Your business must be independent of any one individual if you want your business to thrive in the marketplace on a long-term basis.

The most effective way you can grow your business is by removing yourself from the daily operations and focusing your time on developing strategies to elevate and move your brand forward. However, you cannot step away from running your business until you have strong systems in place, a dependable and knowledgeable team, and a stable customer base.

To help you develop a business that can run on its own, consider the following:

Test your business

The best way to test how well your business will perform without you is to go on a holiday. Ensure you are unreachable during the entire period. In this way, you can come back and assess what went wrong or where your issues lie, for instance, you may find your staff are not comfortable calling the shots if they are used to being micromanaged.

Build strong systems

Putting strong systems in place is the only way you can remove yourself from the daily operations involved in running your business. You must establish clear requirements for all business activities, including how to manage your social media and content calendar through to the processes used for handling customer complaints. By having clear guidelines in place for every aspect of your business, you will no longer need to be there to save the day.

Become replaceable 

When you reduce your responsibilities, you must have a reliable and qualified team who can run your business efficiently in your stead. There must be team members employed who are capable of speaking to clients or suppliers and have the relevant industry knowledge to make important decisions on behalf of your business. You need to ensure there are also effective training protocols set up so that every employee understands the business policies and procedures, and what is required in their individual roles.

Perks of a stable customer base

Having a steady customer base provides a reliable and regular source of financial security to take time out to strategise your business’ future or tweak any issues in your branding image. For instance, you may want to put your time and effort into perfecting or redeveloping your service or product to attract a broader target market. Stepping away also allows you the freedom to take time away from your business altogether.