It's 6am caffeine in hand. Sun isn't out of bed. There's a plane overhead Hopefully, the pilot is awake. I am, and I'm thinking... back to when I left the boutique. The "why" I left is your warning. Here it is if you want to head it... I came on board at $2,000. I left at $25,0000. I climbed in. Cleaned up messaging. Her customers started coming. We built a community. Women flocked... Things grew fast. A strong KEEP system like we had feels like hitting the lotto... That many referrals early is like strapping a rocket to a prop plane. It's fun. It's exciting. Its an adrenaline rush. But... As revenue climbs closer to $25K/mo That first red light shines in the cockpit... Then the next... And before you know it. Lights are flashing and buzzing everywhere. Things are rattling, shaking, you smell smoke... But, "It's fine." Because the plane's flying higher and higher. Going faster and faster. And for a business owner who's loving the pay off, the attention, and the rush (because it absolutely is one.) This is the danger zone. A prop plane can only fly so high. There are only so many hours And levels of patience to: Package orders. Post content. Deal with customer complaints. Reviews. Inventory issues. Purchasing issues. Pricing issues. Tariff issues. Little problems. Big problems. [Deep inhale] The "no problems" that become major problems. And... it all relies on you. At least when, The plane isn't ready to fly this high. The manual with the fix doesn't exist. The rocket? It starts to whine. Easy. "I'll hire people." You do that? Your income goes down. You have less for inventory. You need the elusive "more time" to train, explain, maintain... It's faster to do it all yourself. So you do... Until the day you die. Or you DO hire... Oh, look! That new hire... They didn't show up. They came in late. They did a bad job. AND caused a bad review? BEAUTIFUL. Here's the deal... I'm sure for many of you GET is still the bottleneck. You're new enough figuring out how to get more customers is your day to day.

In a stormy city in mid Missouri, three roofers started their own companies. Each had a truck, a ladder, a dream: “If I do new roofs, I'll make more money, be my own boss, and financially free.” So, they all set out Here's what they would do: The first roofer was a favorite Every customer his friend. Every roof was his art. He loved being the guy that could do every part. "Yes we do chimneys." "Yes we do windows." “Yes, we can even do roofs in metal!" Every house was different. Every customer was special. And at first all was good His schedule filled up. He got good reviews And even got many referrals. But while the first roofer worked hard. Mastered the craft. And his calendar full. Things started to waver. Week after week. He kept working harder. Kept taking more work. His days kept getting longer and longer. Until one day He fell terribly ill. The crew didn't know how to do it like him. While his phone kept ringing. The roofs kept leaking. With each broken promise The customers slowly kept complaining. Though his health got better He never could catch up. His reputation tainted His work slowly dwindled. Now, the second roofer started small, too. But he found he didn't like being on roofs like the first roofer would do. He outsourced quickly. Had three crews. A sales team, An office showcased every roofing options that they knew. He was known for his trucks His logos And his silly jingle too. But while he got more jobs His problems quickly grew and grew. Sales made bad promises. Quality depended on each crew. Every qoute was gamble: Would this be the job that gets legal review? Customers called. Complaints piled up. The second roofer ran ragged trying to save it all. He had built a big company And made lots of money But just like his old job had zero control. The third roofer watched them both Knew he needed something easier. To not do all the work. To not be micro manager. Instead he did the only thing he knew to do: Make it simpler than the other two.

There are 4 ways of actually creating the business to work without you. Because at the end of the day, running a business that operates like a flinstone car isn't much fun after a year or two and beyond. So here are the four ways of creating a business that does things differently. I call them ways but really they are steps as I recommend you do these in this order. Watch the short video where I go over each of them. If you haven't yet, check out the diagnostic quiz + training combo. The workbooks that go along with the trainings are showcased in the video and will walk you through writing these things down, and figuring them out. Here's the link just in case you missed it: https://quiz.dhbingham.com

Here’s something I found in my digging into ways of dealing with cash flow issues: (and a little infographic to make it easy to remember.) When you separate your cash into different buckets, it forces discipline. I pulled this from Profit First by Mike Michalowicz and other resources. They teach that when money comes in, you allocate portions to different accounts before you spend it: profit, taxes, owner pay, operating. What the research says: The Profit First system flips the normal formula (Sales − Expenses = Profit) to Sales − Profit = Expenses. That means you take profit first, then run your business with what’s left. They recommend using multiple bank accounts (buckets) so you always know what portion of your cash is profit, what’s for taxes, what’s for you, what’s for bills. Typical starting allocation: maybe 5-10% of revenue goes into profit first, then a chunk for taxes, then your owner pay, the rest is operating expenses. As you grow, you adjust those percentages. Here’s what you can start doing today in your business to make sure you’re not bleeding money and so it can run WITHOUT YOU: 1. Set up three separate accounts at minimum: Operating (for bills, supplies, day-to-day) Profit (set aside a % of every deposit) Tax (to cover your quarterly or annual tax bills) 2. Decide your percentages (even rough ones): e.g. 5-10% to profit, 10-20% or more to tax depending on your situation, rest to operating and owner pay. Doesn’t have to be perfect at first. 3. Each time money comes in, immediately split it into those accounts before spending. Get in the habit like clockwork. 4. Over time, track your numbers. If you find profit account is empty or tax account is short, you’ll see exactly where you priced too low or spent too much. If you don’t separate the money, it’s too easy to spend what you think you have. You end up working crazy hours, worrying about bills, and you don’t build reserves. When you do this splitting, you build breathing room, reserves, and the ability to step away (for a day, for a week) without everything falling apart. That’s part of building your business without you.

WITHOUT YOU Wednesday is all about turning your business into a machine. Here’s a quick check: If you disappeared for 2 weeks, what’s the FIRST thing in your business that would fall apart? Drop your answer below 👇