Designing a “hands off” business

Many people want to own a business but very few people actually want to run a business. You see there is a difference between owning a business and running a business. When you own something that can earn you money even while you are not there, then that creates a bit of freedom for you. That freedom is what many people seek. It is the reason for the success of The Four Hour Work Week book and concept.

However, since many people don’t even know how to run a business, as evidenced by the many failed companies that go bankrupt each and every year it can be a daunting prospect to design a business where you really are hands off. As you start to build anything, a home, a business, a career, it is normal to want to nurture this so that you can see your effort grow and become successful. Actually going out of your way to build a business where you are not an active part is what causes many people to fail.

But I believe it is possible to design a “muse” using a term from the Four Hour Work Week, or a business that is used solely for income and for increasing freedom in your life. Many people have done this in the past and some are currently doing this as I write this post, but I am unfortunately in the dark when it comes to the exact process to do this myself.

You see in the past I have hired a VA or virtual assistant and while that person worked very hard and did a good job there was eventually a point where I had to take over. Eventually, I would be forced to fire that person due to their inability to understand my goals or their sheer lack of attentiveness. Figuring out how to manage your Virtual Assistants then seem to be the one point where most of the pain is located in designing a hands off business. Once I figure out that I should be fairly well off on my way to having my own “muse” that I can then grow and then leverage my extra time off for other activities.

Over the next couple weeks to a month, as part of my review of the Four Hour Work Week, I am going to see what is available as options. Many times I have been leaning towards designing a business around intangible products such as Kindle books, PDF files, or membership websites, as these offer significant advantages. But you cannot go to a store and pick up your own product and show it off to anyone.

The trend at the moment seems to be the desire to leverage well established social media websites to either sell small items or to leverage these websites as a way to get high priced coaching clients. Now the one aspect that does appeal to me is leveraging social media to sell small items that are relevant and that would appeal to that segment of the population. After all if you sell something that is relatively cheap then you know you won’t be forcing anyone into bankruptcy or other financial hardship.

As I start on that path I will report my findings here, you could consider this blog and my other websites a live “case study” of sorts as these are frequently used to teach high end business concepts. Clearly a lot of people talk about wanting to do this but very few actually follow through and do it. My posting this blog post here is kind of my accountability post that would force me to follow through on this goal.