Entrepreneurs: You Can’t Do It All

We all want to grow our businesses and reach certain goals within our business and personal lives. Time is the issue and it’s a constant battle between the clock, talent availability and budget; impacting your capacity to scale your business.

Late nights, endless to-do lists and hectic schedules. Traditionally “the deal” as entrepreneurs. The reality is you won’t grow your business this way; it will either stagnate or eventually kill it. “Burnout is the biggest risk for entrepreneurs in the scaling phase. “

We need a framework to shortlist what needs to be done by us at the top, and how to manage the rest downwards.

Reality checks:

• We live in a global world and a 24/7 marketplace.
• Everything is online, including your competitors.
• Customers are impatient and want service now.
• Economic conditions are uncertain. This has been, and always will be the way moving forward.
• We need to build businesses that respond to these challenges and thrive in this environment.

Take home: This doesn’t dictate being available by phone 24/7 nor missing your daughter’s sports game to render a quote.

Outsourcing for competition

All businesses need to outsource work to compete and grow in this climate.

If you don’t your competitors will.

We need to adopt an outsourcing mindset. This means realising what we must do and what to delegate to someone like a VA.

Be blunt about this.

Outsourcing mindset: do what you do well

As entrepreneurs, we make a difference in our businesses: as Brand Ambassadors, tireless promoters, specialists and the quality control department. But we can’t do it all and expect to grow.

Pick a short list of duties that will propel your business forward and are aligned with your goals. These need to be closely linked to growth and revenue generation. They must be measurable (that’s a whole other conversation for another article).

The rest can be done by someone else.

An entrepreneur’s shortlist should include giving critical advice to staff and clients (the talent), steering the ship, building key relationships and checking, training and quality control (a few others I’ve missed). These are the functions only you can do.

With the rest, get an experienced VA (Virtual Assistant) to do the grunt work in combination with a good CRM, or outsource specialist tasks to an agency partner i.e. Bookkeeper.

Know who you are, what you want and who you want

“The amount of clients who come to me and don’t know who they are, what they do or who their ideal customer is, staggers me.”

Without this, there’s no point in attempting to scale.

Get this down packed and if you need help, a marketing expert or coach can guide you in the right direction.

Got this ticked off? Great! Time for a VA, who is on the same page as you, to do the grunt work. Engage partners for the rest.

Remember: it’s not just about growth for you. Your partners, VA and team need to grow with you too.

Know the process 

We need to have simple processes that illustrate the key functions of the business.

Your VA/partners/staff can’t do what you were doing if they are wandering in the dark, or worse, you have to do it yourself.

Remember:

With processes, complexity is expensive; the simpler, the better. It can be as simple as a flow chart. Miro is a fantastic tool!

Audit the process and ensure consistency.

Collaborate with your team to amend it along the journey.

Embrace Automation

Automation is outsourcing’s twin brother and every entrepreneur’s best friend.

In my business, I can scan a new lead’s business card with my phone. It’s uploaded to my CRM, an automated email is sent, meetings are booked and tasks are assigned to my VA’s. I can send a contract to a client with the tick of a box. All without any input from me!

I’m now free to deal with the important stuff like making sales calls, meeting with clients, giving professional advice; my VA and automation take care of the rest. We have an event on the 16th of February where we will be covering these topics in more detail – link here to book

Cultural fit to do the job

I always ask clients about their worst habits, what’s on the back burner, what keeps them awake at night. Getting to know you, the entrepreneur as a person, means we can find the right VA who can plug these gaps.

If you are useless at time management, then we’ll source someone who will manage your diary like a pro! Let’s be real about who and what we like and don’t like. Having the skills and experience is only half the equation; like a marriage, you need to “work” as couple with your VA’s on an emotional level.

Change is constant: adapt

I love it when clients call me with complicated problems. That’s what I’m good at. Your business will evolve through the scaling process. Your VA should embrace change and be part of the strategic conversation driving it.

Who knows how your business will evolve during the journey. We need people who will actively be driving that evolution. Don’t fear change: drive it!

Parting thoughts

Work is only one part of us as people. I’m an avid scuba diver, an accomplished cook, a funny and slightly weird Uncle and a history buff. We need balance. At Leap Resourcing we help clients tick all these boxes through the right support and providing awesome VA’s. We give our clients time they can spend on growing their business, but there is time for other fun things too.

“You can have your cake and eat it. Don’t accept less than both.”

If you need help, chat with me, and I’ll be happy to help.

Nick Vague- Director of VA Agency, Leap Resourcing

Productivity & Growth whiz

Master of Dad jokes

Best Paella cook ever.

info@leapresourcing.com.au