Why I'm taking off the month of June.

Why I'm Taking June Off from Work

A few months ago I realized two things:

1. April of 2023 will be the 10-year anniversary of RL Property Management, the business I quit my W-2 engineering job to start. I've been giving it full-time effort for almost a decade of my life.

2. I haven't had more than ten consecutive calendar days off from work since I graduated college & started my first job in June of 2007.

Sobering thoughts. I decided it was time for a break. Not just a long vacation filled with travel and family activities, but a mini-sabbatical of sorts. A reset.

So I started putting plans in place and decided 1 full month should be sufficient to accomplish what I'm after. June seemed like a good time - usually decent weather here in Ohio.

What am I hoping to accomplish?

• Forcing function - taking an entire month off is forcing me to finally delegate all the lingering operation tasks that were still on my plate.

• Fully disconnect from work and gain some objectivity on how I feel about the business and my involvement with it.

• Reading. LOTS of reading.

• Writing, probably some new articles along with journaling

• Thinking & meditating

• Catch up on household projects

• Gaining clarity on what's next

I do have a few small trips planned, although most of my time will be spent at home. The trip I'm looking forward to most is a 4-day sailing excursion with my dad off the coast of Maine. Apparently this is called a Windjammer cruise. We'll be guests on a 115' long schooner called the Mercantile. I'm told they let you help sail it, too (my dad and I share a love of sailing).

Have you taken a voluntary extended break from work? I'd love to hear about your experience, and how to make the most of it.

Owner Occupied Season 2 - Coming Soon!

Recording has already started for Season 2 of my podcast, Owner Occupied. I couldn't be more thrilled to share this with all of you. Season 2 is going to be 12 tight episodes, 100% focused on the business of property management. It's interview-style, each week with a different rock-star guest. We've got professional editing & production, a new bespoke theme song, and upgraded recording equipment. Go head and subscribe now in your favorite podcast player so you don't miss the first episode next month! And in the mean time you can check out the back-catalog of 18 episodes I recorded last year.

The Most Important Calculation I Discovered This Year

A few days ago I was watching an interesting video by Alex Hermozi, one of my favorite business thinkers (his YouTube channel is full of gold). Alex has built & sold multiple companies and is the founder of Aquisition.com, basically a micro PE firm. They invest in companies between 3 and 30M in revenue.

Anyway, in this video he starts by describing 3 different ways to calculate customer lifetime value (LTV). That was good, but the next part of the video hit me like a lightning bolt. He walks through a calculation that basically determines a revenue ceiling on your business, given just 3 inputs. I simplified it using an excel spreadsheet:

Until you change one of the highlighted numbers, your biz is going to (quickly, then slowly) approach the red value in annual revenue.

I was very familiar with those 3 levers and how important they were to the health and growth of a company, but it wasn't until he walked through this calculation that I realized just how important. As in, nothing else about your company matters if you're not pushing on at least one of these levers constantly. I'm still pondering this and will probably write a full article about it on my website, but I wanted to share this with my newsletter subscribers as soon as possible.

Closing Thoughts

Thank you for reading!

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This newsletter is sponsored by the Owned and Operated Newsletter. John Wilson writes a weekly newsletter all about running, growing, and acquiring small businesses. If you enjoy what I write, I have no doubt you'll love his newsletter. My favorite recent article? The Real Cost of Doing Business: Opportunity Cost. Thank you to Owned and Operated for sponsoring this issue of Peter Lohmann's Newsletter.