Delegation has always been a problem for a lot of entrepreneurs. In a many cases there isn't even a question about it: it's my business and therefore I must be as involved as I possibly can! It feels normal - I'm my own boss and because of it I don't have anybody to help me, I'm only as successful as how hard I work.
The problem they face is a tough one. When the business becomes their baby, who can they trust to run it but themselves?
I've been around long enough to know that owners often have difficulty separating the business's concept from all of the little intricacies that go into the actual production.
We somehow feel obligated to be a part of every little thing that goes on in our business and "have" to know everything that is going on at any one time. We're taught that's the way it supposed to be if we want our business to take off.
That's completely backward!
A lot of the time, it's this attitude and idea that drive most small businesses right into the ground.
In order to see why it happens let's go back a little bit and ask ourselves: what is a business? Is it an opportunity to provide your customers with fresh bread and cleaning services or an opportunity to make money for an entrepreneur?
It's the money! It's the profit that we want to receive from our business! That's the main reason we quit our jobs and become entrepreneurs!
We need to consider in advance if the business is going to make money or are we just hoping that if we do what we do-whether cleaning floors, building houses, or baking bread-the money will flow in.
Ultimately, your task as an entrepreneur is to invest available recourses at a rate of return that exceeds your cost.
Sounds simple but it's not really. Think you know what exactly it cost to make each individual widget or loaf of bread? Are you sure?
Everything has a price and those prices just keep rising. If you don't learn that, you'll never survive! There are no free rides.
You know exactly where I'm going with this! That's right! Your own time!
The inability or unwillingness to stick a concrete price on the time they spend running their business can cut the legs out from under any entrepreneur before they even get started. They seem to forget that if somebody was paying them to do all of the things that they do, they'd be making a pretty good chunk of change. For some reason, everyone thinks that if they do something themselves, the labor is somehow free. Nobody thinks ahead that far but the issue would never even come up if owners budgeted for every aspect of their business before-hand.
Haven't you met business-owners who never has time available or money available because "You know, we run our own business, things are tough?"
Things are not supposed to be tough unless you make them this way!
Budgeting correctly can save you so much hassle and frustration. Set aside funds for accountants, a receptionist, loading dock workers, even a janitor. Do it or you'll find yourself "doing it" and trying to figure out just how doing it yourself makes it "free."
One more time: everything has a price! Your involvement costs money!
You figured you could start and an "average" small business and make "average" money. Any idea what that means? Try high six- low seven- figures per year-or $1,000,000.00 per year. And that's according to John Assaroff. That's $420.00 per hour!
So, every time you do anything for your business other than making a decision, you should ask yourself: "Can I buy it for less then $420.00 per hour?" and if you can - you should!
Another problem is - what if you can't? Then you have to be honest with yourself - your business idea does not have enough upside to support itself and you should immediately abandon it! And by "immediately" I mean IMMEDIATELY!
After all we start our own business to eliminate things that we don't like about being employed by somebody else: lack of financial freedom, lack of geographical freedom, lack of ability to spend time with our family, lack of ability to travel, lack of ability to contribute.
If we aren't getting those things, why put up with the hassle?
Robert Kiyosaki explains the difference between a business and a job this way: if you can leave it for a year and find it still running and even grown when you come back - it's a business, if it dies the next day you leave - it's a job!
So when we are talking about home based business we should be open to the idea of delegating most of the activities to outsourcers: article and press-release writing and submission, link building, social media communications, message boards and forums postings, content development and distribution, etc.
You may think that delegation entails losing some aspect of control, but in reality it's about gaining control.
Do what you are the best at - business development and strategizing - and let somebody else handle all the technical details.
When I was flipping houses (rebuilding fixer-uppers and trying to sell them at a profit) I thought I had to do everything myself. Those houses became a part of me and even the thought of letting somebody else do something with them just irritated me. I could just imagine all of the ways they could screw things up before they even got started.
It would take me forever to finish one property and after having spent so much time and effort on it you get really frustrated when a prospective buyer refuses to see how special that house is. All they see is one more three bedroom house among the other three bedroom houses on the market!
And at some point I partnered up with a group of people who had been flipping houses for quite a while as well and, seeing how attached I get to the house we were renovating, they shared with me their approach: they would actually make an effort not to be at the property during the renovation process, they actually hired a project manager to supervise the process and to avoid the need for them to be at the property. They were subbing out everything, focusing only on acquisition and selling aspects of the business. This approach allowed them to avoid falling in love with each property and to become the biggest company on the market within literally a few months!
