Sadly, many business owners find themselves so busy with operational tasks that they rarely have time to pursue growth initiatives.

It is especially important when looking at any businesses for sale that you consider what life will be like after you buy the business.

Of course there is the important initial training period but what happens next? What are you going to do everyday? Are you simply going to take over the prior owner’s role and attempt to duplicate their job description?

Certainly, from a sustainability perspective, you must get immersed in the business and be well trained to operate it.

However, to be truly successful, you must consider how you can structure your workload to allow yourself ample time to sit back with a clear head and look for ways to improve the operations.

A general rule that has worked well for me in every business I have owned is to spend at least one third of my time on new ideas

. I have done it in every business and it has worked very well but to do so means you literally have to segment that time and forget everything else that is going on. When I am working on new ideas, I close my office door, turn off my phones and devote completely uninterrupted time to the process.

When looking at potential businesses to buy, I urge you to take into account how you will be able to structure your time so you can work on new concepts, marketing and growth plans.

Is there ample cash flow to allow you to hire additional support people? Will you take over and just become the business and have to be involved in every facet? While many smaller businesses require a full-time owner operator, you need to ask yourself can you get away to just think?

This could entail not coming in until noon one day a week, or, even if a retail environment, perhaps opening up later or closing early one day a week. Regardless of the type of business, whether it is service, retail, distribution or the food industry, carving out alone time is critical to grow the business. If you cannot figure out whether you can do this before you buy a business, chances are you won’t know how to do it after you purchase it either.