{"id":1810,"date":"2006-04-14T18:03:00","date_gmt":"2006-04-14T18:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/?p=1810"},"modified":"2014-08-27T07:49:53","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T12:49:53","slug":"two-suggestions-for-biz-owners-who","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2006\/04\/two-suggestions-for-biz-owners-who.html","title":{"rendered":"Two Suggestions for Biz Owners Who Work Long Hours"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Inc.com has one of those headlines that really didn&#8217;t take a survey to find out: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.inc.com\/criticalnews\/articles\/200604\/overworked.html?partner=rss\">Business Owners Work Twice as Much as Employees, Survey Finds<\/a>. Surprised? Me neither.<\/p>\n<p>How much do we work?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Thirty-three percent of small-business owners reported working more than 50 hours per week, while an additional 25% said they work more than 60 hours a week, according to a poll of readers of the New York Enterprise Report. The poll, conducted throughout January and February, found that 70% of respondents also worked at least one weekend on a regular basis.  <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So, is there any hope for us? Here are two suggestions from the same story.<\/p>\n<p><span>Suggestion #1: Work for a Reason<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The small-business owners who are happiest begin with an end in mind,&#8221; [said Rhonda F. Waters, a Ph.D. in organizational development and president of the Boston-based Mutare Group, a consulting firm that specializes in organizational assessment and executive coaching.] That end, she added, might be a house in Florida or money for their children&#8217;s education, but having it in focus ensures that the day-to-day challenges of an unhappy customer or a malfunctioning printer doesn&#8217;t get blown out of proportion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span>Suggestion #2: Delegate with or without hiring<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve quantified [that] people spend 20% of their time on what would be considered low-value work.&#8221; [said Amy Richman, a senior consultant for WFD, a workplace consulting firm based in Newton, Mass.]<\/p>\n<p>Effective time assessments might free up a day, a week, or more, by cutting out work that is really unnecessary, Richman added.<\/p>\n<p>Waters suggested that small-business owners who want more free time should focus on fulfilling the needs of the core clients who bring in the most money, and delegate everything that they don&#8217;t have to be doing themselves. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If you are thinking about that second point, you may want to re-read <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2006\/03\/10-ways-to-delegate-without-hiring.html\">10 Ways to Delegate Without Hiring Staff<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/small+biz\" rel=\"tag\">small biz<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/rural\" rel=\"tag\">rural<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/entrepreneurship\" rel=\"tag\">entrepreneurship<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/business\" rel=\"tag\">business<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Inc.com has one of those headlines that really didn&#8217;t take a survey to find out: Business Owners Work Twice as Much as Employees, Survey Finds. Surprised? Me neither. How much do we work? Thirty-three percent of small-business owners reported working more than 50 hours per week, while an additional 25% said they work more than [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1810"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1810"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8460,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1810\/revisions\/8460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}