How Business Owners Should Value Their Time.
Many business owners’ pitfall is they try to do too much and control every aspect of their business.
Understandably, many business owners see their business as their “baby,” but this can make it hard to relinquish business tasks. The reality is that delegating and outsourcing parts of your business can go a long way in helping business owners to dedicate their time more efficiently.
Here are some essential tips to keep in mind as a business owner that can help reshape how you use your time to help your business.
1. Letting Go of (Some) Control
A business is made of many moving parts, from sales calls and social media to marketing your brand and keeping track of finances. All of these moving parts require a dedicated amount of time and effort, and as a business grows, a single business owner cannot effectively manage all of these parts themselves.
Outsourcing some aspects of your business can be a great way to let go of some control as a business owner. By delegating some tasks to others, you provide yourself with more time to focus on more essential business tasks. Consider the following example: Let’s imagine that you value your time at $250 an hour. It could be more than this; it could be less, but for now, let’s value your time at $250 an hour. Business A has four tasks that its business owner manages. These tasks are $1/hour, $10/hour, $20/hour, and $100/hour. Because you value your time at $250/hour, you want to start delegating tasks that are the least valuable to you in your business. These may often be tasks like paperwork, data entry, scheduling, collecting tax documents, etc. Many of these tasks, such as scheduling, can be outsourced with a 3 rd party software like Calendly. Calendly is a software that allows you to let customers book appointments/meetings/etc., automatically on your website. Using a 3rd party software, you don’t have to waste time spending emails back and forth to schedule an appointment or meeting with a customer or client.
2. Virtual Work
You can hire a virtual assistant from anywhere in the world at a relatively low cost in today’s day and age. This is due to the cost of living arbitrage around the world. Allowing a virtual assistant to handle business tasks means you can have someone working on a full-time schedule for significantly less than doing it yourself or paying someone in-house. Companies like Fiverr and Upwork have a wide selection of freelance and virtual assistants readily available to help with any business tasks you may have. Virtual work can be a great way to delegate social media creation to qualified and experienced people. And remember, delegating doesn’t mean you’re losing control entirely. You can still communicate and discuss your plans for social media messages, graphics, etc., with your virtual assistants to ensure that they execute your tasks to your liking.
3. Start Small
A good rule of thumb is to start small when outsourcing tasks. As a business owner, it may take some time to get used to relinquishing your business tasks, but it will be well worth it in the end. You can start by outsourcing social media or blog with sites like iWriter, where you can have a 200-2000 word article written for around $40 while still maintaining quality. It’s a better use of your time hiring someone that’s an excellent writer to write a blog post for you than to be doing it yourself.
As a business owner, the only way you scale and grow your businesses is by doing what you do best. You’ll never get to the point where you’re 100% just dedicated to the only things you want to do – that’s not realistic. But by embracing outsourcing and virtual work, you can get to where you’re spending 80-90% of your time doing exactly what you want to be doing.
This can be a compelling concept for you as an individual and business owner, and it can help you stay healthy and keep your sanity and family life intact. If you’re focusing on what you’re good at and what helps you build the business in the first place, that will help it grow and help you serve your clients better.
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