Admit it: You have too much on your plate as a small business owner. And you’re not alone. Overtime is the norm in your position, with more than 70% of business owners working more than 40 hours a week, according to a Fundera survey.
So how do you grow your business when you’re trying to avoid burnout?
Turn your challenges into opportunities and bring in help, so you can focus on running your business. In a recent post we talked about how to grow your business without getting in the way. We talked about setting your goals, estimating a budget and checking your resources.
In this post, we’ll focus on how your challenges and big-picture goals can help you determine where to bring in help.
Put your big-picture skills to use
Does this sound familiar?
- You have too many ideas that you don’t have the time to execute.
- Managing people and their task lists isn’t your favorite thing to do.
- You’d rather focus on big-picture goals than accounting, marketing or other things that aren’t your core strengths.
If you’re answering phones, dealing with vendors and pitching new business, your daily tasks will delay any long-range plans.
This is a good time to take a step back and look at the big picture. Do you have your goals set? What are your financial or growth goals? You’ll need to know where you’re going first.
Growth starts with a team
You might be a team of one right now, but that will change as you grow. If you offer services especially, your growth will be limited to the amount of time you have. So to free up time, you’ll need to add to your team to move forward.
Here are a few steps leading up to this stage:
- Set your goals and create a growth plan. (See the post mentioned above.)
- Break your primary goal into stages by time or percentage of growth.
- Assess your resources and decide what area you’ll tackle first to reach the next milestone.
Of course, you should have your business foundation already set: your infrastructure, your product/service offer and a growing list of customers.
Who should you add where?
When deciding where you need help, it’s best to look at your challenges and problem areas. What are they? Accounting? Marketing? Sales? A little bit of everything?
The where
Here are areas most small businesses can improve by bringing in help.
Operations & Sales
- Get well-organized administrative support
- Set up a professional accounting system to keep you on track
- Create efficient workflows for customer onboarding, service and follow up
- Build a strong sales process for lead generation or customer acquisition
- Improve product development
Marketing
- Refine brand positioning
- Build effective online marketing to promote your offer
- Research your customer’s wants and needs to develop new offers
- Run ongoing promotions to keep leads and sales flowing
- Set up a consistent customer referral and review program
The who
As an Online Business Manager, I focus on helping businesses reach the next level. So your challenges become mine to address and solve. My goal is to free you from day-to-day tasks that don’t make the best use of your time.
Someone like me can be brought in to oversee entire projects and hire others to execute them or recommend ideas for a better workflow system that your team can run on its own. Consider me a manager who can be trusted to take goals or projects off your plate. And I can do it on an hourly, weekly or monthly basis.
There are other contractors and specialists I often recommend and have worked with to help clients on a project basis.
- Virtual Assistant
- Graphic Designer
- Website Developer
- Freelance Writer
- Social Media Marketer
- SEO Consultant
- Accountant or Tax Professional
Every business is different, so the type of assistance you’ll need will depend on what you have in place now. And it doesn’t all have to be done at once. Because even small steps or projects will get you closer to your goals.
Ready to grow?
Only you can tell when you’re ready to take the next step. But it’s closer than you think. Waiting too long to hire is a common hesitation among small business owners. As Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth Contractor, said, “Why should you try to figure all of this out, when there is so much great help available?”
Need help for your business? Let us know below or send an email.
Leave a Reply