You’ve probably heard the phrase before. “Work on your business, not in it.” It’s one of those business-book lines that sounds great until Monday morning, when the phones start ringing, the inbox is full, and you’re the only one who knows how to do any of it.
I’ve said it to business owners who looked at me like I was speaking a different language. Not because it’s a bad idea — it’s an excellent idea — but because nobody ever explains what working on your business actually means in practice. At 7am when you’ve got a full day booked, how exactly do you “work on” anything?
Let me break it down.
Working in your business means doing the operational work — answering emails, quoting jobs, invoicing clients, posting on socials, following up leads. The stuff that keeps today running. Working on your business means stepping back to build the systems, processes, and team that make tomorrow run without you. Both are necessary. The problem is most small business owners only ever do the first one.
Why “Working On Your Business” Feels Like a Luxury
Here’s the trap. When you’re busy, there’s no time to work on the business. When you’re quiet, you’re too worried about revenue to think strategically. So it never happens.
Michael Gerber called this the E-Myth — the entrepreneurial myth — the idea that being good at your craft means you can run a business built around that craft. You’re a great plumber, so you start a plumbing business. Suddenly you’re also the bookkeeper, the sales rep, the scheduler, and the one chasing overdue invoices at 9pm on a Friday.
Working in your business: fixing the pipes.
Working on your business: building the company that fixes pipes, reliably, without you being on every job.
The distinction sounds simple. Living it is something else entirely.
What “Working In It” Looks Like Every Day
Let’s make this concrete. Here’s what a typical week looks like when you’re stuck in operational mode:
- Monday: catching up on emails from the weekend
- Tuesday: doing a quote you keep meaning to template
- Wednesday: following up a client because no one else knows the history
- Thursday: handling a problem that wouldn’t have happened if there was a clear process
- Friday: updating the spreadsheet that should be a system by now
You get to the end of the week having worked hard — and having zero to show for the business itself. The wheels didn’t fall off. But you built nothing. And next week looks exactly the same.
What “Working On It” Actually Looks Like
Working on your business isn’t strategic planning for six hours on a mountaintop. In practice, it looks like this:
Building systems that remove you from the equation
If you’re the only person who knows how to do something, that’s not a skill — that’s a bottleneck. Working on your business means documenting the process so someone else can do it without calling you. Start with the things you do most often. Record a Loom video, write a checklist, build a template. One at a time.
Identifying the tasks on your plate that don’t actually need you
Not everything you’re doing requires your expertise. A lot of it — inbox management, scheduling, social media, data entry, client follow-ups — is genuinely delegatable. The problem isn’t that someone else couldn’t do it. It’s that you’ve never taken the time to hand it over properly.
Reviewing the numbers instead of just reacting to them
When you’re working on your business, you’re looking at what’s driving profit and what’s draining it. You’re noticing patterns in your leads, your cancellations, your best clients. You can’t see any of that when your head is down processing today’s to-do list.
Hiring and training before you’re desperate
Most small business owners only hire when they’re already overwhelmed. That’s the worst time to do it — you’re rushed, you onboard badly, and you’re frustrated when the new person doesn’t hit the ground running. Working on your business means thinking ahead: building capacity before you need it.
The Shift: How to Actually Start
You don’t need to block out a whole day. You need to start protecting one hour a week for “on” work. Here’s a simple four-step process:
Step 1: Write down everything you did last week.
Not what you were supposed to do. What you actually did. Every task, no matter how small or embarrassing.
Step 2: Highlight the things only you can do.
These are tasks that genuinely require your specific knowledge, your relationships, or your legal responsibility. Be honest with yourself. It’s probably a shorter list than you think.
Step 3: Look at everything else.
That’s your delegation list. Those are tasks someone else could be handling — a team member, a virtual assistant, or a piece of software.
Step 4: Pick one thing and get it off your plate.
Not ten things. One. Write a short SOP. Record a Loom. Hand it over and let go. See how it goes.
That’s what working on your business looks like in real life — not grand strategy sessions, but small, consistent moves that over time add up to a business that doesn’t depend entirely on you.
The Real Cost of Staying Stuck “In It”
There’s a version of this conversation that’s all about lifestyle — reclaiming your weekends, stopping the 60-hour weeks, taking a proper holiday. That’s real, and it matters. But there’s a more immediate business case worth making.
If you’re doing $500-an-hour strategic work and $30-an-hour admin work, you’re effectively paying yourself $30 an hour for every hour you spend on admin. That’s money and capacity you’re leaving on the table, every single week.
The business owners who grow fastest aren’t working more hours. They’re working on the right things — and building the infrastructure to handle everything else.
Where Virtual Assistants Fit Into This
One of the most practical ways Australian small business owners start making the shift from working in to working on their business is by bringing in a VA for the repeatable, time-consuming tasks that don’t require someone in the office.
Things like:
- Inbox management and email triage
- Scheduling and calendar coordination
- Social media scheduling and content support
- Client follow-ups and CRM updates
- Research, data entry, and general admin
- Invoicing support and basic bookkeeping admin
This isn’t about replacing anyone. For most small businesses, these tasks aren’t big enough to justify a full local hire — but they’re consuming 10 to 15 hours of your week. A VA lets you recover that time without the overhead of a full-time employee, without lock-in, and without managing someone through a large corporate BPO that doesn’t know your name.
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s the simplest way to understand “working on vs in” your business?
Working in your business means you’re doing the day-to-day operations — if you stop, the work stops. Working on your business means building the systems and team so the work continues whether you’re directly involved or not. Most small business owners spend nearly all their time on the first and almost none on the second.
How do I know if I’m spending too much time working in my business?
Ask yourself this: if you took two weeks off tomorrow, would the business keep running? If the answer is no — or if the thought makes you laugh — you’re too deep in operations. That’s the clearest sign you need to start working on your business more deliberately.
Can a one-person business still “work on” it?
Absolutely. Even solo operators can spend time systematising, templating, automating, and planning. Working on your business is about the type of work you’re doing, not the size of your team. A solopreneur who spends Friday afternoon building a client onboarding template is working on their business.
How does delegation help me work more on my business?
Every task you hand off creates time. That time can go back into growth activities — business development, strategy, better client relationships — instead of disappearing into admin. Delegation is the mechanism that makes working on your business actually possible, not just theoretically appealing.
Is this only relevant for business owners who are struggling?
No. The most efficient, profitable businesses in the world are obsessed with systems and removing single points of failure. This isn’t a crisis fix — it’s how good businesses stay good and keep growing without burning their owners out in the process.
Ready to Get Some Time Back?
At ROVR, we help Australian small business owners hire virtual assistants who handle the repeatable, time-consuming work — so you can spend more time on the things only you can do.
We’re not a corporate BPO. We’re owner-run, like you. We understand what it actually takes to hand something over when you’ve always done it yourself — and we help you do it properly.
If you’re curious about whether a VA could help you start working on your business instead of just in it, get in touch. No hard sell. Just a straight conversation.