I recently did a post on LinkedIn about taking some shirts for ironing rather than doing them myself and I was somewhat surprised at the range of responses and comments.
Many suggesting they do something similar, to save time, they don’t like doing it, they aren’t good at it, through to those calling me downright lazy and I should do it myself.
Those that know me well will know that I rarely divide opinion! Haha.
My simple view was that £8 well spent saved me time and meant I could do something more productive and enjoyable with that time. And also, the person ironing my shirts was better at it, quicker at it, loved it and had set-up a business to do that.
I talked about this being a metaphor for business.
Many small business owners get trapped doing the ‘stuff’ that comes with running a business, rather than what puts fire in their belly – what they are trained to do and/ or what they set out to do.
Statistically, for small business owners, 60% (three out of five days) of the working week is spent on admin and business related issues that are not customer facing and ultimately, don’t keep that fire burning.
Remember, when you are in front of a client, you are earning money, when you are not in front of a client it is costing you money. Think like an egg timer that gets flipped each time you go from customer facing to not. The sand will run out on a 60/ 40% split.
I was there, working while 1.00am doing my expenses claims (bore off!), trying to find a Costa Coffee receipt from four months ago to make the reconciliation work and trying to figure out the return mileage to Blackburn!
So, think about those tasks that you shouldn’t be doing. It doesn’t matter if you like doing them or are even good at them (I do iron a mean shirt, I just don’t like doing it), you have to find somebody to outsource or delegate those tasks to one by one to allow you to spend more time customer facing, earning money and doing something that ignites your fire.
One of the best investment decisions I ever made was outsourcing my admin and other tasks to Gem, who some of you will know. She runs the back end of my business to allow me to be customer facing 75% of the time.
I couldn’t afford to. This is a statement I hear a lot.
I couldn’t afford not to. I was working six days per week, while 1.00am and not spending enough time doing what I loved.
I started with spending £200 on outsourcing 10 hours in the first month and in the time I saved, earned more than £200. I was quids in. The next month I did £300, then £400 and so on.
So, start with a small investment and start with the biggest time hoover or painful task and figure out who is better placed to do it (and more cost effectively) than you. Do what you do best and outsource the rest.
If you don’t know where your time is going, download our activity tracker to help you calculate where you should be spending more and less time.
Best of luck, let me know how you get on.
Best of luck, let me know how you get on.
