The Thanksgiving Test: Could Your Business Run Without You for a Week?

Here’s a test you can run this month, and it won’t cost you anything. Take the week of Thanksgiving off. Actually off. Tell your team ahead of time, set an out-of-office reply, and leave the laptop at the office. Then pay attention to what happens while you’re gone, because it’s the simplest way I know to find out whether your business can run without you.

I learned this the hard way. About ten years ago I got sick in the middle of our busiest quarter and was down for four or five days. I wrote about what I found when I came back in The Business That Only Moves When You’re Watching. A lot of what I thought of as the business running was really me running it.

Why Thanksgiving week works

Most owners never take a real week off, so they never find out. Thanksgiving makes it easier than any other week of the year. Clients slow down, your team expects you to be out, and you’ve got a built-in reason to be home. And if the business struggles through a short holiday week without you, it’s going to struggle with the growth you’re planning for next year.

What to watch for while you’re gone

Before you leave, write down what you expect to happen without you. When you get back, check it honestly against these five questions.

1. Did follow-up still happen?

Look at the new leads, open proposals and referrals that came in during the week. If they sat in an inbox waiting for you to get back, your follow-up runs on one person. Every day a good opportunity waits, it gets a little colder.

2. Could anyone answer “how’s the pipeline?”

Ask a couple of people on your team that question while you’re out. If they have to guess, the real pipeline lives in your head instead of your CRM, and nobody can make good decisions from a forecast they can’t see.

3. Which decisions waited for you?

Make a list when you get back. Some decisions should wait for the owner. Most of the ones that pile up during a holiday week shouldn’t, like a discount on a renewal, a schedule change or which lead to call first. Each one is a decision you haven’t handed off yet.

4. Did an important relationship go quiet?

Think about your best client, your top referral partner and the banker you talk to every month. If those relationships only move when you personally reach out, they belong to you, and the company doesn’t own them yet.

5. Were you actually home?

This one matters most to me. You can sit at the Thanksgiving table and still be at work, checking your phone between courses and running numbers in your head while everyone else talks. Your family can tell the difference. Mine could. I’ve written about the night my wife caught me answering emails in bed, and that one stuck with me for a long time.

What to do with what you learn

Don’t treat the results as a grade. Treat them as your to-do list for the first quarter.

• Write down everything you handled from memory or instinct that week, and give each item an owner who isn’t you.
• Put your follow-up rules in your CRM instead of your head, so leads and proposals keep moving whether you’re watching or not.
• Pick one relationship you personally carry and bring someone from your team into it this quarter.
• Decide which decisions truly need you, and write down who makes the rest.

If the test shows your pipeline stalls when you step away, that’s the work we do at StringCan Interactive. We help owner-led companies find where revenue leaks when growth depends too much on the owner, and build a system that keeps moving without them.

Run the same test at home

The Thanksgiving test works on families, too. In 2015 I took the planning habits from my companies and turned them into a four-day retreat for my own family. We looked back at the year, talked about how we treat each other and set goals together. That retreat became my book, Family 2.0. If this week shows you that your family has been getting what’s left over after work, that’s a good place to start.

So put Thanksgiving week on the calendar as a real week off, tell your team today, and write down your five expectations before you leave. You’ll learn more from what you find when you get back than from any report your team could send you.