The #1 Time Management Tool of Highly Successful Entrepreneurs — HIT Virtual Assistants
We all have the same 24 hours in each day but how we USE those same 24 hours will determine your level of success. Have you ever analyzed what tasks you accomplish during the day, especially on those days where you question where the day went and wished you had an extra eight hours to finish your to-do list? Knowing where you spend your time is part of the equation for success.
Are You a Do-It-Yourselfer?
When you’re first starting your business it makes sense that you want to watch your budget and not hire any outside help. After all, you need to make money before you spend money, right?
Do-it-yourself business owners take on every task that deals with sales, marketing, billing, and operations, plus everything else that doesn’t fall into those categories. But if you’re working on closing a sale, it stands to reason that you don’t have the time to develop a strong marketing campaign or to create content for your website or social media channels.
Do-it-yourselfers are stretched too thin and become an expert at nothing. Very often these business owners feel behind like they’re always playing catch up with what their clients need and trying to salvage those relationships instead of forging the way to bring in new business.
Are You a Business Leader?
Business leaders know they can’t do everything themselves. They see grand plans for the future of the business and know what their own strengths and weaknesses are.
These leaders will shop around for expert advisers, coaches, and assistants to handle the myriad tasks involved in the backend of the business so they can dedicate their time to finding new clients and building those relationships while their team handles their own areas of expertise.
Can You Go from Do-It-Yourselfer to Business Leader?
Of course! Don’t be intimidated by others who tell you something is impossible. For most small, online businesses, deciding who you need to hire, boils down to answering one question:
“Will one talented person do the trick, or do I need to plan for several team members?”
Which leads to another question, if the latter is your answer…
“Exactly how many is ‘several’? And what specialties do they need? ”
And that depends on you. It depends on how well-formed and realistic your vision is, and what your ambitions might be. It depends on your company mission and goals.
For example, do you see yourself at the head of a fleet of minions, all slaving away over laptops? If you want to create a copywriting empire, churning out hundreds of modules of Private Label Rights material and sub-contracted client projects monthly, this vision may be surprisingly close to the mark.
On the other hand, if you just need someone to take care of the non-billable tasks — the ones you lose money by performing yourself — your dream team is likely to consist of four or fewer team members. As little as one competent Virtual Assistant can make your business blossom and transform it into a powerful niche presence to be reckoned with.
Ask yourself these seven questions to determine your team needs:
- Where do I see my company, five years down the road? Ten years down the road?
- Do I want to sell it eventually or do I always want to be a sole proprietor?
- Is my business highly dependent on me and my personality, as well as my unique outlook, experience and skill sets?
- Would my business cease to exist if I left it?
- Do I ever want to run a large company, or am I happy with a very small organization?
- What do my clients need? What do I do if they “want more”?
- What’s my budget now? What have I planned for, budget-wise and profit-wise, as my company grows?
Once you have decided on the number of team members you want (a) now (b) further down the road, it’s time to focus on the immediate future. Make a note of how many people you are going to hire or contract immediately.
Sit down and write out a list of tasks you want these new hires to supervise or perform.
Some suggestions to get you started:
- Content writing
- Content formatting
- Client support
- Course design & delivery
- Web design and maintenance
- Webinar management (can include transcription)
- Podcasting management (can include transcription)
- Video editor
- Shopping cart and Autoresponder management
- Social media management
- Advertising management (can include writing ads and metrics)
- Bookkeeping
- General support
Many entrepreneurs find it difficult to create a list of these tasks. You know you need a lot done but where do you start?
- Write down all the tasks you currently.
- Highlight all the tasks that don’t make you money directly.
Example: Bookkeeping is necessary, but if you spend the entire morning posting and filing receipts, you haven’t made a penny; on the other hand, if you spend the entire morning writing a Direct Response ad for your copywriting-business client, you’ve just made three hundred dollars.
Study your list and decide how many team members you need right now.
Circle them with a pen, change the text to a different color or highlight them in different colors — whatever works for you mentally, when organizing.
Following this process allows you to perform two valuable functions:
- Determine and clarify the exact tasks you need to outsource or delegate
- Determine how many separate team members you actually need to hire
When you have finally hired your dream team, then you can decide who answers to whom. The more team members you hire, the more likely someone will have to supervise them.
Therefore, the last question you need to ask yourself is:
“Do I need a General, Office or Project Manager to supervise all the other new members, or can I fulfill this function myself?”
Think of how much time you will save if every one of these team members does their own jobs within the same 24 hour time period. You will definitely see faster growth in your business and become a highly successful entrepreneur.
Originally published at www.hitvirtual.com on March 27, 2019.
