, or business owner and leader, we’re actually managing and maximizing our own energy so that we can then you know, maximize the energy in our business. And so looking at the slide on the screen here, you’ve got to sort of there’s a few things you have to look at, first of all, 10 year thinking, you know, imagine take the data 10 years from now we’re in 2022. Now, in 2032, how old are you going to be? And what do you want to have achieved at that point. And if you can get really, really clear about that everything you do starts to follow it. There’s also things like taking time off. I think that you know, Ken mentioned going and doing the purchasing, that’s one way to get out of the business. But also, what other time do you need off? Are you taking it off holidays to make sure you actually are completely refreshed? We talked about knowing your 100%? Do you know how many hours in a week you can actually work and be effective. So for some people, that’s 20 hours, and they’re done. For other people, it’s 80 hours, and they still feel really good, but there is no diminishing return. So how many hours is actually really good for you. And I know, for me, it’s about 55 hours, if I do more than that I’m just not getting the results, if I did less than that and bored and twiddling my thumbs. So it’s like knowing what that 100% is. You’ve also got to really know yourself as well. And know, you know, what is it that you love? Like Kim said, what do we actually love in our business? What do we do? And there’s a whole bunch of other things here, which is actually in a book called The EOS life. But it’s like just being really, really clear about how do you make sure you maximize and manage your energy to deliver that to the team that you’re working with?

Rachel Wilson 08:50

Great slug, we are getting pushed for time. But I have got one question for you that don’t want to sound like we’re ending on a negative, but you have been in a position where you’ve had to call worst case scenario and walk away from a business. Do you have any advice on how business owners can approach this? If that’s where they end up over the next 12, 18 24 months?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  09:18

I certainly do. I mean, I say I don’t believe there’s such a thing as failure, you’ve got to learn from your mistakes. And that way, it is a definitely learning experience. But at the same time, you’ve also got to know when to pull it. And so you’ve got to keep a really good eye on your numbers on a weekly basis. Looking at your lagging indicators, like your revenue, your profit and your leading indicators are you making the right number of sales calls is enough inquiries coming in. And by keeping a really strong eye on that you can adjust if you need to, but you’ve also got to be prepared to kind of go actually, you know, this is not changing. It’s not working. We’ve tried pivoting that’s not working. You’ve then got to go is it time to call it and that’s really really tough and it’s your baby, it’s your life. It’s you put everything into it. I sold my House, I sold my car, I put everything into it. By the way, I do not recommend that to anybody. But you know, so you’re, you’re so close to it and you’re so passionate about it. Sometimes you need to bring somebody else in from outside and go, Look, here’s the figures. Here’s the numbers. We’ve tried this, we’ve tried that. What do you think and get some outside advice around where you think you’re right. I think your accountants a great person to go to somebody from an advisory board and just say, am I actually excuse my leg up pushing should appeal, you know, it’s this kind of, because things change the business that you were in at the beginning, may well have changed over time, that may not be the market therefore anymore. And you’ve got to be realistic about either you can do something to change it. And if you’re keeping an eye on those numbers, you’ll know you’re doing the right thing. Or if you can’t, it’s time to call it and don’t lose your house and your car.

Rachel Wilson 10:44

Yeah, great, really sound advice. And thank you for sharing that. Because I know you know, you’re very open about what’s happened in your past. And as you said, it’s all about learning. So yeah. And I really liked that idea of the karate break. And it’s something that I think I’m going to also put into my weekly calendar to actually sit back and spend some time on. So. Look, thanks. We don’t have a few minutes left to get some questions. So I’ve got one question here. Question for deeper actually, as a corporate, it’s easier to throw extra money at people to help retain them. Do you have any tips for things, but a smaller business can do to help them keep their

Debra Chantry-Taylor  11:23

people? Yeah, I mean, it’s really interesting that people don’t often actually change jobs for money. They change jobs for many other reasons, which is that they don’t like their manager. They don’t like their leader, they don’t enjoy what they’re where they’re working. And so it’s I think it’s about building a culture and making sure you’ve got those right people in the business that share that culture, and building things in that actually, you know, push other hot buttons rather than just a salary. And I know that when you create a really great culture and people love being part of that culture, they will actually stay even if they are offered more somewhere else. So it’s about what can we do to really live our cultural values and really make it an enjoyable place to work.