Finding the right balance can be so hard when you are a small business owner, and sometimes you have to make changes to get that balance spot on.

Orders seem to be at extremes- either you’re drowning in them and need to work 17 hour days to keep up, or you don’t have enough to pay the bills. I reached burnout point and something had to change. Here’s what I did to take control of my (spiralling out of control) small business.

When our business was turning over half a million pounds every year, I was stressed, exhausted and burned out. My self-care was non-existent and somehow, I was eternally broke. The bills were eye-watering and most of my money went on paying staff. I would wake up, check my emails, go to work, make a black coffee and settle in for a solid 10 hour shift without breaks. I would go home, check my emails, put the kids to bed and then start work for the evening. Weekends were a constant juggling act, balancing work and parenting.

All I did was work.

But then 2020 hit (yup, that thing) and my priorities shifted. While my staff were furloughed on 90% pay, I was putting in 18 hour days at work to keep up with the orders. They were posting garden selfies and topping up their tans while I cried into my black coffee and ate crisps at my desk while I replied to customer enquiries through my ‘lunch breaks’.

I realised that I was working unbelievably hard just to keep my head above water and it wasn’t working for me. Something had to give, and it was either the business or my mental health.

So I started working smarter, not harder.

I reduced my range of products and got rid of the things that were either not making a profit because they took too much time to make, or were stressing me out. By reducing my range, not only did I get to ditch the products that made me unhappy, but, weirdly, my orders didn’t really take a hit. I was still making sales, but they were for products that actually made a profit, so I had more money to work with.

I also reduced the number of colour options I offered so I didn’t have to buy in so much stock. Where we had once offered 6 card colours, 18 paper colours and 6 different coloured envelopes. we now only offered 1 card colour, 12 paper colours and 1 envelope. This helped us enormously with cashflow as I no longer had to order a gazillion different options on the off-chance that someone might order them. It also helped our customers with decision-making, and that made our sales increase. It can be so confusing and overwhelming to be confronted by too many options, and sometimes that can put people off ordering. Simple really is better when it comes to product options because it reduces the risk of the dreaded analysis-paralysis.

I went down to a 4 day week. Going part-time was business-saving for me. I let go of the pressure to do it all, and started working on what I could do right now. Having a day a week for me meant I could add some much needed self-care into my week. I also made the decision to stop working when I was at home. And guess what? The business is absolutely fine. The work still gets done, I just get to be fully present with my kids when I am at home, and fully focused on work when I’m at work.

I reduced my team (any turnover). This one was scary. I once had a team of 9, and now there are just 3 of us. We had employed more and more people for various reasons, and there were more team members than there were jobs that needed doing. It was not efficient, and it was harming the business. We slowly reduced the team as they left to move on to new adventures, and a few took voluntary redundancy. It was so hard to say goodbye to this chapter, but in hindsight, it was the right thing for us.

As there were fewer of us, we didn’t need as many orders. We actually found that everything worked out perfectly with this and somehow only ever received as many orders as we could fulfil. This was achieved by tweaking delivery dates and managing advertising limits. Everything just sort of slotted nicely into place.

Sure, we still have quiet times and they will always make me panic. That just seems to be inevitable. But now I use those times to focus on product development, working on our SEO and some much needed self-care.

The point I’m trying to make here is this-

Remember why you started your business- was it to have a massive turnover, or was it so that you can be your own boss and take an afternoon off when you want to?

Don’t let fear keep you stuck in a cycle of overworking and over-stressing.