In this week’s video call session of our Business Owners Mastermind group, we met again to discuss an important topic for new entrepreneurs: how many times we let it go by making our work heavier or more tedious.
We often do not realize the logistics involved in any project within the workplace. Although, as an owner, we would like to take control of everything by delegating the duties within our payroll, some of them are not the competence of the employees; that is, they are not hired for what is being requested of them.
This is something that I had a hard time understanding, especially because I did not want to see reality. Until the solution came to me: outsourcing.
Alan Reeves tells us about his experience
For the first five and a half years of my business, I was just me. I had no business experience; I was a technician who was basically growing organically. In 2003, I had 500 or more assets, mostly, and the days got really, really long. It started to affect my health. One thing that I was really challenged with at the time was money management because I had the best intentions in the world.
But when shooting 12 hours a day for five days in a row, I knew very well that I was wasting time. I give up that morning and go out and say, when the day is done, I’m going to catch up on billing. And when I got home, I was down, which would go on for days. And for those just starting, you may not believe this. But, if you don’t enter the time, the day you do the work, you’re going to have a leak, I bet you’re going to lose 25-30% of your billable time. And that is huge.
Do this exercise: should I outsource a VA virtual assistant? Should I delegate it to an employee? Should I automate it?
This is what I do, which I do myself at least twice a year, listing the business tasks they perform. You can also make your employees do it. List the business tasks you do, how much time per week you spend on it, a checkbox will appear in any of these columns.
Do you like to do that or wait? Don’t you like to do it? And aren’t you good at it? Put a checkbox there? Do you like to do it? And you are good at it, and you should not do it because you are the owner or the person doing it? Then, ask yourself if this task can be delegated, automated, or outsourced by the time you’re done with this, and this will be one of those things you just did. Like I’ve been doing this for over ten years.
So, now and then, it’s good to reevaluate your system.
Strive to resolve a call, giving people the opposite empowerment of you and your team to take over the call. Someone calls for whatever reason they can; handle it, whether they have to attract other team members.
But if you struggle to achieve a one-call resolution, that will put you above and beyond all the rest. Often, it’s the little things you do that they might never have seen before, might never have done for themselves, or even thought about.
Everybody has weaknesses. I know that in my business if I have a customer service problem, I am 100% better off involving them with my wife than if they talk to me.
So, the only piece of advice you would have is to constantly review and assess your people, their strengths and weaknesses, give them more of the work they are great at, and minimize the things they are not very good at. It is much easier to maximize strength than to change weakness.
