The Difference Between Working In the Business and On the Business

Research & Sources / Entrepreneur Growth

A talented cook makes wonderful meals. A restaurant owner does something different: they build a place where wonderful meals are served every night, even when they are not in the kitchen. Many restaurants fail because the owner is a brilliant cook who never stops cooking long enough to build the restaurant.

Two kinds of work

Working in the business means doing the daily work: serving clients, delivering the product, answering emails, fixing problems. It is necessary, and often it is what entrepreneurs love most.

Working on the business means improving the business itself: its strategy, its systems, its team, its offer, its finances. It is the work that makes tomorrow easier and better than today.

The E-Myth

Michael Gerber described this problem in The E-Myth Revisited. Many small businesses are started by skilled technicians, people who are very good at the work itself. They assume that knowing the work means knowing how to build a business around it. So they keep working in the business and never build the systems that would let it grow.¹

Why “in” always wins

Work in the business is urgent: a client is waiting, a deadline is today. Work on the business is important but rarely urgent: nobody calls you to say “please improve your hiring process today”. Research by Meng Zhu and colleagues found that people tend to choose urgent tasks over more important ones simply because they feel time-limited.²

So unless you protect time for work on the business, it simply never happens.

Examples of working on the business

• Writing down how your core service is delivered, so others can do it.
• Reviewing which clients and products are actually profitable.
• Designing a simple sales process.
• Hiring and developing a key person.
• Setting the main outcome for the next quarter.

Research on sales shows that companies with a defined process tend to grow faster than those without.³ Building that process is classic “on the business” work.

Making time for both

Block it. Reserve at least half a day per week for work on the business. Treat it like a client appointment.

Leave the kitchen. Work on the business in a different place: a café, a meeting room, at home. A different place helps a different kind of thinking.

Choose one project per quarter. One improvement at a time, finished properly.

Free up hours by handing over parts of the daily work.

What this means for you this week

• Estimate how many hours last week were “in” and how many “on”.
• Book half a day next week for work on the business.
• Choose one improvement project for this quarter.
• Hand over one daily task to free time for it.

Keep cooking if you love it. But someone has to build the restaurant.

Sources

1. Gerber, M. E. The E-Myth Revisited. HarperCollins. harpercollins.comWhy many small businesses stall when the owner keeps working in the business instead of on it.
2. Zhu, M., Yang, Y. & Hsee, C. K. (2018). The Mere Urgency Effect. Journal of Consumer Research. doi.orgPeople tend to choose urgent tasks over important ones with larger rewards, simply because they feel time-limited.
3. Jordan, J. & Kelly, R. (2015). Companies with a Formal Sales Process Generate More Revenue. Harvard Business Review, January 2015. hbr.orgA defined sales process, regular pipeline reviews and clear stage rules go together with faster revenue growth.