Taking your business up to the next step requires many things. An area that holds many people back is not having enough time to do everything. As a business owner you need to have time available for you to oversee everthing and develop strategies. Yet, if you’re in the trenches doing everything it can be almost impossible to have that time.
So, one way to free up some of your time now, giving you the opportunity to plan and strataegize is to start delegating. I appreciate that for many people, delegating is something they find difficult to do. There can be many reasons for this, perhaps ego getting in the way, not having people to delegate to, not knowing how to delegate.
I’ll address each of these points now:
Your ego is getting in the way when you believe that you are the only person who can do these tasks. Yes, there will probably be certain things that you are excellent at and will continue to do. However, there are many tasks that are carried out in businesses that could easily be handled by someone else. I.e. entering information into a database, follow-up letters, accounts.
Its these tasks that are fairly mundane that can easily be delegated to start with. Not only will they free up your time, you’ll often find that your mind is clearer, hence allowing you to be creative in planning for your business.
If you’re a small business person who works on their own, you may well feel that you don’t have anyone to delegate tasks to. Ok, so you don’t have your own secretary just yet, but there are options available. One is to use a ‘virtual assistant’. These people work in a similar way to having your own personal assistant, except they usually work remotely, perhaps from their own office. Also, you don’t need to employ the full or part time. You hire and pay them only for the specific tasks that you want doing.
This means that you could start by delegating just a couple of hours work a week to one of these assistants.
The last part is knowing how to delegate. Of course, what I’m sharing with you today is quite a simple approach and you may want to learn more.
The most important step I would say in delegating is to be very specific about what you want to be done and then find the right person to do it. For any tasks that you want to delegate, write down every step specifically that needs to be taken, run it by someone who doesn’t have your experience as is easy to leave out things that we take for granted.
Even though it may seem tedious having to do this, there are a number of benefits. Firstly, the tasks are likely to be carried out correctly and you don’t have to spend time after sorting out any errors. Also, once you have these steps written down they can be handed on to other people as the need arises.
I'll leave it there for today, otherwise you migh never shut me up
If you have any questions or thoughts, post away.
Warmest regards
Wendy
