Do what you do best and delegate the rest. –Chris Ducker
You’ve heard it before…you must delegate to grow your business. Yet, it seems easier said than done, doesn’t it?
Working 20 years in the corporate world taught me many things. First, I was hired into a company to fill a certain role. My focus was doing the best job at that one role. As I learned more and was promoted to various managerial positions, I took on more responsibility. The additional responsibility meant that I needed to become a better leader and to delegate tasks to teammates. Delegation made the entire team work more efficiently. Efficient teams make for a better company.
Then, I took the leap out of corporate-land and opened Scrivener Solutions. It’s different when you run your own business versus working for a company. In a company, the are roles, departments, and processes already established. Your contribution, your piece of what you do when you work for someone else, makes the whole operation run smoother. You see, as a business owner, everything is on your shoulders. You must think of everything, how all the pieces fit, and not just one role.
It would be wonderful to be able to snap our fingers and everything would be in place and our company would run like clockwork. The reality of growing our business is that we won’t wake up one morning and have all the help we need to make our business run smoothly. It’s a process.
I started out as a business of one. Not long after I found my first clients, I realized that I needed help. I could care for my clients but realized I couldn’t keep up with my own billing. The thing is, I was scared to take the leap and get help because I feared how much it would cost.
I was busy and I didn’t feel like training anyone. But, as time went by and my billing became way too far behind, I knew I needed to find a way to afford help. Obviously, if my billing was behind, then I wasn’t invoicing my clients timely, I wasn’t receiving revenue timely, therefore with measly revenue, I couldn’t afford help. I had to break out of this vicious circle and invest. And boy was the investment well worth it!
I no longer stressed about getting around to doing the task. I was no longer focusing on the data entry part. Now I’m free to focus on the overall financial picture. I began to see how my business was growing and where I needed to improve.
That first effort in delegation allowed me to open my mind in seeking the right team to better serve my clients and help me realize the financial goals of my business. I began by delegating a little at a time. I realized that if I tried to delegate too much at once, I was quickly overwhelmed with doing all the necessary training, not to mentioned worried how I’d be able to afford their help. It’s almost like walking a tightrope in balancing what you should do and what you should delegate.
It’s important to become aware of the major obstacles that are holding you back from delegating. It takes reflection and planning to make the transition from being the worker bee in your company to becoming the CEO. What are you telling yourself to stop you from delegating?
1) I can’t afford help!
It’s totally understandable that when you are just starting out, you are generating little revenue. You need to cover your own expenses, how on earth can you pay someone to help you?
From building your own website, designing your own business cards, figuring out QuickBooks, or whatever the task which takes you away from serving your customer, you are doing everything in your ever-efficient quest to save money. You spend hours and hours trying to figure out things you don’t quite understand. You have the perception that only when you are making a certain amount of money, could you afford to hire help.
Then, when you have more customers and get busier, you convince yourself that you still can’t afford help. You want to keep things lean and keep your expenses down so you’ll have the maximum profit.
OK…the balance in your checking account is very real and you need to budget wisely. But money shouldn’t be your only consideration. Your time is valuable, and unlike money, you cannot earn more. We all have the same level playing field when it comes to how much time we have in a day. Making the investment to start delegating will have a positive impact on your bottom line.
Start out by investing in focused training and coaching. This is an investment in yourself that has a huge return on investment. You are receiving focused help to aid you in your mindset and skills to grow your business. Soon you’ll discover areas where you can let go and invest in the help you need.
Investment in focused help where you need it the most helps you transition from spinning your wheels in overwhelm-land to getting things done. When you delegate, you will focus on what you do best. You are delegating to people who do what they do best. You will soon realize that the investment pays for itself many times over.
2) It’s quicker to do it myself!
It’s easy to get stuck here. There are a ton of tasks that you do that are routine and technically easy. Why should you pay someone to do it when it’s just as easy to do it yourself?
If you have that mindset, you’ll never do anything in your business, except work in your business. You’ll be distracted in doing all the stuff that you label “it’s quicker for me to do it” and be frustrated that you never get around to other important tasks that only you can do.
The “little” things add up. When you take the time to set into motion a process and train someone to help with the little things, your time and energy can then be shifted to the things only you can do.
3) No one can do it like I can!
Yes, you are a unique and very talented person and you should focus on where your talents truly lie. Sometimes our egos get in our own way. We must be open and not be vain to think that others can’t do tasks as well as we can. The fact is, there’s a lot of talent out there and there’s always someone that comes along that can do things faster and better than we can.
When you have too much on your plate, then your quality and timeliness will start to deteriorate. Be realistic, more importantly, be honest with yourself when evaluating if it’s a task only you can do.
4) I don’t have time!
The feeling that we don’t have time to find and teach someone the tasks we want to delegate usually comes when we are overwhelmed and have the feeling of being pushed into the corner with a deadline. It’s late, we are tired, and we have come down to crunch time and must get the project done.
The bad thing is that sometimes we get into a routine of always feeling behind, so we just roll up our sleeves and just do because there’s no time at this point to teach someone when there’s a deadline looming.
I’ve been there…I know. You tell yourself that someday you’ll feel caught up enough and then will find the time and teach someone. That “someday” never comes because you didn’t take little steps along the way to identify things that you could get help with.
Slowing down and planning is important. The up-front investment of your time for training is well worth it. Once training is done, your focus is elsewhere instead of being wrapped up in the little things.
To be completely honest, the four statements above, dance in my head frequently. Delegating and creating a team doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time.
It’s a balancing act of overcoming all the obstacles that hold us back from letting go. It would be nice that one day we’d wake up and have people who know what to do, enough money to pay them, and all we are doing is what we do best. It will happen, but it doesn’t happen overnight.
As you discover what little things you should delegate, you realize how it fits into your budget. It may stretch your budget a bit, but in doing so, you turn your focus from the “doing” of a task to the management and running of your company. You will develop processes so that your efforts are magnified.
I can’t tell you how many times I find myself reflecting on how much I appreciate my team. They may think they are doing the “little things,” but their efforts make a tremendous positive impact both for my clients and for my bottom line. Together we make the company work. Together we help other small businesses with their “little things.”
The great news is that you can start out small and delegate a little bit of what you are comfortable with. Virtual assistance is perfect for the small business owner to begin realizing the snowball effect of delegating.
What was the first thing you delegated in your business? If you haven’t delegated anything yet, what’s holding you back?