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Purposeful Delegation
We all know that you CAN do it all, but should you? Purposeful delegation is the key to rapid growth in business. I say purposeful, because delegation in its simplest form is knowing when and how to delegate small tasks to someone else, in order to free up as much time as possible to your core skill set. But true delegation for an entrepreneur goes beyond focusing on your core skill set. It speaks to spending time on what is most profitable in the long term for your business.
I am good at bookkeeping, but the recent 40+ hours that I spent auditing our QuickBooks files for the past two years was a complete and total waste of my time. I could easily have hired a bookkeeper to do it.
Focus on What Matters
Where possible, focus on what really matters to growing your business. Outsource or delegate everything else.
To be truly successful, particularly as an entrepreneur, it is the big tasks that you need to start letting go. These are often the hardest to delegate, because it involves trust.
When you have an “all volunteer army” as your staff in an early stage business, it is difficult to properly delegate, as you don’t want to take advantage of anyone. I have not had the luxury of having a full, paid staff in my current venture, so I still do many things myself that I should be paying others to do. I am looking forward to the day when I can properly “practice” delegation.
Surrendering your Timeline
My biggest problem with delegation is not surrendering the work, but surrendering my own timeline for when I believe it should be possible to get something done (measured by my own ability). If I delegate and a week later nothing has been done, chances are I will just take it back and do it myself. That won’t fly once I have a larger organization to support the business. This is why I tend to hire a COO type as one of my first hires, so they can manage the work flow and I can keep my eye on the strategic balls in the air.
If you haven’t yet been successful in your business, ask yourself in what areas of your business should you delegate and how will that help to move your business forward?
