How to Exit the Day-to-Day (Step-by-Step)

My agency does $500k-$1m a month. Some days I work 10 hours. Some days I work 1 hour and spend time with my family. I am in this position because I was able to remove myself from the business... WITHOUT impacting my income. Here’s how to exit the day-to-day (step-by-step):

Start With Why

Every business owner should want to exit the day-to-day for these 2 reasons:
1. The asset you've created becomes more valuable when it doesn't depend on you.
2. The amount of clarity you get will 10x when you step out of operations.

Think of the End Goal

You may have heard someone say: "I'll build a business, hire an operator, sit back, and collect passive income". But this won't make you happy. Instead, the better end goal is to create optionality for yourself. This is where you want to get to. When you have owner optionality, you can choose to:
1. Sell the business.
2. Hold the business, but exit the day-to-day 3.
3. Continue to play where you enjoy playing AKA do what you want.

Where Not to Start Versus Where to Start

Most people get this wrong... When business owners are trying to build a business that they can exit, they start by "exiting" the operations. Don't.
Instead, the first area you need to systemize is demand. How many people want your product/service? When you solve demand, solving every other problem becomes significantly easier. Detach the founder from the demand. The founder is *almost always tied to the demand. They're industry experts. They're the main salesperson. But if you want to exit, you need to empower your team to take that role from you. You need to build a brand that sells itself. People will still come to you. But you need to have a system in place to have your team sell them. When 10% of your yearly sales goal comes in as leads each month, you can shift your focus.

Sales and Operations

"Helping" is the new selling. Your salespeople should be as much consultants as they are salespeople. Then finally, you can build operating systems. To truly stand out you need "force multipliers" over each of these roles:
1. Sales
2. Operations
3. Marketing
4. Finance
Finally, even if your team hits 100% of your metrics, you still need to train them to do this one thing... Push you out. Otherwise, you'll probably never leave. Train your organization to push you out. Focus on the high-level, visionary tasks that have the most leverage.