Have you hit a plateau in your business? Are you beating yourself up doing work, but you never seem to make any progress?
Then you know it is time to figure out how to advance to the next step in your business. Growing your team might be the right next step you for.
Is growing your team the right step for you?
It might be hard for you to know when it is the right time for you to grow your team. You might be hesitant because you birthed and nurtured your business into your baby. How could you just let someone else take your baby? Well, you might need to if you want your business to grow or just to get your sanity back. Of course your will not pick just anyone to help with your business and of course you would provide them support.
This brings me to the next reason that you might be hesitant to grow your team — you might not know what to give them. There are easy steps you can complete to know what to give your new team member and how to set them up for success (and make you feel comfortable letting them close to your baby). This is where we come to the delegation examples.
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Delegation Examples to Grow your Business
These are three common delegation examples that can help you grow your team slowly and effectively. You likely will not jump in and hire employees for all three at the same time, and you likely will not jump down the list. First look at example 1, The Expert, and then to example 2, The Support Staff. Once you are settled having a team then you can move to example 3, More of You. It is good to understand the three examples now, so you can plan for the future.
Example 1: The Expert
Often the first team member in your business is someone with a different expertise from you. I do not want you to first think about the person you would hire, but first think about the tasks you are completing. Are there tasks that you are creating that take you longer than you like to complete? Maybe you are spending a lot of time and money learning about the topic and how to master it, just to find out that you need more training and practice. This is the perfect tasks to hire an expert for.
For example you might have an Etsy shop were you have worked hard to grow your customers and refine your products. You might also have a dream to start selling your products in a brick and mortar store. However, you have not found the time to work on the brick and mortar project. When you take a step back you might see that you are spending a lot of time trying to track and understand the new money you have. So you do not have time to work on how to reinvest that new income. Maybe you keep on tweaking spreadsheets until they can perfectly track your income and expenses while letting you project and plan. Maybe you are on your third system trial, just trying to find the perfect one that will solve all your problems. And… how many webinars have you taken and how many courses have you taken? Don’t be ashamed because we have all been there. This is why many of us hire a bookkeeper as our first expert delegation. Other common examples are accountants and lawyers.
Example 2: The Support Staff
Once you have passed the getting an expert team member step then you can consider a support staff team member.
These are the staff members that take on critical business functions to free you up for your passion and your biggest value to the business. The first step is for you to think about what your hourly rate is. This is easy if you are in the service business because you just use the hourly rate you charge your clients. However you have an hourly rate even if you are not in the service industry. You would look at what tasks are the most important for you to complete and then how much it would cost for someone else to do them.
The next step is for you to look at all the tasks you complete. Yes I know; that does not sound like fun. It actually sounds like a lot of hard and tedious work. It is kind of hard and frustrating. However it is really important for you to compete this step.
Once you have your task list then you need to group the tasks. Put the admin tasks together, put the content development tasks together, put the customer service tasks together, and so on. Once you have your groupings then you need to take a step back and see if there are any tasks that someone else can complete for less than your hourly rate. I am sure you will find a few. And guess what, the person you hire will also probably be an expert. So you are kind of getting a two for one deal. You free up time to focus on something more impactful given your unique skills and passion. Plus you get someone that is an expert to complete the task so they are probably doing it faster and better.
For example you might be spending a lot of your time responding to general emails, creating landing pages, and posting to Instagram. After you go through this exercise then you might find out that these tasks are taking too much of your time and you could hire a virtual assistant to handle them. This is often the next type of hire a business owner makes.
Example 3: More of You
Once you have explored and possible made hires based on the first two examples, then you are ready to consider example three. This example is not right for every business. However it is a critical step for many businesses that want to scale while you, the business owner, can take on a new role.
For example this is the type of delegation where you take proving accounting services one-on-one to having an accounting firm with multiple accountants that complete client work. So you see why this example may not be for everyone.
You may be thinking that I went too fast. You might be feeling a little overwhelmed. This is a common feeling, but I want you to know that you can do this as long as you take it in small steps. You can use my Hiring Right workbook that breaks down the process into 4 easy steps.
Take Away
If you only take one thing away from today, I want it to be that you can ask for help. Being a good business owner does not mean that you do everything yourself. It actually means that you can look objectively at yourself and your business to see what is best for you to do and what is best for you to delegate.
Being a good business owner does not mean that you do everything yourself.
So, take your notebook or note app and start reflecting on how you can move past the plateau in your business. I want to see you succeed, and I know you can do it. After all you grew your business this far already.
Summary Recap
To break it down, because I know your time is precious:
If you have hit a plateau in your business where you keep on working but you never make progress, then delegation may be the tool you need.
Three key examples of delegation are:
The Expert: Delegate the tasks you are not the genius at to a subject matter expert.
The Support Staff: Delegate the tasks that can be done by someone else for less money.
More of You: Bring on a team member to do what you do for your clients. Warning: This delegation is not for everyone.
You can also use the “Hiring Right” workbook to navigate the process without frustration and worry.
Who will be your next team member?