I have another great example for you.
Back home, in Russia, we have this belief that has been around for decades: you have to grow your own potatoes, because if you do it yourself - it's free. I'm not joking!
Financial background didn't matter at all. Everybody planted their own potatoes! It takes a lot of effort to plant potatoes in the spring and harvest them in the fall when you're doing all the work by hand!
I kept asking my parents why don't we just buy potatoes at the store (they were obviously very inexpensive) and they would keep telling me that if we grow them ourselves they are free!
It frustrated me because, even without being in college yet, I could see that the potatoes weren't free. All of the effort that was going into growing them was worth a fortune. Yet everybody was still doing it.
I remember eventually, when I was already in college, when the time came again to harvest potatoes, I said to my family: "Hey, guys, I can handle it myself, you don't have to go with me. I'm a strong guy and I will take care of it without your help!" They said: "Are you sure? It feels really weird, because for years it's been an activity that the entire family must participate in! Everybody else does it this way!" I said: "No, you are fine. I got it!"
I remember I went down to this place where jobless men used to gather and offered them some hard cash for their labor. They had all of the potatoes harvested before the day was over.
I don't think I ever told my family what happened, because it would be almost a crime, what I did!
Plus, they were so proud of me!
And, eventually, in college, I learned that I was right, when I read in the book the words that I remember by heart: "A world of individual self-sufficiency would be a world with extremely low living standards. Trade allows people to specialize in activities they can do well and to buy from others goods and services they can not easily produce. Specialization and trade go hand in hand because there is no motivation to achieve gains from specialization without being able to trade goods and services produced for goods and services desired. That's why economists use the term "gains from trade" to embrace the results of both."
So I was right!
It sounds like poetry to me!
One more time: you don't have to do everything in your business and you don't have to be good at everything in your business!
John Assaroff told me: "Hire people who play at what you have to work."
The faster you learn how to delegate, the faster you will get to develop your business to the point where you can finally move to Costa Rica, learn how to surf and get to spend day after day on the beach with your family relaxing and drinking those fruity drinks with little umbrellas!
You are a business owner! That's what you do: you own your business!
Let somebody else handle the technical aspects and that's when you will experience the freedom you started your business for in the first place! - 15431
The problem they face is a tough one. When the business becomes their baby, who can they trust to run it but themselves?
I've been around long enough to know that owners often have difficulty separating the business's concept from all of the little intricacies that go into the actual production.
We somehow feel obligated to be a part of every little thing that goes on in our business and "have" to know everything that is going on at any one time. We're taught that's the way it supposed to be if we want our business to take off.
That's completely backward!
A lot of the time, it's this attitude and idea that drive most small businesses right into the ground.
In order to see why it happens let's go back a little bit and ask ourselves: what is a business? Is it an opportunity to provide your customers with fresh bread and cleaning services or an opportunity to make money for an entrepreneur?
It's the money! It's the profit that we want to receive from our business! That's the main reason we quit our jobs and become entrepreneurs!
We need to consider in advance if the business is going to make money or are we just hoping that if we do what we do-whether cleaning floors, building houses, or baking bread-the money will flow in.
Ultimately, your task as an entrepreneur is to invest available recourses at a rate of return that exceeds your cost.
Sounds simple but it's not really. Think you know what exactly it cost to make each individual widget or loaf of bread? Are you sure?
Everything has a price and those prices just keep rising. If you don't learn that, you'll never survive! There are no free rides.
You know exactly where I'm going with this! That's right! Your own time!
The inability or unwillingness to stick a concrete price on the time they spend running their business can cut the legs out from under any entrepreneur before they even get started. They seem to forget that if somebody was paying them to do all of the things that they do, they'd be making a pretty good chunk of change. For some reason, everyone thinks that if they do something themselves, the labor is somehow free. Nobody thinks ahead that far but the issue would never even come up if owners budgeted for every aspect of their business before-hand.
Haven't you met business-owners who never has time available or money available because "You know, we run our own business, things are tough?"
Things are not supposed to be tough unless you make them this way!
Budgeting correctly can save you so much hassle and frustration. Set aside funds for accountants, a receptionist, loading dock workers, even a janitor. Do it or you'll find yourself "doing it" and trying to figure out just how doing it yourself makes it "free."
One more time: everything has a price! Your involvement costs money!
