Business owners often struggle with a key skill: delegation
You may have always been the one who did all the things, or you may have come from a workplace where you couldn’t rely on other members of your team to complete their tasks well, on time, and on budget.
Now, you’re in a place where the work is too much for you to do alone or - possibly worse - you can do it all, but because you are doing it all, your business cannot grow. Scaling up requires focusing your time and energy on the things you do best, and handing off those other items (which are still vital and valuable) to someone else who does that best.
Before we get to the trust component of delegation, let’s just talk about what needs delegating.
The Wants & The Needs: Your Business Task List
Instead of making a “Things I Want Done” list, start with a list of “All The Things I’m Currently Doing.” That is, all the tasks involved in your business. Every. Single. One.
Spend one week making a list - a freeform list. Just write down all the stuff you do.
Productivity tip: make this a digital document, using a software program like Word, or an online program like Google Docs or Evernote. This makes it shareable, easy to update, and hard to lose among the paper on your desk. If you’d prefer to put pen to paper, you can print out our template in the Worksheets section of our ebook.
Your task list might look like this:
- Answer phone
- Return phone calls
- Book appointments/meetings
- Make restaurant reservations
- Follow up with prospects
- Process a credit card payment
- Send an invoice
- Follow up an outstanding invoice
- Respond to email
- Create, proofread, and send email newsletter
- Update social media
- Review bookkeeping and sort income/expenses
- Write content for website
- Upgrade software program
- Enter data in CRM system
- Send proposal
- Create, update, forward contracts
- Create that thing you do
- Talk to people about that thing you do
- Sell that thing you do
At the end of the week, you’ll probably have a long, long list. Nice!
Now, take a long, hard look at your list. How many of these are your key skill set - the unique thing that you do that makes your business amazing? How many things are necessary and important, but not the best use of your time? How many things do you actually loathe doing and how many things are missing… because you procrastinated?
Those are the items you need to delegate in order to push your business to the next level.
But wait! There’s more. Next month, we’ll help you identify the friction points in your business, so you can add them to your delegation list.