Delegate, verb: To commit (powers, functions, etc.) to another
The truth is delegating is difficult.
Many solopreneurs and owners of small business have a strong bootstrap mentality. We’ve become used to simply doing it ourselves and the “it” can be most everything. Taking care of correspondence and scheduling? Check. Creating Power Point presentations and marketing materials? Check. Maintaining social media? Check. And on it goes.
We do it all. (Remember Sesame Street and “I Can Do It Myself”!) Well, some of it what we do is either not a core competency (aka we suck at doing it) or we simply drop the ball on something else that is much more related to our core business and revenue generation.
Sounds crazy doesn’t it?
Well, I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be that way. You (we) don’t have to go it alone and do it all. There are options!
* Outsource your projects that require time, attention and skills that are in short supply. Heck, it’s a project. Get it executed by someone that is actually motivated to do it and then move on. Yes, DELEGATE.
* Retain the services of a Virtual Assistant on an ongoing basis and assign specific responsibilities to that individual. Sure you can always come up with new and different tasks but make a plan to turn over (DELEGATE) specific action items that are required on a regular basis. You have new things all the time? Okay then, retain a virtual resource for an assigned number of hours per month and funnel the work to them as it comes in.
* Be very honest about your own capabilities. We can’t be good at EVERYTHING. DELEGATE the tasks at which you’re not very good or which cause you stress and aggravation. (This could even be writing!)
* Hire staff to handle specific responsibilities. At some point you need to build an infrastructure and yes, DELEGATE. In fact, delegation may just be your key to business growth.
So think about it. What tasks are you doing IN your business that you could delegate to someone else? Remember the key to getting more (business) might just be giving something away.
PS Sometimes the easiest way to determine what to delegate is to keep an informal log of all of your activities for one week. Review it and see what has eaten away at your time and kept you from more mission critical tasks.