So you're a small business owner with a large appetite for life - but no time to live it?

Hey, I'm in the same category. But I recently ran into entrepreneurial expert Ty Freyvogel who warns all business owners that not only is your personal life suffering, your business may be at risk.

"No one can immerse himself in work nonstop, without a break, and  maintain a healthy sense of perspective," says Freyvogel, former entrepreneur, current angel investor, and founder of  makingsenseofyourbusiness.com. "Try it and you'll surely start to exhibit bad judgment in your business decisions. You'll start feeling the effects of constant stress. You may even eventually burn out, or worse, start experiencing health problems. At that point, your company will certainly feel the effects of your lack of balance. "Factor in the inevitable relationship problems you'll experience in your personal life, and you may end up unhappy and unfulfilled—at which point it won't matter if you have the most successful new company in the world," he adds.

The good news is, entrepreneurs can balance their "work" and "personal" calendars so that the pursuit of success doesn't overshadow other important aspects of life. It just takes a little strategy and forethought. And summer, when the natural tendency is to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather, is a great time to start.

Here's how:

Factor your family into your life. Hopefully, your family is  already one of the main reasons you work as hard as you do, but they still need your attention and affection and you need theirs in return. True, your business supports your livelihood, but without the things that really matter, your professional life will be empty and unfulfilling.

"The summer is the perfect time to make a new commitment to spending time with your family," says Freyvogel. "You don't necessarily have to work less. All you need to do is integrate your family into your world. Maybe you can coordinate this year's family vacation with one of your business trips, or while the kids are out of school, they could come to your business every now and then to interact and see how you run things. Let them see how much fun you are having. Even small children respond to a parent's genuine excitement about his or her work. As a bonus, you're teaching kids—by example—the importance of pursuing their passion in life."

Make a plan and stick to it. You know that business plan you've been following in order to build a profitable company? Well, now is a great time to create a plan for your personal life. Grab a calendar for the summer months and get to work! If you've got kids who will be playing on sports teams this summer, go ahead and decide now on the number of games you think you will be able to attend. Figure out which games on their schedules work the best with yours, then mark these dates on the calendar. Doing so ensures you'll give these family events the same weight you would a critical client meeting.

"Keep the calendar in front of you and when the dates are nearing, organize your schedule in a way that will allow you to meet the commitment you made to your child," says Freyvogel. "If you don't have kids, the calendar should still come into play. Mark some dates to take in a couple of sporting events and/or movies with friends or set aside at least one night each week that you can spend some one-on one time with your spouse. At the end of the summer, you'll be glad you did."

Don't overestimate how well your business is doing. If you have recently started a business and the money is flowing in faster than you ever imagined, spend with caution . . . whether the "currency" is time or money or both! Just because it seems like the money is there doesn't mean it will always be, so don't book an expensive or too lengthy vacation.

"I have seen it too many times," says Freyvogel. "A person reaches the million-dollar mark and suddenly becomes 'invincible.' This mistake can have a disastrous effect on a young business. You just can't run a fledgling company from a cruise ship. A start-up usually isn't mature enough to withstand the protracted absences of its founder, and cash flow may be too shaky to justify big, unnecessary purchases. So take the family on a weekend getaway to a local spot this summer or figure out some fun things to do in your hometown. You can enjoy time with them in a way that won't endanger your business."

If you do go on a vacation, make it a real one. What's the definition of a real vacation, you ask? A real vacation doesn't involve having a cell phone attached to your ear, a laptop that is constantly alerting you about new email, or a BlackBerry that can be carried every place you go so that you don't lose touch with the business for even a second. If you're going to do any of these things while you're on vacation, you might as well not even go, because you won't be able to really relax or give your family the attention they deserve.

"To avoid these activities, leave detailed instructions about what constitutes an emergency with whoever will be looking after the business while you are gone, and tell them to contact you only if such an emergency happens," says Freyvogel. "You'll be surprised at how much you will benefit from the time away. When you return from vacation, you'll be able to look at the business from a rejuvenated perspective."

Don't make every lunch a business lunch. Entrepreneurs tend to "do lunch," not have lunch. That's understandable. The mid-day meal is the perfect time to woo new clients, shore up relationships with existing ones, or just sit alone in a pub with a legal pad scribbling down new ideas. (And that's assuming you even take a lunch at all; many entrepreneurs wolf down a bag of chips at their desk.) But do this every day of the week and you'll start wondering if there is life outside the business sphere.

"Make at least one lunch a week this summer one that you spend with your family or friends," advises Freyvogel. "Take the kids to the park for a bag lunch or meet a friend at his or her favorite restaurant. Spending time with the kids, your spouse, or a friend will be a nice break from all of the mid-day business talk that fills your lunch break the rest of the week."

