As the world becomes more and more connected, it’s easier and easier to stay at the helm of a business without actually having to be in the office every day. That’s exactly what I do with my business, Larsen Jewellery. Nowadays, I work from a remote location, spending a lot of time in my native Denmark, but that doesn’t mean I’m any less involved with my business.
Here’s how I make it work – even with 10,000 miles and an eight-hour time difference between us.
Employ great people
Ultimately, you want to be in a position where if you lost contact with the business for a week, or a month, you wouldn’t even be worried because of your implicit trust in your right-hand men and women.
Employing the right people is absolutely the most important thing you can do, whether you’re living on top of your business, or in a remote location.
Realise when you need to release control
This goes hand in hand with employing great people. When you’ve employed people with specific experience skills and experience in a field in which you’re not as qualified, be prepared for them to know better than you – that is what you employed them for, after all! At first, relinquishing control over some areas of the business can be tough – but it’s healthy for both you and the business. You can’t do it all yourself!
Utilise technology
This will come us no surprise, but you’ll need to learn how to use Skype, Facetime, Whatsapp, and all the rest! Skype is an absolutely invaluable tool, and for good reason. Seeing a face is so important in a meeting – it gives you information you couldn’t gain from just a voice call.
Make an effort to be in on the small things
You might not be in the office every day, but you want to be a constant presence. I don’t just mean in a boss-looking-over-shoulders kind of way – you want to be in on workplace banter and chat so that you still feel like part of the day-to-day community. It’s both good for you and good for your staff.
You do, however, need to remember that things probably won’t be the same. You have moved away, and things will be different.
Trust that you’ve built something stable
This can be the hardest thing to achieve at first, but rather than staying up late at night and breaking into cold sweats worrying that your business baby is going up in flames, you need to have faith in what you’ve built. You also need to accept that there might be teething problems at first when you run your business from a remote location, but it’ll settle soon enough – and it’ll be well worth it when it does!
Lars Larsen, Co-Founder, Larsen Jewellery
