We all can attest to how busy life has become… but how do we make sure that ‘busyness’ is productive to our business? A busy business owner is not necessarily a profitable and productive one.

A fresh perspective
If you start to contemplate a fresh lifestyle change, for example, taking the family around Australia for six months, it will suddenly become clearer which things and activities you (and the family) can live without. It’s easy to think of leisure habits to reduce, since we all watch too much TV/play too many games, but what about business activities?

As a consulting Mum with a gazillion things to do, good systems save me from many hours of work. There are ‘no brainer’ tasks like:

• Letting a good email marketing system process email opt-ins, bounces and unsubscribes; allowing you to set optimum times to send, and sending it to the right list category
• Reminder systems for business appointments, and
• Automated reminders to send account overdue notices to clients (this one is more to backup the ole brain)

Ages ago I realised that I cannot do it all myself, namely: BAS/accounts, sales, backend admin, replying to enquiries, IT issues, writing blogs, PR, branding/design, create marketing campaigns, etc. I’ve seen too many micro businesses suffer under the weight of all those tasks to believe its possible.

Outsourcing to professionals may hurt in the hip pocket, but if we take on too much, life will find a way to penalise us anyhow:

• Late bill payment fees
• Missing out on sales due to slow response
• Spouse mad that you never seem present and not distracted
• A slow decline of movement and muscle tone, leading to aches and pains.

Deliberate or Delegate?
Just recently I had a vital lesson in delegation, when a website coding problem wreaked havoc on a client website. As midnight drew near, I was stressing that the website would never look the same again due to my lack of ‘tech’ knowledge.

My partner had told me about a local WordPress expert who helped him out ‘beyond the call’ earlier that week. Finally I came to my senses the next day and emailed Mr WordPress. He quickly responded, and sent a picture asking, “is this what it should look like”? It was. Did I mind paying for one hour? No I did not.

Just about an hour later it was all fixed, including the footer. And it cost just $44 to solve a problem that I bothered over for three hours.

Henry Ford had a method. He said something like, “Don’t BE the expert, it takes too long. It’s far easier and faster to surround yourself with experts.” Amen to that Henry.

What do you do when you wake up and don’t have any energy to tackle that ‘to-do’ list?

First, think about why it’s so hard to get moving.  Are these tasks or items that are your least favourite things to do?  Or are they things that you’re putting off for some other reason?

As humans we tend to move away from pain, towards pleasure…

We all have days that we would rather sit on the back porch in the sun with a magazine and cup of hot coffee (or similar) at our side.  But the reality of our life is that the bills still keep coming in, clients need our assistance, prospective clients need to be found, and we have to take action to create a nest egg for our future.  So the choice is: do nothing and sit on the porch, or get into action and make some money.

Obviously, doing nothing WON’T pay the bills!  So how do you push past those internal barriers of resistance to the activities that you really don’t like doing?

An Action Plan to Create Money

First:

• Identify what it is that you like doing and what you don’t.
• Identify what you’re good at and what you’re not.
• Identify the things that actually bring money into your business, and the things that don’t (for example they’re just admin tasks).

Then:

Consider how long it takes you to complete the things you’re not good at and don’t like doing, and what that time is worth in $ terms.  Is it worth outsourcing?  Someone else might be able to do it far quicker, and you can make better use of your time too.

When you’re in ‘work hours’ – always do the things that bring you money FIRST.  Leave the non-revenue stuff for the times when it’s not suitable to be sourcing clients or doing marketing.

And finally, remember your goals… look at any Goals list that you wrote on January 1st. Bigger goals are always much easier to get motivated for, so keep your Big Hairy Audicious Goal in mind as you set to work on those smaller tasks.

We all have motivation slumps – but if you re-examine your daily tasks, you’ll be able to manage them so much better.

We are all masters of our own specialty… whether a builder, painter, accountant, real-estate agent, developer, coach, or manager – we’ve all got our area of expertise. But when is it time to let go of control?

Comfort Zones
We are very comfortable in our core talent, and there are also other things that come naturally to us in our daily work. Some people love administration and organising their desk! Others are suited to bookwork and managing accounts. Some people are naturally great communicators. We’re all different.

Yet as business owners we all have this common need to wear a lot of different hats to manage our business. These hats represent different functions and activities (e.g. sales, accounting, management, customer relations). Since most of us have invested a lot of ourselves in our business initially, it stands to reason that we want to ensure that everything goes smoothly under ‘our control’.

A typical small business owner naturally wants to control everything – because the business is their creation and investment. Yet, outsourcing or delegation is the first step to leveraging your time and being able to work ON your business instead of IN your business.

Getting help from someone else is often difficult and uncomfortable. The pain and fear of outsourcing is often expressed as doubt. A client of mine recently said, “I know I need to do it – I just get nervous that they won’t do a good job so I end up reviewing everything they’ve done”. Sound familiar?

How Do I Let Go?
There’s a process of letting go that will make it easier for you. My advice is – do it in baby steps. Outsource a small function first, one that doesn’t require a lot of time and energy and that you can check on in the early stages to ensure it’s being done correctly. Once you’re comfortable that they’re doing it well – then let them do it alone.

Choose your next hat and again keep it a small task. Do the same thing for the first outsourcing task. Give yourself time and don’t think that it’s going to happen overnight. Simply trust that it will be for your benefit, since you deserve to have your time back for yourself!

In all of this, remember that it’s important to find help from people who have proven experience and come with good, solid credentials. Use your wisdom and instinct in choosing outside service providers, and you will be far better off.

