Happy Tuesday,

New Day - Same Newsletter 🙂 

Welcome back to the 21st edition of the Nord Media newsletter.

Before we get started – Is there anything specific you’re wanting to learn about? Let me know, as always I appreciate all of you that reply each week and share feedback with me.

This week I want to talk about something that a lot of business owners, founders and operators struggle with.

But before I tell you the topic, I want to ask a question:

Have you ever felt like no matter how hard you work, your business just isn’t growing?

We’ve all been there at some point.

It might be because you, the founder, are focused on the wrong things.

Not all work is the same, and every founder/business owner needs to understand this in order for their business to thrive. 

That’s why today we’re going to talk about the difference between working ON the business vs. working IN the business. 

So without any further ado, let’s dive in. 

Working On The Business VS. Working In The Business

Working on the business is working to fundamentally grow the business.

Think of it as looking out 3, 6, 12, 18 months, creating goals, and identifying how to achieve those goals. 

It’s things like strategic thinking, research, and system creation. 

All of these things help you carve a path to where you want your business to go.

It’s essentially a shift in perspective that helps you remove yourself from the short term and focus more on the long term. 

Whereas working in the business is working on the day-to-day tasks: 

• Providing feedback on objectives/tasks

• Working on daily lifts (creating emails, writing copy, running ad accounts, creating ads etc…)

• Deliverables 

• Training 

• Management

These are all things that maintain your business and help it function, but they don’t necessarily scale your business.

If a founder truly wants to move the needle, 

They need to focus on working ON the business. 

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have a pulse on things. 

For example, I still actively work on 2-3 of our brands’ ad accounts. 

I still work on email designs/copywriting too.

For me, it ensures that our team is putting out the best work we can. 

For 95% of owners - it’s important to have your pulse on things as you grow. 

But your primary focus should be on how you take yourself, your team and your business to the next level in 12 months. 

But how do you do that? Let me explain…

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The Founder Dictates The Vision

As the founder, you set the vision for your team and your business.

If you’re too focused on day-to-day tasks, you lose the ability to help yourself, your team and your business scale. 

Your business must have a vision, plans and the ability to execute those plans over the long term.

It doesn’t matter whether you have an in-house team, an agency or contractors working with you on your business. 

You need to have a plan in place for them to hit specific goals.

What do I mean by long-term thinking, and why is it important?

A lot of founders get so stuck in the day-to-day that all they end up doing is maintaining their business instead of scaling it. 

In essence, they are focused on the short-term. 

• Did this deliverable get handed in on time?

• Was every employee productive for the day?

• Were the client messages answered?

Yes, these things matter, but they can also be systemized and delegated.

What can’t be delegated is thinking.

What would you do if your current strategies to maintain your business gave out? 

What if your lead-gen source died out? 

What if a crucial executive quit? 

What if the market wanted something different than what you are currently offering? 

These are things that take a ton of thought and preparation.

They can be sprung on you any minute, and if you don’t have a plan  - you risk your business going under.

That’s why you should create actionable plans that drive incremental lift for your brand long-term.

Your goal when working on the business in this aspect is to drive growth that is scalable and can take you from $100k -> $1M and $1M -> $10M. 

You should be continually adjusting your offer to meet demand, finding gaps in your team, and expanding your marketing channels.

It's important to continue iterating off of what's worked before and adjusting your business plans as you scale to align with differential change.

No one is going to know the inside outs of your business like you do…

So they cannot create those extensive plans or know where you want your business to go. 

Only you, the founder, can do that. 

So ask yourself: does your business have a vision? And is it on track to reach that vision?

How To Get Out Of The Day To Day

If you’ve been reading thus far, 

And you’re starting to panic because you realize you’ve been working in the business rather than on it…

Take a deep breath. 

The good news is there are solutions you can put into place starting today that will help you get back on track.

Here are some of my tips:

• Create goals for the next  3, 6, 12, and 18 months and align your team towards the same vision.

• Establish systems and SOPs that allow your team and business to operate without your direct input.

• Create infrastructures that allow you to remove yourself from the process but still maintain an insight (spend 3-5 hours working IN the business every week)

• Focus on what’s driving results 

• Review your SOPs monthly or quarterly to ensure they’re still effective 

A knowledgeable founder + a team of executors is golden for long-term sustained growth. 

Final Wisdom

Here is the last thing I recommend that every founder do:

Create easy-to-follow SOPs.

We’ve found that using video tools and extensive walk-throughs or guides that people can reference long-term is the best way to build this structure out. 

This ensures that your team members can reference them in the future. 

Once you set up systems that work, as long as you revisit them over time you create a system of automations that progressively improve over time. 

Our last email was a deep dive into this topic. Read more on that here if you missed it.

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Have a specific question or something I can help with? Shoot me a message on twitter and I’ll typically answer within 24 hours 👉 Twitter 

Want to learn from me or connect on other platforms? 👇
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Thank you for reading! I appreciate you.
Sincerely,
Kody