Is Your Day All It Could Be?

Are you up and out the door with positive vibes and great things to look forward to? Are you doing those things you see on Instagram? You know the coffee with your spouse, breakfast with the kids, a little planning and contemplation, yoga, or hitting the gym? Or are you dragging your behind out of bed with thoughts of dread? Wondering what will go wrong today that you need to correct. I used to go to sleep wondering if everything at the office was going to be working in the morning. Is the server going to be up? Who will call in sick? The first option is way more fun and not as difficult to get to as you think it is. It comes down to this question; does every task associated with your business have to go through you? If the answer is yes, why? Why are you answering your cell phone at all hours of the day? You could forward to an answering service. Then if the service calls you – you’ll know the call is important enough for you to take care of it right away. If not, you’ll get an email to take care of it later, and if you’ve hired the right service, they can take care of that caller’s questions for you. Are you answering calls on weekends as your family stares you down? That’s always fun. You are familiar with the 80/20 rule, right? It goes something like this. 20% of your customers or clients will produce 80% of your revenue. The other 80% of them will not. Not every time but most often; that person, client, or potential client that is calling you on the weekend, is part of the 80% that will cost you. If they are the 80% that will demand time and not provide you with a profit, don’t waste your time. That’s a hard lesson to learn when you’re struggling for every dollar, but you must learn it. Don’t wait years to do so. I know. I did. Sometimes you need to say no to grow. Are you working on QuickBooks when you’re really not quite sure what you’re doing? Are you losing time enjoying your life and working on strategies to grow your business because you’re busy doing the mundane non-revenue generating tasks? Exactly how much is your hour worth? Probably way more than a part time outsourced administrator and bookkeeping team. I get it. Your business is your baby and nobody, I mean nobody can do it as good as you. And if you were finally ready to let go, how do you do it? Could you afford the help? Yes, you can! An associate of mine reminded me of a book that was popular a few years back called “The 4 Hour Work Week”. I’m not sure I would ever be happy with a 4 hour work week, I’d get bored, but I can definitely go for the “slow morning get there when I need to” day. The magic word – Outsource. I’m not sure it means what it used to either. We’re not talking about sending work overseas. Just let a local answering service answer your phone calls. Start with just a few hours a day until you build trust in your team. Forward your calls when you’re in meetings or traveling. You can get there by letting go of the little things. Just one at a time until you build trust with your team. First the phones. Then the thank you cards and maybe follow up calls. How about monthly reconciling? You continue the invoicing since we know that’s where the money comes from but learn to do it the right way. Maybe when you get to know your outsourced team, you’ll hand over more and more. Before you know it, you’re lounging in the morning with coffee and your spouse or walking the dog or heading to the gym; while your outsourced back office gets the day going.