Building a Money Machine

Your Job as Founder & CEO is to Build the Money Machine

My father-in-law owned a Small flooring distributorship with about 20 employees. And while he never made much money, he made enough to live a decent middle-class life. With that said, I’ll never forget the advice he gave me 25 years ago.

At the time, I was about five years into my business and working my butt off 10-12 hours a day. My hands were literally in every aspect of the company. I was doing okay, but it was a ton of work, and I could hardly ever take a day off.

Here are the words of wisdom my father-in-law shared with me:

“Your job is to build a money machine that doesn't require you to be involved in the day-to-day.”

This advice stuck with me, and I began striving to work myself out of a job.

Thirty years later, I’m almost there.

Are You Still Working A Job?

It’s a fact that a high percentage of small business owners are still working a job. Sure, they traded their job working for someone else for a job working in their own business. But, they can hardly afford to take a day off without their business suffering. Worse, these entrepreneurs often make less than they earned working for someone else.

This poses a vital question that all business owners should ask themselves:

Are you working for your business or on your business?

An excellent way to gauge if you’re still working a job for your business is to ask yourself, what would happen if you got sick or couldn’t work for some reason?

If your business is too dependent on your efforts, the money flow will stop when you stop. Even taking a well-deserved day off will cost you.

But, if you build a money machine, you can get paid when you’re not working. You can even get paid while sleeping because your company generates profits without you around.

How To Build A Money Machine For Yourself

To build a money machine, you’ll need to think about how you can turn your business into a machine that works with minimal involvement from you.

You’ll need proven systems, services, and people to generate sales, serve your clients, and fulfill orders.

Far too many entrepreneurs try to do everything themselves because they think they can do things quicker and better. This is a vital mistake. Doing things alone is almost impossible. It inevitably leads to you maxing out on what you can do by yourself and then burning out. Instead, if you want to build a money machine, you’ll need to start acting like the CEO and Founder of your business instead of like an employee of it. Founders invest in their business's systems, services, and people. And CEOs delegate tasks to their trusted team and follow up to ensure consistent performance and quality.

To successfully move into the CEO and Founder role, you’ll need to invest time and money in getting the right people in the right seats at your business. This includes your time spent training and managing your team and money in finding the right people, paying them well, and investing in their continued development.

You’ll also need to be brave enough to hire people who are more intelligent than you are, as this only adds value to your business. And you’ll need to be willing to let go of the people or services that aren’t performing as they should, as keeping them will only waste time and detract from your business. If you can embrace the CEO and Founder mindset and successfully get the right people in the right seats, your business can become a money machine that doesn’t miss a beat when you’re away. Building a money machine isn’t a fast process. But each step you take toward that end is a step in the right direction and closer to true financial and time freedom.