Articles

Starting your business / Growing Up

Women's businesses tend to stay small. Unless we stop doing everything and learn to delegate, we remain small. The challenge is to focus on adding real value to the business otherwise it will under-perform. Let's raise the bar and get bigger and better!

Are you the Boss, chief cook and bottle washer?

Only about 2% of business move from being micro businesses. In most businesses, the owner is the chief cook, bottle washer and waitress, even if they have staff they tend to do too many low level tasks themselves. " If other people do the work it takes longer and they don't do it as well as I do it", perhaps this is true, but how will anyone else learn. It is critical to let go and accept others will do it differently but it will be done. If you do everything the business will remain small. Let go of the tyranny of perfectionalism.

The pilot in the cock pit and the brain surgeon in the operating theatre concentrate on doing what they are best at. They rely on others to administer, to wash the instruments, deal with technical questions. They don't waste their time doing jobs that others can be doing.

As the boss do what no one else can do but you.

As a business owner you need to know what the most valuable part of your business is. What the brain surgery or pilot part, and start moving toward outsourcing or delegating. You say you can't afford to, you can't take on the expense of hiring someone. To grow you need streamlined systems, work processes need to be documented, so they can be picked up buy someone else. While this takes time and work, the dividends are enormous.

There is also point in a business when a leap has to be made. Even if you hire someone part time or one or 2 days a week, and you have to work harder at marketing to increase sales, it is the way to go to grow. Too often we don't price and value our own time. There is no point in making deliveries yourself, or packaging or going to the post office yourself or doing the books. These are tasks someone else aught to be doing.

You can't save money by doing the mundane tasks

You are not saving money by doing mundane tasks. The key tasks are talking to customers, and finding new ones. As a business owner do things that no one else can do but you. Ask yourself if you were not doing these non critical tasks in the business what would you be doing. Working on the marketing plan, making the sales calls, finding distributors?

Work ON the business not only IN the business

Remember you're job is to work on the business not only in the business. If you had two extra hours a week to work on the business what would you do. If your goal was to add 100,000 shekels in sales to the business, how would you do it, create marketing strategies and plans develop an export stream, implement a new system , develop a new product or service. Don't you think you could achieve your goal through thinking and doing what you really are meant to be doing?

Develop the systems and delegate and quit doing low value work. Value your time and leverage yourself and grow your business and make more money!