What Should You Be Doing?

I often start training going through an exercise to help people look at what they have built in their business, what their responsibilities are in their business, and then to determine what they really want to be doing in their business. Often times there are large gaps between what people build and what they really want to do. It is also the reason why they are challenged to find more time to create something new or grow their business.

What should you be doing in your business? Well if growing a business is your goal you must be doing more than just looking for work and then doing the work. If this is your business model you will find it difficult to hire someone, create new products, make changes when your industry or the economy changes, etc. To be able to overcome challenges and make change you have to see well beyond that obstacle to a future where you are only doing the piece of your business that you want to be doing and someone else is looking after the rest.

The key to this is to start by knowing what you want to do. Follow these three steps to get started in that transition from everything to that one key focus.

Your Current Responsibilities

Know what you are currently doing in your business. What are the positions in your company and which ones are your responsibilities? You need to know who is currently looking after all the key roles in your business. If you are new or a solo-preneur most, if not all of the positions are yours. Remember, you have to include the responsibility of managing your marketing, which embodies website, networking, printing, advertising, branding, social media, etc. Now look at your administration, operations, finances, sales, customer support, etc. Each of these has several roles and they are all yours.

Did you start this business to be a bookkeeper? Unless your business is bookkeeping then likely not.

Know What You Want

Identify what you really want to be doing in your business. In a perfect day when everything is running exactly right in your business and you only have to look after one piece of that, what piece are you managing? Customer support, sales, product expert, manager, CEO, marketing… What one position do you want to hold in the business?

Go back to your list of roles you currently have and circle the one (no more than 3) position that will be yours when the business has reached its sales goals.

Start Losing Some Weight

“Weight” of the world that is. Start by identifying the two positions you absolutely hate. It is likely that you are not an expert at them or that you do not do them well because of your lack of enthusiasm for those roles. You will only be doing your business a benefit by finding a way to hand them off.

At this point I get a lot of complaints like, “I can’t afford to hire someone right now.” That might be true, but know that you don’t have to hire a full-time employee to get rid of some of the chores your small business is generating. Try looking for a contractor to come in once a week, month, or quarter to get these couple of challenging positions off your plate.

The benefit to you will be more time to focus on getting more clients so you have the money to hire out more of what you do not love to do, PLUS you can spend more time becoming a credible expert at what you do love doing.

I like to say, “We don’t hire ‘ho-hum’ abilities”, so go out and become the best you can be at the thing you really want to spend your time on and watch your business grow.