February 6, 2012

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What You Should Let Go of Today

What should you delegate? As much as humanly possible.

Most entrepreneurs, myself included, suggest how important delegation is for startups and small businesses. But, no matter how great something is, if you’re unsure of where to start it’s frustrating and overwhelming.

So get started today and develop a nine-week plan. Spend each week focusing on a different organizational function. Pay attention to, and journal, your daily and weekly tasks as it pertains to that department. Write down even the most mundane things – dig into the details. Once you understand what you are actually doing on a daily basis, the easier it will be to delegate and possibly dump some processes and procedures.

If you wouldn’t compensate someone else to do it, why are you wasting your time with it?

Review each week’s notes and allocate specific tasks for each functional area. Prepare for growth and decide early on what you can and should outsource. Concentrate on your strengths and expertise (passion zones), and delegate the rest.

For example,

Hire an intern to handle administration — clerical paperwork. This simple business move will save you time, increase management expertise and allow you to focus on what you do best. It’s hard to grow your business and swim in leagues of paperwork too.

Or, develop a product FAQ sheet (derived from your most frequent customer service inquiries) and hand it over to a call-center that primarily deals with small businesses to take calls or close sales. Increase your productivity and sanity.

The idea is to streamline your departments as much as possible so they can work together, collaboratively, with ease. Pass your multiple hats to experts that “wear them well.”

Here are some examples of common procedures that you could delegate immediately:

Opening/Closing of store or office

Handling mail: sorting, postage, weighing

Maintaining equipment

Scheduling staff

Accounts Payable/Receivable

Advertising and marketing

Customer Satisfaction

Delegation starts with assessing and organizing all of the minutia (detail) that happens throughout the course of business. Ultimately, these simple steps will save you time and money, enabling you to work smart do the things in business that matter most.

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