You’re tired. You’re exhausted. You’ve put in a full day’s work – and then some. You want to go home, but your to-do list is still a mile long. You have to finish up the books for the day, restock the shelves for tomorrow, answer some emails, pay the bills, and mop the floors. When you get home, maybe you will have enough time to think about the things you need to prepare for tomorrow, if you have the time or more importantly, the energy.
We have all been here. I operated this way for many years in my business. I ran the first classes of the day, and I ran the last classes of the day. In between, I did all the typical “CEO” things I was supposed to do, and would end my night cleaning the bathrooms and mopping the floors for tomorrow. I would wake up the next day and rinse and repeat.
It sucked the life out of me. What made it even worse? I couldn’t afford to pay myself. But that’s a story for another day.
You can learn from my mistakes, though. Here’s how to buy yourself some time, and stop doing every job in your business.
Identify & Describe All The Hats
The first step our mentors always start with is identifying what roles exist within your business. We can use a meal prep company as an example.
- Owner/CEO
- Kitchen Manager
- Chefs
- Sous-Chefs
- Delivery Drivers
- Cleaner
- Admin
- Bookkeeper
- Accountant
The next step is to take that list, and now start writing all the responsibilities that each of those people have. The more defined you can make this list, the better it will be.
As an example, you might label the delivery driver as someone who arrives at a specified time, checks where the order is going, sends a message to the customer that they are on their way, packs the food into their car, and proceeds to the location. When they arrive at the location, they park on the street, walk up to the front door, knock on the door, and hand the customer the food. They smile, and wish them well. They proceed back to the business and follow up on specified paperwork to complete the delivery.
Do this for every role that you can identify within your business, and you’re already miles ahead of where you started.
Determine The Value
Next to each assigned role, determine what that role is worth. Go down the list and determine what you would need to pay someone to fulfill this role. If the role doesn’t require much skill – like the delivery driver – you can price it at or slightly above minimum wage. If it is a more technical role that requires a certain type of skill level, like the Head Chef, that needs to be taken into account. A PDBM Mentor can help you navigate this particular step.
Once you have monetary values assigned to each of these roles, now we can start to delegate.
Buy Your Time Back
Ask yourself: “Who is the easiest person to hire on this list?” and start there.
If it’s a job that a high school kid can do, like a delivery driver, and it means it can save you an hour or two on the beginning and end of your day — make that hire.
Continue to work your way up the ladder as necessary, buying yourself time as you go.
Now – context specific to the state of your business is important here, obviously. Not all businesses can afford to hire left and right to remove yourself from the business. This is a great place to work through a strategic plan with a PDBM Mentor on where to begin, and when the time is right.
Use That Time To Grow
The worst mistake that business owners make when they first begin implementing this strategy is that they don’t do anything with the time they bought for themselves.
In order to keep the business growing, you now need to invest that time into something that will contribute back into the business – like sales and marketing, for example.
If you saved yourself an hour in your day because you hired a delivery driver, what can you replace in that hour that will bring in new customers or make more sales? Do that with your newly bought time. If you continue to repeat this process as you progress up the ladder, you will always be reinforcing the decisions you are making when it comes to hiring and delegating.
As a small business owner, you can’t continue down the path of working every hour and every role within your company. It is a recipe for disaster. Burnout is a very real thing in the entrepreneurial world, and this is a quick one-two punch way to get there faster. Focus on hiring out the lower-valued roles, and reinvesting that time into tasks that will grow your business!
If you’re not sure where to begin, work with a PDBM Mentor!