Q&A: How much time does it actually take me to run my businesses?

A follower on my Instagram recently asked me:

“How active are you in the daily operations of the businesses you own?”

For context, I’ve bought (and/or passively invested into) 8 businesses over the last 5 years, including:

1. Financial services company

2. Due diligence firm

3. ATM route

4. SaaS company

5. Web design company (sold in late 2024)

6. Nail salon (sold in late 2024)

7. Drilling company

8. Accounting firm

And that’s not counting an engineering company I bought in late 2024, plus the accounting firm portfolio I’m also building up right now.

This is a lot to juggle for one person. So understandably, a lot of people want to know how much time I’m actually spending on each of them per week.

The answer is:

It depends on the business.

I spend about 20 hours per week across all of them, total.

Most of that time goes to my financial services company (~15 hours a week) because it’s the biggest money-maker right now. This work is primarily answering emails and jumping on weekly calls.

But for the rest?

I’ll check in either once a month or quarterly with the leadership team (or General Manager) I’ve put into place. This is to see how sales are doing, how the employees are performing, and to make sure we’re on track for healthy revenue growth.

Beyond that, I’m not involved in the daily work at all.

And that’s not an accident — I specifically structure all my deals this way.

I look for businesses that already have a solid management team in place, and where the owner doesn’t need to be actively involved to keep everything afloat.

That way, I can replace the owner without changing any of the major pieces of the business, and everything can keep running “on autopilot” after the acquisition.

It takes work on the front end to get this set up... but once all the core parts are systematized, it’s scalable.

Note that word: systematized.

A big mental block for a lot of owners is being comfortable with delegating tasks to others.

But if you plan on buying a business, scaling it, and stepping away at some point, you’ve got to be able to delegate with confidence.

Along with that, you also need standard operating procedures in place for everything, and to be able to trust your team completely.

Not only will this increase profits and scale the business faster... once everyone can run the show without you, it’ll free you up to move on to your next acquisition, and the next.

Lather, rinse, repeat, and that’s how you start building a portfolio of profitable businesses that run by themselves.

If that’s your goal for 2025 and beyond, and you’d like me to send you qualified deals that match your goals and budget:

Let me know here.

Or, if you’re selling a business and want me to send potential buyers your way:

Tell me about it here.

That’s it for this week — I’ll see you in Tuesday’s issue!

— Ben Kelly