Playing to your strengths
How many times have you heard yourself saying, “I’m the head of marketing, sales, HR, finance…and everything else!” As an entrepreneur, especially as you start out, you often take on many roles due to necessity. In the beginning, it might have been fun to learn all the aspects of the business (and it certainly is wise to ensure that you have a good understanding of all aspects of your business).
But after a while, the tasks that don’t come easily to you have likely begun to wear on you. And if you’re honest, they might not happen as often as they need to. Finances might not be your strong suit, so you might push off entering receipts and creating invoices. You might really enjoy speaking with your customers, but you don’t have a strong mind for marketing and find that you could spend all of your time on marketing activities that don’t yield results.
So, when do you try to learn new skills and when do you ask for help?
- DO A SELF-ASSESSMENT: Whether you use a tool like the Clifton Strengths Finder, Via or another assessment, or whether you talk with a group of friends who will give you honest feedback, take time to analyze your strengths and how you see them play out in your business. What tasks do you find that you excel in and want to do? What are the tasks that are completely draining?
- DOLLARS AND SENSE: Then determine the priority tasks that you want to manage, and the tasks that you would like help with. What would you be able to do if you didn’t have to do that task? How can you quantify that in terms of revenue or saved expenses? For example, if you didn’t do the invoicing yourself, but spent that time checking on customers or connecting with prospective clients, how much could that potentially earn you? And how much would it cost to contract or hire someone to do the tasks that are less in your wheelhouse? What would the ROI be? For example, if you hired someone to do consistent invoicing, how much might that change your cash flow and customer satisfaction?
- TEST IT OUT: Set up a plan to test out this new task delegation. Establish clear metrics to evaluate whether it’s working: change in revenue, change in expenses, change in the amount of time you spend on tasks, change in # of customers, change in customer satisfaction. And then implement and evaluate!
Do you have other ways of deciding what tasks should be done by others?
Contact me below to share your questions or thoughts.