Outsourcing is going to be a strength for you and your business: so don’t be afraid to venture out from your comfort zone.

“Simplify, streamline, automate”.

They’re words you’ve heard before and might attribute to large corporate exercises to cut costs, save money and downsize.  True in some cases, but streamlining is not just reserved for the corporate world.

Where small business owners suffer is in the constant grind of daily tasks, never-ending work, and responding in a reactionary way to requests and problems. This leads to ending each workday feeling drained and uncertain about what progress, if any, has been made.

As the 4-Hour-Workweek describes, it’s not only a possibility to leverage yourself out of your business, it’s a creative choice.  Moreover, to get there takes some work – it doesn’t happen in an instant.

Keeping life simple is a golden ideal most of us have. But in our business, how can we possibly keep it simple?  To truly be ready for leverage and automation in your business, you must first go through certain steps to simplify things.

Simplify = understanding who you are, your business drivers, goals and strategic vision is a good start.  Know what excites you and what drains your energy.  Create a schedule to keep you on track, and employ methods that support your daily work.

Streamline = outsource the things that you don’t do best but that take up much of your time.  Consider your common tasks and activities and see where you can consolidate them.  Look at your marketing and sales processes, ask pertinent questions of your best customers, and then create better ways for your customers and prospects to experience your business.

Automate = use technology and systems to make life easier for you and take the guesswork away.  This will enable you to outsource more functions to others, because the processes are already set up.

Unless you’re an expert organiser (the top 2%) this can all be a headache to learn, and because of unfamiliarity it can be very slow.  Why not outsource it to those who are experts… enabling you to get on with making money in your business.

Just recently I faced the herculean task of beginning to prepare for a move interstate (both business and family).  Being a project director in a previous career, I methodically began setting out all the tasks and applying dates, resources, and times to them all.  That was the fun part of the exercise.

As my partner and I were getting quotes and narrowing down our preferred providers for different services, I was amazed at the difference in standards by business owners in different service businesses.  We experienced people not showing up and some answering their phone with nothing more than a “Yes?”… Aren’t businesses TRYING to make money these days? It is baffling.

One thing we both had in mind was to outsource anything that we couldn’t easily do ourselves, and which would take time away from our businesses and increase our stress.  That was our ‘strategic vision’ for the move, and it proved to be a wise one.

One example is arranging a proper quote for professional cleaning. I was instantly impressed with the cleaning company and felt confident that the job would be done to a high standard. And, if I wasn’t satisfied with it, they guaranteed to come back and keep cleaning until I was happy. Now there’s a guarantee that rings my bells!

We applied the same rules for outsourcing in our business to outsourcing all the functions of our move – one of life’s most stressful activities.  Most importantly, we were able to achieve our vision for the move, not just because we decided to keep our stress levels low, but because we chose the right people to help us.

What About Your Outsourcing?

In business there are many providers of services who can do the work for you… and there are many levels of service standards too.  I’ve heard some awful stories from business owners about who they trusted their work to, but I’ve also heard good stories.

It pays to get an example of their work, have a trial, AND get testimonials before trusting your work to someone else.  Keep your standards high and ensure you trust where your money goes.  Remember that the whole purpose of outsourcing is to leverage your time to enable you to make you more money.  So if it’s actually costing you in time, re-work and stress – then you better go back to the drawing board and look for better providers.

I know, you don’t really want to outsource your whole life, just the tedious and difficult bits, right? I’ve been re-reading Tim Ferris’s book, “The Four-Hour Work Week”. Compared to the average small business owner’s week of 45 to 80 hours – just FOUR does seem fanciful, even ridiculous. It all comes down to how to make more money with less time in the business, freeing you up to do a variety of things you enjoy. (The book has been updated/expanded in December 2009).

When following the steps outlined in Ferris’s Dreamline worksheet, the cost for those things that we put off every year (a great holiday, a car upgrade, a gardener, etc) are typically not that much in total monthly income — remembering that figure is on top of the usual household costs. In fact, some of my “costs” also could provide an income, if using a low-cost virtual assistant. (Part of the outsourcer’s work could be billed to clients, or at least free me up to do more billable projects.) Tim Ferris blog – Ideal Lifestyle Costing has all the necessary calculators to work out costs of your own ideal lifestyle.

Also, qualified remote support staff can be outsourced for as little as US$300 per month (around $2 an hour) and they can do a variety of things like follow up calls, invoice creation/reminders, link building for your SEO, etc… all those things that eek away your daylight hours. Because they are working specifically for you on the projects you need, there won’t be any staff time wastage or double-instructing. See www.remotestaff.com.au for ongoing administrative tasks, or ask about the specialists at Infusionoz.com.au for higher level tasks like web design, e-marketing, CRM implementation, and content writing (also offering good value/prompt attention services and located in Australia).

Of course, remote outsourcing goes hand-in-hand with automated technology and streamlined systems. Great systems means higher productivity. Higher productivity for the average small business owner might mean more billable hours, with less stress and chaos in their lives. For a Mumpreneur it might mean more time to spend with family because her income doesn’t drop with periods away from the business.

So many business people are still stuck in the paradigm of exchanging time for money – what is my hourly rate, how many hours can I bill?

But when we see our business as a marketable entity – with products (passive income), Intellectual Property to record and protect, and a brand to promote – we start to see it as an Asset. We may even have a saleable asset, if someone else could take over the systems and product sales down the track and continue the revenue streams. Does that sound worthwhile?