You figured you could start and an "average" small business and make "average" money. Any idea what that means? Try high six- low seven- figures per year-or $1,000,000.00 per year. And that's according to John Assaroff. That's $420.00 per hour!
So, every time you do anything for your business other than making a decision, you should ask yourself: "Can I buy it for less then $420.00 per hour?" and if you can - you should!
Another problem is - what if you can't? Then you have to be honest with yourself - your business idea does not have enough upside to support itself and you should immediately abandon it! And by "immediately" I mean IMMEDIATELY!
After all we start our own business to eliminate things that we don't like about being employed by somebody else: lack of financial freedom, lack of geographical freedom, lack of ability to spend time with our family, lack of ability to travel, lack of ability to contribute.
If we aren't getting those things, why put up with the hassle?
Robert Kiyosaki explains the difference between a business and a job this way: if you can leave it for a year and find it still running and even grown when you come back - it's a business, if it dies the next day you leave - it's a job!
So when we are talking about home based business we should be open to the idea of delegating most of the activities to outsourcers: article and press-release writing and submission, link building, social media communications, message boards and forums postings, content development and distribution, etc.
You may think that delegation entails losing some aspect of control, but in reality it's about gaining control.
Do what you are the best at - business development and strategizing - and let somebody else handle all the technical details.
When I was flipping houses (rebuilding fixer-uppers and trying to sell them at a profit) I thought I had to do everything myself. Those houses became a part of me and even the thought of letting somebody else do something with them just irritated me. I could just imagine all of the ways they could screw things up before they even got started.
It would take me forever to finish one property and after having spent so much time and effort on it you get really frustrated when a prospective buyer refuses to see how special that house is. All they see is one more three bedroom house among the other three bedroom houses on the market!
And at some point I partnered up with a group of people who had been flipping houses for quite a while as well and, seeing how attached I get to the house we were renovating, they shared with me their approach: they would actually make an effort not to be at the property during the renovation process, they actually hired a project manager to supervise the process and to avoid the need for them to be at the property. They were subbing out everything, focusing only on acquisition and selling aspects of the business. This approach allowed them to avoid falling in love with each property and to become the biggest company on the market within literally a few months!
I have another great example for you.
Back home, in Russia, we have this belief that has been around for decades: you have to grow your own potatoes, because if you do it yourself - it's free. I'm not joking!
Financial background didn't matter at all. Everybody planted their own potatoes! It takes a lot of effort to plant potatoes in the spring and harvest them in the fall when you're doing all the work by hand!
I kept asking my parents why don't we just buy potatoes at the store (they were obviously very inexpensive) and they would keep telling me that if we grow them ourselves they are free!
It frustrated me because, even without being in college yet, I could see that the potatoes weren't free. All of the effort that was going into growing them was worth a fortune. Yet everybody was still doing it.
I remember eventually, when I was already in college, when the time came again to harvest potatoes, I said to my family: "Hey, guys, I can handle it myself, you don't have to go with me. I'm a strong guy and I will take care of it without your help!" They said: "Are you sure? It feels really weird, because for years it's been an activity that the entire family must participate in! Everybody else does it this way!" I said: "No, you are fine. I got it!"
I remember I went down to this place where jobless men used to gather and offered them some hard cash for their labor. They had all of the potatoes harvested before the day was over.
I don't think I ever told my family what happened, because it would be almost a crime, what I did!
Plus, they were so proud of me!
And, eventually, in college, I learned that I was right, when I read in the book the words that I remember by heart: "A world of individual self-sufficiency would be a world with extremely low living standards. Trade allows people to specialize in activities they can do well and to buy from others goods and services they can not easily produce. Specialization and trade go hand in hand because there is no motivation to achieve gains from specialization without being able to trade goods and services produced for goods and services desired. That's why economists use the term "gains from trade" to embrace the results of both."
So I was right!
It sounds like poetry to me!
One more time: you don't have to do everything in your business and you don't have to be good at everything in your business!
John Assaroff told me: "Hire people who play at what you have to work."
The faster you learn how to delegate, the faster you will get to develop your business to the point where you can finally move to Costa Rica, learn how to surf and get to spend day after day on the beach with your family relaxing and drinking those fruity drinks with little umbrellas!
You are a business owner! That's what you do: you own your business!
Let somebody else handle the technical aspects and that's when you will experience the freedom you started your business for in the first place! - 15431
About the Author:
Author: Pavel Becker is a frequent contributor of articles on the subjects of Web-Promotion and Working From Home. To find out how to earn money on-line go to his website PavelBecker.com
