The biggest hurdle for most entrepreneurs is learning how to successfully delegate. Often, they don't even stop to think. The business is theirs and they feel that they need to micro-manage every aspect of it-"I'm my own boss! I don't need anybody to help! I'll only ever be successful if I pour all of myself into it!"
Let's take a look at the first problem. You're right to feel that your business is your baby. You brought it into being and you alone are responsible for it. To a certain degree, you do know what is best for your baby.
I've been around long enough to know that owners often have difficulty separating the business's concept from all of the little intricacies that go into the actual production.
We somehow feel obligated to be a part of every little thing that goes on in our business and "have" to know everything that is going on at any one time. We're taught that's the way it supposed to be if we want our business to take off.
That's completely backward!
A lot of the time, it's this attitude and idea that drive most small businesses right into the ground.
To find out why, we have to take a step back and ask, "Why did we start the business in the first place?" Are we in it to provide a service to our customers or generate income for ourselves?
It's the money! It's the profit that we want to receive from our business! That's the main reason we quit our jobs and become entrepreneurs!
We need to consider in advance if the business is going to make money or are we just hoping that if we do what we do-whether cleaning floors, building houses, or baking bread-the money will flow in.
Ultimately, your work as an entrepreneur is to invest available resources at a rate of return that exceeds the price that you pay for them.
That's where it gets tricky! What is your cost of all the parts and components of your business? Are you sure you are aware of it? Are you?
Everything costs money! Everything.
You know exactly where I'm going with this! That's right! Your own time!
What really hurts many small business owners is their Inability to put a definite price on the time they spend working for themselves. They fall prey to the misconception that if they do the work themselves, it doesn't cost them anything! This kind of thinking sucks you in by making you believe you are "cutting costs." What you don't realize is that they wouldn't have to cut costs if they had had an accurate budget to begin with.
Haven't you met business-owners who never has time available or money available because "You know, we run our own business, things are tough?"
Things are not supposed to be tough unless you make them this way!
Budgeting correctly can save you so much hassle and frustration. Set aside funds for accountants, a receptionist, loading dock workers, even a janitor. Do it or you'll find yourself "doing it" and trying to figure out just how doing it yourself makes it "free."
One more time: everything has a price! Your involvement costs money!
You started your business hoping to make an average income. Do you even know what that is? John Assaroff says it should be around high six- low seven- figures per year--on average $1,000,000.00 per year. That figures out to $420.00 per hour!
So, every time you do anything for your business other than making a decision, you should ask yourself: "Can I buy it for less then $420.00 per hour?" and if you can - you should!
Another problem is - what if you can't? Then you have to be honest with yourself - your business idea does not have enough upside to support itself and you should immediately abandon it! And by "immediately" I mean IMMEDIATELY!
The thing that made us choose to the life of a business owner was the ability to be free from all of the restrictions of being somebody else's employee. We wanted to earn more, travel farther, work fewer hours, spend more time with our families, and be financially stable.
If we don't get to experience all this, then why bother?
Robert Kiyosaki explains the difference between a business and a job this way: if you can leave it for a year and find it still running and even grown when you come back - it's a business, if it dies the next day you leave - it's a job!
So when we are talking about home based business we should be open to the idea of delegating most of the activities to outsourcers: article and press-release writing and submission, link building, social media communications, message boards and forums postings, content development and distribution, etc.
You may think that delegation entails losing some aspect of control, but in reality it's about gaining control.
Do what you are the best at - business development and strategizing - and let somebody else handle all the technical details.
When I was flipping houses (rebuilding fixer-uppers and trying to sell them at a profit) I thought I had to do everything myself. Those houses became a part of me and even the thought of letting somebody else do something with them just irritated me. I could just imagine all of the ways they could screw things up before they even got started.
It took me such a long time to finish each and every house and when the potential buyers cam round, all they did was nitpick the place and complain. They never noticed all of the hard work that went into bringing the house back from the grave. It was just another house on their list to visit that day.
And at some point I partnered up with a group of people who had been flipping houses for quite a while as well and, seeing how attached I get to the house we were renovating, they shared with me their approach: they would actually make an effort not to be at the property during the renovation process, they actually hired a project manager to supervise the process and to avoid the need for them to be at the property. They were subbing out everything, focusing only on acquisition and selling aspects of the business. This approach allowed them to avoid falling in love with each property and to become the biggest company on the market within literally a few months!
I have another great example for you.
Back home, in Russia, we have this belief that has been around for decades: you have to grow your own potatoes, because if you do it yourself - it's free. I'm not joking!
Financial background didn't matter at all. Everybody planted their own potatoes! It takes a lot of effort to plant potatoes in the spring and harvest them in the fall when you're doing all the work by hand!
I never understood why my parents refused to buy potatoes in the market. They were cheap enough but every time I brought it up, they would say that by growing the potatoes ourselves, they were free.
I hadn't been to college yet, but I was already feeling that it wasn't the way to go, that this one-sided self-sufficiency was wrong, but I couldn't figure out why everybody was still doing it.
