Gone Fishin’

How long can your business last without you?

This is not a new topic, of course, but I’ve been sick and the necessary time-out brought alarming clarity to some things. Among them, we’re walking a knife’s edge when there’s nothing in place to earn for us when we can’t earn for ourselves.

Like I touched on in What’s So Great About SEO?, as it is now this blog requires my daily attention. I don’t have even one article held in reserve, no guest posts stashed away, no co-authors to respond to comments or add content, and most new site visitors arrive directly from my activity in social media arenas.

I realized that this blog could only last a day or two, and you can bet I’ll be addressing that tout de suite.

As you read through this, think on what you have tucked away for a rainy day, and also who (or what) would do your work and bring new customers your way if you couldn’t do it yourself.

Sick and/or Tired?

Many employees earn out-of-office time as they work, accumulating 3 to 8+ hours of leave for every 80 hours worked. Whenever they’re not working, those earned hours pay out until they run out.

If an employee runs out of earned sick leave and qualifies for—and their company offers—short- and long-term disability, they’ll receive checks for up to 3 months to forever. Good for them. But what about us?

Heck, what if we’re not too sick to work, but just tired of working? Weekends are short, the year is long, and everyone needs time away from their work to recharge, refresh, and renew.

Most microbusiness owners don’t earn Off Hours while they’re working. We can set aside money for a 2-week vacation, but we can’t save up time throughout the year to pay out later.

Because even if we reserve the time and the money to take off for a week or two, what happens to our business in our absence?

For consultants, designers, and other service providers:

• Client questions go unanswered
• Requests for new business go unaddressed
• No billable hours are logged for later invoicing

For folks in product sales:

• Customer questions go unanswered
• New orders go unshipped
• No new inventory produced (for those who make their products)
• No new inventory purchased (for those who don’t)

The Real Question

Of course, savings and insurance can sustain our businesses (and us!) through lean times, vacations, and illness. And our clients and customers might understand that we’ll be out of the office for a week or two. Overall, we can arrange to be absent. But.

How long can your business generate income without you?

If we’re a service provider who bills by the hour, our business stops generating income the instant we stop working.

If we fulfill product orders, our business stops generating income when we stop shipping or run out of inventory to ship.

If we create products for sale, our business stops generating income when we create and/or sell that last piece of work.

Some Real Answers

A staff of dependable employees can run the shop and generate income for a good long while without our help.

Creative work that pays royalties. Books and licensed patents pay continuous income for as long as they are reproduced and distributed.

Subscription-based access. A product (or content) that customers continually pay to use. The 37signals suite of online productivity tools is an example. Online training is another.

Hmm…that’s all I can think of, but I’m sure there are more ways to generate income without needing to continually have our hand in, and also many more examples.

If you think of some more (or just have something to say), lemme know down below…

Photo credit: johnshepherd