A (0:05)

Here's the bottom line, folks. You don't have to stay stuck as a treadmill operator, and you can't. It's not sustainable. When we were at that stage, no matter how fast I ran or how hard I worked, we weren't making any progress. And 100% of the revenue depended on me showing up, putting up screens, or running my mouth on a microphone. That's the first stage all businesses go through, and it's exhausting, but you can get out. And today, John Felk from Entre Leadership is going to show you how you'll learn the key problems for businesses in the treadmill operator stage, and more importantly, exactly how to address them.

B (0:43)

When you're in the treadmill operator stage, every decision goes through you, every problem lands on your desk, and every customer complaint winds up in your inbox. In other words, you're the chief everything officer, and it feels like you're carrying the whole business on your back. That's a recipe for burnout. That's because being a treadmill operator leads to three major problems. For starters, you're working in the business way more than you're working on the business. To put it another way, you don't have enough time to actually grow your business because you're just too busy fighting fires all day long. You might be stuck in your inbox. You might be stuck on the phone answering customer problems and complaints. You might be fixing something that nobody else can fix except for you, but you're just not moving the business forward. The next big thing is you can't take time off, because no work would get done if you weren't there. Not only can you not take time to have a vacation, you don't even remember what a vacation feels like. And finally, you're at risk for physical and emotional burnout, because when you can't take time off and all the work stops when you stop, you wind up feeling trapped by your business. The fact of the matter is, you really just kind of own a job more than you own a business. So to sum it all up, too much of your business relies on you in the treadmill operator stage. And if that's where you are right now, you should have one goal in mind. Getting your business to the point where the majority of the results are generated without you. Now, to make that happen, you've got to master four key skills. Getting better in these areas will help you develop the margin you desperately need to be able to grow your business. The very first thing is time management. Right now, your calendar probably looks like an episode of Hoarders. It's cluttered, it's overwhelming, it's full of stuff that doesn't even matter. And that's why the first move that'll help you get off the treadmill is protecting your priorities. This means intentionally blocking time for the right things. Make sure that you're spending your time on what matters most. The fact of the matter is your calendar is like a budget for your time. You've got to find margin. You've got to figure out what you can get rid of. You've got to figure out how you can clean it up. Skill number two, delegation. There are a lot of different ways to get work off of your to do list. You can outsource, you can get some part time help, you can use technology. And if you've got somebody already working with you, you can delegate stuff to them. And if you're struggling to hand off work to your team, it's likely because you haven't actually thought through this and figured out how to set them up to succeed. Delegation isn't about just dumping tasks on them. It's about transferring ownership and authority so other people can actually get the work done and carry the ball for you. So make sure you're clearly communicating expectations and desired outcomes. It's not just a to do list that you hand them. You also need to focus on matching the responsibilities to the person's strengths. This is a part of setting them up to succeed and you need to let them own the work instead of just micromanaging them. It's fine to check in regularly and you need to train them. Accountability is a good thing, but resist the urge to constantly swoop in and take over. Skill number three, hiring the right people. Your business will never outgrow the strength of your team. Which means you don't just need warm bodies. You need the right people in the right seats. And that means slowing down, taking time in your hiring process. Spend the time to dig in, really get to know the person and determine are they a culture fit? You need to set new team members up to actually win. You want to hire people who align with your mission, your vision, your values. Not just the skills, not just the resume. You got to make sure they're a fit. Because I promise you, no hire is better than a bad hire. And the right hires are your ticket off the treadmill. Now, you need to start by making sure you've got enough money to hire a team member in the first place. And if you don't make enough money to hire help, then you need to figure out how to make more money. Listen, we talk all the time about budgets and you need to have a budget and I'm going to talk about that. But the fact of the matter is you have to have enough money going into the budget to be able to afford to hire somebody. So you're probably going to have to work even harder for a while to create the margin, the financial margin, to afford to hire that help. But that's what you got to do. But if your first thought was, I don't even know if I can afford to hire help, then that tells me you don't know your numbers. And if you don't know your number, you don't know your business. That's why skill number four is making a budget for your business. Having a real budget for your business, on paper, on purpose is non negotiable. That does not mean looking back at last month's P and L to see if everything turned out okay in the end. A budget is all about forward thinking. It's not a checkup for how things have been going. So how do you make a good business budget? A good place to start is by writing down all your expected revenue streams for the next month, along with the cost of goods sold and all your expense categories. Then fill in the numbers, use previous profit and loss statements as a guide to get you going, and then iterate on that and make it better every month. Now that's just the starting point for setting up a budget. You'll need to follow a few more steps to wind up with a great finished product. And I recently broke down the whole process in another video. Just click the link in the show notes to check it out.