133. Do you own a job or do you own a company?

If taking more than a long weekend feels impossible, the problem is rarely your work ethic, it’s the structure underneath your business. We’re running a blunt but freeing 30-day test: if you disappeared for a month, what’s the first thing that goes wrong? What breaks first? When you answer honestly, you stop guessing and start building a business that can breathe without you.

We share a hard lesson from Jen’s early years in the beauty industry: a business can look wildly successful and still be worth nothing without the owner. That leads to a critical distinction many entrepreneurs never get taught. There’s one path where you build clients and revenue and end up with a demanding job that pays only when you show up. There’s another path where you build an actual company, with standards, decision-making, and delivery that hold steady whether or not you’re in the room. Even if you never plan to sell, the “could it sell?” question is the sharpest way to test if your business has a life of its own or if it’s borrowing yours.

Then we walk through four layers you can score in minutes: delivery, decisions, money, and relationships. You’ll get simple micro moves for each layer, like writing a 10-step SOP for your most repeated task, creating decision rules so your phone stops being the bottleneck, automating one recurring invoice, and visibly looping a team member into a key client relationship so trust transfers before it’s urgent. The goal isn’t to feel bad about your score; it’s to find your weakest layer and rebuild it fast.

Listen, pick one micro move to do this week, and tell someone your score so you don’t do it alone. If this helps, subscribe, share it with a friend who can’t unplug, and leave a review so more small business owners can build a sellable, livable company.

Thanks for listening! 

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Transcript

The 30-Day Step-Away Test

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Okay, so you haven't taken more than like a long weekend in probably three years. And when somebody asks you why that is, you are very quick to say, I'm busy. Because the honest answer is probably a little bit scarier, and you know that. So the honest answer is that you're just not sure anything's really gonna be still standing when you get back from a vacation, right? So today, what I want to do is run a test on that. It's a 30-day test, and it's basically one question. If you did step away for 30 days, what are the first things that would go wrong? What are the first things that would break? We're gonna do this so that by the end of this episode, you're going to see the four layers that are able to hold themselves. And then you'll see which one of those four layers is your weakest one, and then what's the first thing you have to do to get back on track? So, this is the Create Your Day podcast. I'm your host, Jen Cody, your unofficial business therapist. Let's get started. So,

When A Busy Business Can’t Sell

SPEAKER_00 1:17

years ago, my life changed completely overnight, and I had to walk away from one of my first businesses. I spent 20 years in the beauty industry, and my business looked really, really healthy. We were booked like crazy, um, super busy. If you walked into my company on a Saturday afternoon, it felt like the energy was electric. Everybody, people would come and they didn't want to leave because the energy was so good. You know what I'm talking about? Like you ever walk into a place and everybody just the community feel was incredible. And when it was time to walk away, I did what anybody that is a responsible owner would do. I went to my accountant and I said, okay, we need to figure out what I could sell the business for, you know, because I've been showing up here for 20 years. And wow, that was a tough pill to swallow. Because the answer was if I wanted to step away, the business was worth nothing. I could only sell the business if I sold myself with it. I mean, this was devastating to me because at the time I just needed some flexibility. I needed to see, like, how can I actually continue to make money if I'm not going to be doing this? And that there the answer was basically just a door slamming in my face. Um, so that stung a lot. And the story of what I wound up doing with my first business is a different episode on here. You can find the $81,000 mistake, that'll give you the whole story. But for today, let's just talk about the fact that I didn't get to sell my first business the way that I really wanted to, and eventually I had to just close it and walk away. And you know, that hurts. I'm telling you this because I want to help you avoid this type of failure. And this is what I've been doing. I really do spend my time now working with people to help them get their businesses in order, to help them get their lives in order, to help them package everything in a way that um creates more value. So, and I've been doing it for a really long time. So I want you to hear what it taught me while you still have time to use that.

