The need to change
As your business grows, you need to review what you are doing and delegate more. Having too much to do is a good problem, if you have a profitable business model (if not, fix it or get out).
To create more time for yourself you will need to;
- pay someone - give up high volume, low complexity work and accept the cost. These are non strategic things that you can get someone else to do for you
- accept some discomfort - relinquish ownership of tasks you may be comfortable owning but are too busy to do anymore
If you are OK with these 2 conditions read on. If not, stop reading, go and get a drink and think about selling your business and getting a job.
Divide and Conquer
Let’s group the tasks in your business under 2 groups;
1) Core Strategic/Important Tasks: choosing your customer segment to target and what to offer them, branding, hiring the right people, choosing and developing products, ownership of the sales function, supplier relationship management
2) Lower Risk / High Volume: book keeping, payroll, graphic design, logos, answering the phone, building websites, social media posts, booking trips, getting quotes, paying invoices, packing boxes, deliveries, mail outs, booking meetings, business reporting, auditing, customer surveys
If you are doing anything in Group 2 you should stop doing it, find someone to delegate it to and spend the time building your business instead.
An Easy Method
This is how to do it, it will take up to an hour to do
- go to a quiet place and brainstorm a list of all the tasks in your business - make sure its comprehensive
- list them all in a table like the one above, include time per week/month
- list the names of people you can delegate to, including roles you haven’t hired yet
- put Xs against all tasks under a role, starting with other people first - give yourself as little as possible!!! Start with other people first
Hints;
- one person can be performing 2 roles if you want to combine two roles to find a full-time person
- design the role first, don’t design roles about an individual’s preferences or desires as they may leave or get the impression they are able to choose what is expected of them
- any task you can delegate to someone for $25/hr or less should be considered for delegation
- do this exercise every quarter or year depending on your growth
Next
- Check you can afford the assistance by adding any new costs to your cash-flow forecast
- Implement the new roles which may include: updating job specs, hiring someone, training, conversations linking the change to the business success and growth, selling the change or a change in pay
Find people here….
Free to advertise
serviceseeking
gumtree
indeed
Offshore/low cost
fiverr
Elance - this BRW article explains Australia is the top user per capita of Elance
Advertising, costs
jobs.com.au
seek
Don’t pay unless you’re happy with the work
freelancer
Host a design competition from $299, choose the best from multiple designs, money back guarantee
99designs
