1. Most business owners went into business in part to enjoy a more flexible lifestyle, with more freedom (and free time). In reality, most owners work far longer than an employee – and often at nights and on weekends. You’re consumed by your business, and trapped in it. Cash flow challenges mean you end up doing more and more tasks… hey presto, you’re trapped in your business. The only way to avoid this is to set your business up so it doesn’t rely on you – and ideally, so it can operate without you there at all.
2. Without a plan to sack yourself, it’s too easy to get sucked into the day-to-day dramas of running your business. It’s quicker and cheaper to just jump in and tackle them yourself – after all, no one knows your business better than you – but while this works in the short term, it just pushes you further away from your long term goal of a financially rewarding business that gives you lifestyle flexibility.
3. Sacking yourself forces your business to be self-sufficient (ie not rely totally on you). It demands that you have the right people in place who are adequately trained and have the tools they need to do the job. And it requires rigid processes to be documented which outline step-by-step who does what, and when.
4. You can’t be great at everything. Rather than spread yourself too thin, sometimes it’s more effective to engage an expert 3rd party for things outside your core skill set. This frees you to operate in your genius, meaning the business can leverage your key skills most effectively.
5. If you're too involved in everything, you’re not fully utilising your people’s skills. By holding back their development, they won’t eventually step up to run the business on your behalf. And so the cycle continues. You can do the job better than most, and no one cares more than you, but you have other unique skills that would better serve your business. Focus on where you can add maximum value, and give your people room to shine.
6. Sacking yourself doesn’t mean you’re no longer involved in the business - it simply means you’re not trapped in it. You can cherry-pick the customers / jobs / projects that you want to work on, or you can focus on whatever it is you do best – say, marketing your brand, or selling your products and services.
7. A self-sufficient business is scalable – because there’s no ‘owner’ bottleneck, it’s much easier to grow your existing operation, and expand to other regions.
8. A business that doesn’t rely on the owner is a lot more desirable - and valuable - in the eyes of potential buyers.

Jason Cunningham's latest book, Have your cake and sell it too: the 7 key ingredients of business success is out now at jasoncunningham.com.au