You’re going to have to take a risk to grow your business. You have to hire assistants and a team before you’re ready. Right now, you are stopping your own growth.
Being the person responsible for every task in your business means you’ll eventually hit a growth ceiling and stall. You’ll become the bottleneck.
If you’re doing everything and telling yourself you’re not ready or can’t afford help yet, you’re in a catch-22 that many business owners get trapped in.
That exact predicament (that thing you say to yourself about not being able to afford help, so you’ll do it all yourself a bit longer until you can) is the opposite of what works.
This is the moment you need to pause and leap. It’s scary, but so liberating.
In your well-intentioned attempts to grow your business by doing every task yourself, you’ll burn out because sleeping and eating are mandatory. So is self-care, time with family, and time off.
I can do one more task before bed (some call this the 4th shift).
I can’t afford to hire an assistant; I don’t have the income yet.
I will work harder. I can do this.
These are all thoughts I had at different points before I hired my first virtual assistant.
I fired her twice (had major freak-outs about the budget).
Luckily, she said okay when I asked her back the second time.
I started with baby steps and a couple of hours a week. That felt doable and good. Today, we use 20 hours a week of time from our virtual assistant team, and we’re finally feeling the momentum and freedom that delegation brings.
I’m super happy to introduce you to the virtual assistant companies we use. Shoot me an email for some introductions!
The best part? I’ve had time for more self-care (getting my health back after two herniated discs and stress-related anxiety), time for my family, and time for a real vacation where my team took over for the week.
“I haven’t had a real vacation in nine years.”
I heard someone say that the other day and winced. I lasted about five. It was too long.
But when you’re the reason the bills get paid you don’t have choices. Or at least you don’t think you do.
What’s the trick to getting out of the weeds of your business and starting to delegate tasks and get them off your plate so you can deliver the service or product you were born for?
Documented and organized processes and systems.
If every business coach on the planet started their clients off with a library of organized systems, we’d have many more successful businesses with healthy business owners to lead them. It’s what I wish I had been told the first time I hired a coach.
I’m going to tell you what you need to do and then give you a massively helpful resource to get it done. It’s actually simple. But so many of my friends say, “I know I need this,” and then stall because it feels overwhelming.
It’s not. It’s about protecting some time and getting it done. You got this.
3 Steps to a Systemized Business
- Make your master task list: List every program, service, and process in your business and every task that makes up that program, service, or process. Take your time. Be as thorough as possible.
- Start creating standard operating procedures (SOPs or task instructions) for every task inside of every program, service, or process. Create one a day until they’re done.
- Organize the SOPs into a library where you and your helpers (or future helpers) can easily find and access them.
Systemizing your business means:
~You can start delegating, both small and big tasks.
~When you have to take a day off to deal with life, you can send someone access to the library and ask them to take over the tasks.
~You can hire a team to take tasks off your plate so you can go out and develop your business or deliver your service.
~You can even hire someone to manage your operations while you go on a much-deserved vacation.
If you have a complex business with many moving parts, what sounds easy above might feel overwhelming. Even simple businesses have more systems and processes than you think.
Do not let overwhelm paralyze you from getting this done.
Creating, documenting, and organizing repeatable systems will be one of the criteria analyzed if you ever dream of selling your business. It’s what makes your business inheritable or sellable. It’s what an investor would look at, too.
Lucky for you, I know a guy who is passionate about helping you get this done.
Please meet Jonathan Probert, my amazing son. He’s the CEO of Systems Success Pro. He’s got some small group workshops to help you get started. It will be one of the most foundational, important things you ever do for your business.
I’ll be taking one of the workshops in August. The publishing business has so many moving parts. It’s been an incredible relief to get it all organized! As a solo service provider, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what systems allow you to do, too! Join me at the workshop!
And maybe, in a few months, we’ll vacation together and talk about how incredible it feels to have our systems ducks in a row!
Feel free to email our team for any info: support@LauraDiFranco.com
