Entrepreneurs are used to wearing many different hats while getting their businesses established. When it’s time to build their team, they often think, “It’s just easier for me to do it myself than to give it to someone else to do.” But most times what these business owners aren’t taking into account is all the projects they’ve put off because they don’t have time to do it all themselves or they don’t know how to do it and don’t have time to research it. Or maybe they’re missing deadlines or forgetting appointments that weren’t scheduled. If these things are happening in your business, it’s time to build your team.
So how do you decide what to delegate to the team and what you need to handle yourself? The easiest way to really discover what you’re spending your time on is to keep track of it. During a “normal” day in your business, simply make a list of what you spend your time on and keep track of the time it takes you to complete those tasks. This doesn’t have to be exact; it’s just to give you a snapshot of how you are spending your time. Do this for two or three days. Once you have this list, look at each activity and ask yourself the following questions about it: Do you love to do this? (yes/no) Does this require your unique genius? (yes/no) Is this an income generating activity? (yes/no)
Once you have your answers to each activity, you can easily see what needs to be delegated – any activity in which you answered “no” to all of the questions needs to be delegated immediately. Any task that you answered “yes” to all of the questions is a task that you will keep for yourself. All other activities that have a combination of yes and no answers will need to be evaluated. You may enjoy doing something, but it doesn’t generate income. You’ll want to delegate those as well.
After deciding on what to delegate, you can then see which team members you’ll need to add. If you find that you’re spending a lot of time on keeping your company books, you’ll want to add a bookkeeper to your team. If you’re trying to figure out how to update your website, you’ll want to add someone who can take care of that for you. You can find someone who can handle more than one activity for you.
You can also make lists, such as “projects I intend to get off the ground”, “projects I’ve been putting off” and “projects that are holding up my business progress” to find other tasks that will need to be delegated to move your business forward.
What would you delegate in your business?