2010: Finding Time To Succeed. In Fact, 43 of them…
January 21, 2010 by Peter Cantelo
At this time of year many ‘self help gurus’ give you their view of how to do stuff that will make you a winner. Well I’m no guru and I often find the instructions to vague to follow…. so I stick to what works for me and talking about the HOW that YOU can do.
Business owners and managers need to stay focused on the future and executing on strategy but they often become trapped by the “the small stuff.” Unable to focus on making forward progress for their company because they are so wrapped up in day-to-day activities that they don’t need to be doing themselves and, by extension, shouldn’t be doing at all.
Consider the following list a “To NOT do” list. Whenever you get ready to start on one of these tasks, delegate it or find a way to automate it instead – may be write down what needs to be done and get someone else doing it (the first steps to putting a process in). This is my starter for ten based upon working with business owners just like you. Feel free to add your own to the list….
- Answering the phone
- Researching vendors
- Keeping the books
- Data entry
- Proofreading
- Formatting documents
- Transcribing or typing
- Getting price quotes on major purchases
- Arranging meeting times with staff
- Finding advertising opportunities and arranging ad placement
- Finding new sources of leads
- Creating and sending a company newsletter
- Faxing documents
- Paying employees (no they still need to be paid by the business but why are you running the pay roll?)
- Invoicing
- Following up on late invoices
- Updating databases
- Going through stacks of resumes
- Fixing broken equipment
- Purchasing office supplies
- Cleaning the office
- Updating your website
- Installing software and scripts
- Creating employee schedules or even sales runs
- Fulfilling orders
- Processing and fulfilling product orders
- Updating and managing contacts
- Sending email, catalogues, or mails outs
- Online research
- Social media promotion
- Calculating routine business metrics
- Researching and booking hotels and transportation
- Managing advertising campaigns
- Finding solutions to small problems
- Paying invoices and bills
- Data entry
- Sending mailings
- Researching solutions to problems
- Creating non-essential content
- Search engine optimisation
- Stock checks
- Raising purchase orders
- Liasing with any IT Support
If this looks more like your “to do” list than your “not to do” list, you’ve got a problem – a big problem. You probably have very little time leftover to devote to big picture work that contributes to your bottom-line.
Regards
Peter
Hi Peter
You have nailed me with this list.
I have spent the last year re-building the profitability which has meant downsizing slightly. I have become far more hands on, out on jobs….which I have actually enjoyed. The office has clicked along very well but I still hav ea lot of the stuff on your list on my list!
Dilema – is it time to employ someone to do all this at £17-£20,000 and take a temporary hit on the profitability?
I have a really good office system, all the numbers are in the dashboard, I just need someone to do it all for me.
What’s your experience with this. I am sure there will be a payback, but by how much and how quickly?
Regards
David
Will employing this person enable you to incease the net profit of your business?? By at least £25,000. The break even for this person is going to be around £25K so your profit needs to go up by at least 25K through employing this person. Generally I would ask yourself what you will be doing with your freed up time and be realistic about what profit that extra time will bring you.
Use the marketing break even analysis sheet from one of my earlier Monthly Mentor Club newsletters to do a brfeak even analysis – it’ll work for employing somone just as well as investing in a marketing piece.
Regards
Peter