The Difference Between Job And Company

SPEAKER_00 3:41

So I think the distinction that I really wish someone had drawn for me was that there are two different ways that you can build a business. And from the inside of the business, they actually look the same because you're building clients, you're building revenue, and you're busy all the time. However, the first version of that is a job and it's a really demanding job, and you just happen to be the owner of it. So it pays you as long as you show up, and as soon as you stop showing up, the money stops coming in. Every single thing has to run through you, so nothing could actually survive without you. The second track to that result is a company, an actual company that has standards and it does not need your two hands to be valuable. The work gets delivered, decisions get made, money moves in and out, and clients feel supported whether or not you are the one standing in the room. So if you just recognized yourself in that first option, let's be careful because your brain is about to do the thing that it always does, I'm sure. And it's about to file this as one more piece of evidence that you have been doing things the wrong way. And I promise that's not true. But I want to show you the difference, okay? This distinction is not something that people really talk about. We are taught to taught to work hard and take care of our people, and you're doing both, I'm sure, brilliantly. And that's how you've come to build a job that has, you know, probably a great logo on it. But the gap is the structure. And these kinds of gaps are the good ones because they're the ones we can actually close.

Why Most Small Businesses Never Sell

SPEAKER_00 5:21

So somewhere between 70 and 80 percent of small businesses that actually go up for sale, they never sell. That's seven or eight businesses out of every 10. The owner decides it's time, they list it, they wait, and no one buys. These owners are not lazy. Most of them are working just as hard as you are working or that I'm working. We're talking decades of effort, decades of revenue. So they didn't fail at building the business, they didn't fail at selling, they succeeded at being irreplaceable. And I want you to hear that number the way I hear it, because it really is bigger than the concept of selling. Most of us are not planning to sell next year, and some of you may never be looking to sell your business. But I'm here to tell you that could it sell is the sharpest test there is of a question that's actually simpler. Does this business have a life of its own, or is it borrowing my life? It's a really important question. It matters right now. This is not a someday question because this is what decides can you afford to be sick? Can you afford to go on a trip? Can you afford to go to dinner with your family and actually pay attention to them? Sellable and livable, they're built the same way. So

The Four Layers That Must Hold

SPEAKER_00 6:45

let's talk about those four layers that I mentioned. I want to run your 30-day test for real. We're going to talk about these layers. So grab a pen and paper because I want you to score yourself on each one of these layers, just like a pass or fail. And the scoring takes 10 seconds. This is not going to be a big hard thing to do. You already know the answers. I'm just bringing them out of you right now. That's the point, right? So layer

Delivery Layer And Simple SOPs

SPEAKER_00 7:09

one, delivery. If you stepped away for 30 days, would the work that you do still reach your clients at the standard that you want it to, at the standard that you have set for the business that you've built. So you're going to mark yourself as pass here if your core deliverables are documented. If at least one person is trained on how to do those deliverables, and that means when we talk about trained, that means they've done it, they've been corrected, they've done it again. Watching you over your shoulder doesn't count. They have to have actually done the delivery. Then I would mark yourself as failing if any sentence that starts with, it's just faster if I do it. That sentence is true most of the time, today, right? But it's the exact sentence that was also true for me 20 years ago. And you already know how that ended. This is what we're trying to avoid. So if this is your weak layer, here's like a little micro move that you can do. I want you to pick the single most repeated task, most repeated process, and write it down. Less than 10 steps. This is not a long thing, right? 10 steps or less, plain language, like you're leaving instructions for your best friend. Imagine that. Like I don't want you to think about this as training a new employee or training an assistant. I want you to think about it like you're on the phone right now with your best friend. Talk into your phone the way that you would talk to that friend, to explain to them what they have to do in order to deliver something at your standard. This one document, this is like the first brick in your foundation. And then we can move to

