A common piece of advice from business coaches to those who want to grow their small business is to hire team members who can do the support work so you can focus your efforts on money-making tasks. In other words, don’t waste your time doing bookkeeping or answering emails because you’ll make more money selling your signature program or coaching clients. Keep your focus on your own business.
So How’s A Business Supposed To Run Smoothly When You’re Not Doing Those Necessary Support Tasks?
Simple…you hire people to do those tasks for you. There are expert Virtual Assistants who can create an organized inbox with filters, folders and labels in mere minutes. There are expert Bookkeepers who find joy in numbers and live for balancing your books each month. And there are still others who adore creating online content and helping customers with their questions and problems. Look for people who are in alignment with your own niche, and values. You want to hire a team that will work just as hard as you do. Just like other businesses, set up interviews. Ask for references, if they have a website look over the testimonials they have from other clients. Do your research!
There’s Not Enough Time in Your Day
If this is your excuse for not getting tasks done, then it’s time to hire at least one team member. Make a list of your most pressing tasks that need doing and hire the appropriate person for the job. Start small if necessary, paying a Virtual Assistant for 5 hours a month, for instance, and then work up from there as you become more comfortable delegating tasks to her. You’ve just gained 5 hours in your month so use it wisely.
You Can’t Clone Yourself
How on earth can you coach or work with your clients while also getting prospects into your sales funnel and creating books or other signature programs? You can’t, plain and simple, because there is only ONE of you! This leads back to you doing the money-making tasks. Hire a ghostwriter to write your book or programs; hire a Virtual Assistant to help with administrative tasks; hire a Customer Service Specialist to answer your phones and client questions. While they work, you work on building relationships with your clients and prospects.
You Don’t Have Time to Learn the Latest Technology
Technology is wonderful and keeps improving every day but who has the time to learn all these programs and apps? Canva is certainly a cool tool for designing graphics but instead of fooling around for hours to design your book covers or social media graphics, hire a graphic designer who already knows about design and color principles and likely has the latest and greatest design program. There’s no learning curve here. You only have to explain your vision to the designer and let her take over. Your top focus should be on your money-making activities.
I Don’t Know What Tasks to Give Up
Giving up control can be intimidating but if you have a business plan and know exactly what tasks YOU want to handle AND you know which ones you hate to handle, the art of delegation becomes much easier. My best advice to woman business owners is to focus on what you love doing in your own business. What is it that gives you joy? That you cannot wait to wake up to in the morning and do? Those are the tasks you want to keep.
Now it should be easier to know what tasks you want to hand off to your support team. Do you hate making graphics? No time to put together a newsletter? Make updates on your website? Backup and update plugins, themes, etc. on your website? Those are the tasks that you delegate to your support team!
Now you have more freedom! Less frustration, and more time to do what it is you love to do!
