This question and answer series of articles provides scenarios for business owners to find answers to business frustrations.
Q: How do I apply the things you talk about in your column to a one person business?
We have worked with a number of sole proprietor businesses over the last decade. In most cases the owners wanted to see significant growth, and in some, they simply wanted to optimise their time and find a better and smarter way of working. Either way, the solution is always about the systems; finding a way to do more of the work that adds the most value to the business and less of the repetitive work. The process is quite simple. Start by writing down everything you do in a day, a week, a month. Then begin by looking at the routine things – like paperwork, loan submissions and the like. At the same time, look at where your time is best spent and evaluate the impact on your business if you were able to spend more time doing that. If your calculations reveal that doing so would make a noticeable and measurable difference to your income, you will decide whether it’s worth doing the next step. Which is: set down clear instructions for each routine task. Imagine that you won’t actually see the person who might take over these tasks and that they will operate from your written instructions – sometimes called, you guessed it, systems. Don’t do this and you will defeat the purpose when and if you take someone on to take on these tasks because you will spend your entire time answering their questions about what to do next or looking over their shoulder to make sure they are doing it correctly. When you have someone taking care of the routine, you can go and focus on meeting and converting more leads a week because the routine is taken care of.
Watch for Part Twenty-Six of the Q & A series…coming soon!
Until next time…
P.S. Learn more about working ON your business with my FREE eBook! Get it HERE!