Do you find yourself constantly stuck handling the day-to-day aspects of your business? Chances are you have team members who can step up and own certain leadership roles without your involvement. When you let your team manage the daily functions of the company, you can start working on your businesses.
“Working ON the business could mean many things, but for certain, it must include building budgets, setting goals, creating a strategy and playbook, and allowing team members to step up and become leaders,” says Doug McDuff, president and co-owner of Landscape America.
McDuff, along with Chris di Stefano, president of di Stefano Landscaping, Paul Fraynd, CEO of Sun Valley Landscaping, Brett Lemcke, vice president of R.M. Landscape, Inc. and Andrew Ziehler, owner and CEO of Ziehler Lawn & Tree Care will discuss this matter on a panel at ELEVATE. This session, “How to Work On Your Business, Not In It,” will be held on Monday, Sept. 19 at 10 a.m. It is part of the Business Excellence track and is worth 1 CEU.
The panelists will engage in real and authentic conversations about the challenges of stepping out of the day-to-day and how leaders can get clarity about what they can focus on to grow their business.
“We have a solid group of landscape entrepreneurs, each willing to share their experiences and stories of why and how we grew our businesses by focusing on more than the daily workload,” McDuff says. “There is definitely an opportunity to learn from our mistakes, and avoid some of the blind spots attendees may not be seeing just yet in their own journeys.”
Some of the tasks owners should consider passing on to others in key positions in the company include sales and business development, operations, or designing and building. McDuff says owners should look for superstars to take on these tasks so they can focus on what they love to do.
“Owners first need to discover and identify their ‘genius’; what they love to do and are most passionate about in their business,” McDuff says.
These non-urgent and important tasks include planning, financial, strategy, culture and continuous improvement.
“Leaders run the risk of becoming the bottleneck for growth in an organization if they aren’t allowing their team to step up,” McDuff says. “And worse, all of the growth needs to funnel through the owner, which will likely lead to burnout and lack of focus on important areas of the business. The A players and Superstars in your organization will leave because they won’t be able to reach their goals and aspirations.”
Want to learn how to stop wearing all the hats and allow your team to step up? Register for ELEVATE and we’ll see you in Orlando, Florida!