You don't have to have a family to take a little break this summer. If you've started a business but haven't yet started a family, you may think none of these rules apply to you. Well, you're wrong. Entrepreneurs are known for their inclination to work at breakneck speeds without ever coming up for air. The summer is a great time to take a break from the business even if it is just for one day to do something you enjoy, spend time with friends, or just sleep in.

"Even a little time away will help you gain a new perspective on where the business is in your plan and which goals you think it's time to tackle," adds Freyvogel. "Don't underestimate the power of a 'mental health day'!"

Finally, says Frevogel, don't assume it's okay to scrap your newfound sense of balance when the mercury begins to drop a few short months from now. These "summer suggestions" are actually meant to be followed all year long.

"Common sense is really the best barometer for balancing your life with your work, no matter what the season," says Freyvogel. "Always ask yourself with each decision you make, 'How will this affect my business?' and 'Can I personally live with this decision?' There is a healthy balance for you, and you can find it. In the end, wise business and life choices will make your profits higher, your blood pressure lower, your family closer, and everyone happier . . . and maybe even a bit more tan!"

Good businesses are always measuring progress - - sometimes in the unlikeliest instances.

Years ago, retail magnate Marshall Field was walking through the original store that bears his name in Chicago. In doing so, he overheard a clerk arguing with a customer.

He stopped and asked: "What are you doing?"

The clerk answered: "I'm settling a complaint."

Field shot back: "No, you're not. Give the lady what she wants."

Marshall Field, a notorious "floorwalker" at his landmark store, was way ahead of his time. He knew that giving customers "what they want" is the heart and soul of any commercial enterprise.

He also knew that the key to boosting both his company brand and his bottom line was by constantly measuring progress, not just as a customer service barometer, although that's obviously critical to any company's success. Like most successful business owners, he also measured the overall quality and effectiveness of the entire shopping experience.

That's what separates the contenders from the pretenders in business today – the ability to know exactly what makes customers enter your doors and come back again and again – knowing they can rely on receiving the same quality, service and product each time they do.

Fast forward to the first decade of the 21st century, where companies like Starbucks are taking a similar page out of the Marshall Field playbook.

No matter which store or city a Starbucks customer is in, each one knows exactly what to expect – not just in terms of service, but in terms of overall experience. Each store's product, design, atmosphere, décor and service is so predictable that it becomes intuitive; as a result, consumer behavior and response becomes accurately predictable – making it even easier to design promotions, incentives and products that will immediately boost sales.

Small businesses can learn a lot from such customer-centric themes. It's also profitable. For example, what's the difference between a store that offers customers an in-store charge card at  checkout every time and one that makes the same offer just 20% of the time? An annual
sales spike of $90,000 per store, according to one retailing industry study.

So clarifying employee expectations and creating reward and incentive schemes go hand in hand with increased sales. That's what measuring company progress can do for you. But it's "how" companies are deploying performance measurement programs that is changing the business landscape today.

Historically, gauging consumer "experiences" has been the primary responsibility of the customer service department.

But in reality, customer service departments have become little more complaint departments. Or even worse, a place to go for customers to go and replace unwanted merchandise. Let's face it, you can't use the current customer service department model as a way to gauge the health and vibrancy of your company's customer relationships – it's an outmoded model that is spread too thin in terms of responsibilities and is not advanced enough to handle all the measurements that need addressing across the company.

Enter the mystery shopper.

Sometimes stereotyped as a subjective and slightly campy approach to evaluating customer service (think trench coats, wigs and dark sunglasses) mystery shoppers actually embody the complete customer satisfaction program.

How so? By measuring both the tangibles and intangibles of a company's customer experience program. Mystery shopping is a the answer to the question "How can managers seek to understand their company – and its product, service, or idea – from the customer's perspective?"

Let's face it, the level and quality of service you deliver to your customers is critical to your company's success. In fact, it may just be the ultimate barometer of your success. Many company's don't realize it, but their customers' total experience with the business and its employees dictate whether the company will succeed or fail...whether you will be profitable or not. Simply having expectations about what sort of experience your customers will have is not enough...you have to measure, you have to inspect. In the form of good, solid, effective mystery shopping programs, objective, anonymous, third-party assessments of the customer experience will provide the information you need to ensure that your expectations for customer experience are carried out in reality.

I'll have a lot more to say about mystery shopping programs in the next few blogs. In the mean time, I'll leave you with the following keys to mystery shopping -- and whether it might help your business.

• Most customers who have unsatisfactory experiences will not complain...they will just never come back.
• Shopping programs can identify areas of training that need improvement and can identify areas of training that are working particularly well
• If 20 customers are dissatisfied with your service, 19 won't tell you. Fourteen of the 20 will take their business elsewhere.