Decision Rules And Real Authority

SPEAKER_00 8:56

layer two. And layer two is about decisions. So would daily choices get made well without you? What we're talking about when it comes to decisions are think about things like any discounts that you offer, um, scheduling conflicts, clients asking for an exception or an upgrade. If you use outside vendors, like think of all the decisions that you have to make. You get to mark yourself as past here, as a pass, I should say. Um, as long as two things exist. The first one is that there are written decision rules, similar to that first document where you were talking to your friend in the phone. Do the same thing for this. You there has to be written rules for the common things that you need to call each day. And those are the things that I was just talking about. That has to be in place, and so does one person that actually has authority for the calls that are not so common. So, what happens is people think, you know, here's the things that we deal with all the day, all the time. Um, and what was I saying before, like discounts, scheduling, clients asking for certain things. So you may think you have it covered if you have like a binder somewhere that walks someone through how to do those things. But what about an uncommon question or an uncommon decision that has to be made? Is there someone in your world in your company that has authority, real authority? And that means that she can decide without having to text you first. And if the call is wrong, she gets coached, not punished. This is not like you're on probation now. It's okay, this went wrong. How can we make improvements to how this was handled? So the tell here is your phone. If your team cannot make a move without pinging you, then the decision layer is you. And the decision layer needs 30 days off. So how are you gonna make that happen unless you put these things in place? The little move that you can put in place for this is write some rules. Think about, you know, one, two, three, four, five different common decisions that get made in your business. Write down the rules. The five questions that you get asked about the most. If a client asks for yes, we do why. This should not take a long time, few minutes for each one. And this is how you take yourself out of five different daily interruptions.

Money Layer And Cashflow Continuity

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Okay, let's move to layer three, which is money. Money, money, money, right? This is the big one that everybody wants to talk about. So would the cash in your company keep moving? That means invoice is out, bills getting paid, payroll gets run, overdue accounts are getting chased. This would that still happen if you were not there? And I cannot tell you how many people skip this. They're fine with putting allowing this to stay paused, and then they think they can just turn the switch back on when they come back. I understand why you may feel that way. Money does feel really important, so we don't always want to hand that to anyone. But hear what that means in this 30-day test. That means the entire financial bloodstream of your company stops when you stop. That is super fragile. You do not want to leave your company that vulnerable. So pass or fail for this section, this layer, I should say. Pass means that invoicing, payroll, they are running. One other human can pay a bill and they could chase the payment. Great. If that's not the case, you have failed in this department. The move that you can put in place, a micro move for this layer, we're gonna automate one recurring invoice this month. So think about how is money flowing into your company? Which which ones of those can be automated and then show one person where those bills actually live. This should not take a long time. This is all super, super fast. Okay,

Relationship Layer And Client Trust

SPEAKER_00 12:56

last layer, fourth layer, these are your relationships. This is the most important part of a business being sustainable, is protecting and supporting the relationships that we have built along the way. So think about the 30-day test. If you were to disappear for 30 days, and this can happen, guys, you know, like I don't want you to think about like, oh my god, Jen, I'm not going on a 30-day, you know, around the world cruise. That's not what I'm talking about. Although that would be great. But let's say you do want to do something like that, or let's say you do want to go spend a month in Europe. I don't know. But this also means, I don't know, what happens if you have a health emergency, a health scare that keeps you incapacitated for a certain period of time? These things happen. So let's talk about you disappearing for 30 days. Would your clients feel held? Would they feel supported? This is the most emotional one. That's why it's last. It really is the most important one. You can give yourself a pass if at least one team member is already visible inside every key client relationship before the day that she's needed. Your clients should already know her name and already trust her. If that's not the case, you don't get to pass. And I know what this layer costs because we just talked about that a minute ago. Being the only one that your clients want feels like proof of your worth. Every single one of us has felt that. So sharing a relationship can feel like giving away the best part of the job. I know what's going on in your brain right now, right? Because it goes on in my brain too. It goes on in every women entrepreneur's brain. I shouldn't clarify that it's women, it goes on in every entrepreneur's brain. When we feel worthy and valued by our clients, introducing another person into that mix and being like, hey, you know, so if I go to one of my clients and I'm like, oh, hey, Sally, Gene is gonna take care of you this week. There's a little part of my brain that is wondering, is Sally gonna come back and be like, oh my God, I love Jean. I want to speak to her next week. How do I make that happen? There's a chance that could happen, but then how do how do I navigate how that makes me feel? Doesn't matter. I'll tell you that right now. That's for me to do on my own time, and that's a separate episode. Because right now, the goal is for the clients to feel held. And your client is best held when the whole company around you can also hold her. That is what she's buying. That when she gives you money in exchange for a service, that's what she's looking for: support, safety, security, belonging. Doesn't matter who it's coming from, it matters that she's receiving it. So, micro move for this layer, pick your most important client and put one team member visibly into the relationship this month. Maybe it's something where um you start off by just CCing someone in an email. It's small, it's deliberate before it becomes urgent. Um, that email could also be, hey, so-and-so, I've copied Jeannie on this email because I want her to just be aware of where you are in this process, right? So you're looping someone into the conversation. Your client trusts you, so now they trust Jeannie because she was looped in.

