Do It Your Damn Self
In a growth economy, be careful of this dangerous thought: “We don’t want more business, we can’t handle what we have now.” Your competition will gladly accommodate the growth you can’t handle. For the next 5 weeks, we are going to share mindsets and best practices for business owners managing fast-growing businesses.
We discussed this idea in last week’s blog. Owning a business is more complex (many moving parts) than complicated (difficult to master). As our clients grow their businesses at any level, the first obstacle is what to do with a high volume of work. Paralyzed owners often believe there are hundreds of options for breaking out the work. We would like to make the argument from watching this happen hundreds of times a year, that there are really only five.
- Delegate: Prioritize, communicate, execute
- Outsource: Anything that is not a core competency is an option
- PT help: Tame ‘overwhelmed’ by adding a short-term resource
- Simplify: Would an evolutionary simplification buy capacity?
- Eliminate: What processes have you outgrown?
And there is a sixth, black hole option. Just keep DOING IT YOUR DAMN SELF!
Here are a few places to get started.
- All repetitive processes need to be pulled out of your head, developed into a procedure, and others need to be trained to do the work.
- Bookkeeping, administration, back office procedures, and some marketing can be outsourced.
- Hire an office manager/administrator, full or part-time, to help you accelerate. (See XM consultant Hannah Wells’ blogs on this topic).
The hot economy won’t last forever, don’t get left behind by the competition.