Score Yourself And Find The Weakest

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Okay, so now you have your four layers: delivery, decisions, money, and relationships. Now you passed or failed each one of those. If you passed all four of those, congratulations. You own a company. You truly own a company. Go take your vacation. And I mean it, let that be your homework. If you had two or three passes, you are getting close, and now you have a list instead of like this vague feeling of what's missing. Now you know the list is what the first step is to creating a plan. So perfect. If you have zero or one pass, you have a job. And I bet that job has a really pretty Canva logo on it, but it's still just a job. And I need you to hear this next part slowly because that score is a report on the structure of your business, and structures are get things that get rebuilt every single day, and they're rebuilt by women who are stretched really thin, just like you are. I have seen clients move from failing or one layer being passed to having three passing layers in one or two quarters, and the change in her, the change in her voice comes way before the change in the bank account or the change in the calendar. She stops sounding like she's being chased, she stops sounding like she's being hunted. That anxiety goes away. But for now, I want you to forget that total because the weakest layer is the prize. Now you know what you have to focus on. That's the point of this whole exercise. So find your weakest layer. And if you failed all four, rate them. You know, which one do you feel the weakest on? That is the gold of this exercise. That is the the prize, literally, because now you know what you need to focus on. So now

Micro Moves Plus A Witness

SPEAKER_00 18:38

the homework that you'll do this week is small, but tonight I want you to go through those layers again and give yourself, rate them in order, right? Put them in that order. This should not take more than a few seconds. Then I want you to pick the weakest layer and do that micro move. So one document or creating the rules for making decisions, automating an invoice, or introducing someone to a relationship. That's all you have to do. One of those things. And then, and this part matters just as much as the actual thing that you're going to do. I want you to tell someone about this. A friend, a peer, me, send me a DM. This work goes faster when it is done with a witness. Doubt really works over time when you're alone. So I want you to think about that when doubt creeps in, go talk to somebody and loop someone in and have a witness to your thoughts because that is the fastest way to crush doubt. Say the score out loud, and now it becomes a project. It's not a secret, it's not shameful. It's something that you're working on. And I want to do this with you. I mean that, like mechanically, as a method of us to do things. You know,

Free Framework To Stop Firefighting

SPEAKER_00 19:57

so if you want help with the structural side of things, I do have something for you, and it's totally free. It is called Stop the Firefighting. It's a decision-making framework. It helps you to figure out what needs to be delegated, what needs to be automated. You can find it at freedom.solutionsforscale.com. Totally free. Freedom.solutionsforscale.com. And um I think you'll find it super helpful. It's really great to give you the structure foundation that you're looking for. So

Final Encouragement And Goodbye

SPEAKER_00 20:29

I hope that you were able to get some value from what we spoke about this week. I hope you are able to take this information, go out there, create your day in the best way possible. And until next time, take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and I will see you next week. Thank you so much.