I remember eventually, when I was already in college, when the time came again to harvest potatoes, I said to my family: "Hey, guys, I can handle it myself, you don't have to go with me. I'm a strong guy and I will take care of it without your help!" They said: "Are you sure? It feels really weird, because for years it's been an activity that the entire family must participate in! Everybody else does it this way!" I said: "No, you are fine. I got it!"
Then I went to the place in town where bums were sitting all the time waiting for work and for barely any money I hired them to take care of this potatoes situation and it was done by the end of the day.
I never told my family what I did. I knew they would be beside themselves if they ever found out.
They were so proud of me!
And, eventually, in college, I learned that I was right, when I read in the book the words that I remember by heart: "A world of individual self-sufficiency would be a world with extremely low living standards. Trade allows people to specialize in activities they can do well and to buy from others goods and services they can not easily produce. Specialization and trade go hand in hand because there is no motivation to achieve gains from specialization without being able to trade goods and services produced for goods and services desired. That's why economists use the term "gains from trade" to embrace the results of both."
I had been right and there was the proof!
It sounds like poetry to me!
One more time: you don't have to do everything in your business and you don't have to be good at everything in your business!
John Assaroff told me: "Hire people who play at what you have to work."
The faster you learn how to delegate, the faster you will be able to develop your business to the point where you can finally move to Costa Rica, learn how to surf and get to spend day after day on the beach with your family relaxing and drinking those fruity drinks with little umbrellas!
You are a business owner! That's what you do: you own your business!
Let somebody else handle the technical aspects and that's when you will experience the freedom you started your business for in the first place! - 15465
Let's take a look at the first problem. You're right to feel that your business is your baby. You brought it into being and you alone are responsible for it. To a certain degree, you do know what is best for your baby.
I've been around long enough to know that owners often have difficulty separating the business's concept from all of the little intricacies that go into the actual production.
We somehow feel obligated to be a part of every little thing that goes on in our business and "have" to know everything that is going on at any one time. We're taught that's the way it supposed to be if we want our business to take off.
That's completely backward!
A lot of the time, it's this attitude and idea that drive most small businesses right into the ground.
To find out why, we have to take a step back and ask, "Why did we start the business in the first place?" Are we in it to provide a service to our customers or generate income for ourselves?
It's the money! It's the profit that we want to receive from our business! That's the main reason we quit our jobs and become entrepreneurs!
We need to consider in advance if the business is going to make money or are we just hoping that if we do what we do-whether cleaning floors, building houses, or baking bread-the money will flow in.
Ultimately, your work as an entrepreneur is to invest available resources at a rate of return that exceeds the price that you pay for them.
That's where it gets tricky! What is your cost of all the parts and components of your business? Are you sure you are aware of it? Are you?
Everything costs money! Everything.
You know exactly where I'm going with this! That's right! Your own time!
What really hurts many small business owners is their Inability to put a definite price on the time they spend working for themselves. They fall prey to the misconception that if they do the work themselves, it doesn't cost them anything! This kind of thinking sucks you in by making you believe you are "cutting costs." What you don't realize is that they wouldn't have to cut costs if they had had an accurate budget to begin with.
Haven't you met business-owners who never has time available or money available because "You know, we run our own business, things are tough?"
Things are not supposed to be tough unless you make them this way!
Budgeting correctly can save you so much hassle and frustration. Set aside funds for accountants, a receptionist, loading dock workers, even a janitor. Do it or you'll find yourself "doing it" and trying to figure out just how doing it yourself makes it "free."
One more time: everything has a price! Your involvement costs money!
You started your business hoping to make an average income. Do you even know what that is? John Assaroff says it should be around high six- low seven- figures per year--on average $1,000,000.00 per year. That figures out to $420.00 per hour!
So, every time you do anything for your business other than making a decision, you should ask yourself: "Can I buy it for less then $420.00 per hour?" and if you can - you should!
Another problem is - what if you can't? Then you have to be honest with yourself - your business idea does not have enough upside to support itself and you should immediately abandon it! And by "immediately" I mean IMMEDIATELY!
The thing that made us choose to the life of a business owner was the ability to be free from all of the restrictions of being somebody else's employee. We wanted to earn more, travel farther, work fewer hours, spend more time with our families, and be financially stable.
If we don't get to experience all this, then why bother?
Robert Kiyosaki explains the difference between a business and a job this way: if you can leave it for a year and find it still running and even grown when you come back - it's a business, if it dies the next day you leave - it's a job!
So when we are talking about home based business we should be open to the idea of delegating most of the activities to outsourcers: article and press-release writing and submission, link building, social media communications, message boards and forums postings, content development and distribution, etc.
You may think that delegation entails losing some aspect of control, but in reality it's about gaining control.
Do what you are the best at - business development and strategizing - and let somebody else handle all the technical details.
When I was flipping houses (rebuilding fixer-uppers and trying to sell them at a profit) I thought I had to do everything myself. Those houses became a part of me and even the thought of letting somebody else do something with them just irritated me. I could just imagine all of the ways they could screw things up before they even got started.
It took me such a long time to finish each and every house and when the potential buyers cam round, all they did was nitpick the place and complain. They never noticed all of the hard work that went into bringing the house back from the grave. It was just another house on their list to visit that day.
And at some point I partnered up with a group of people who had been flipping houses for quite a while as well and, seeing how attached I get to the house we were renovating, they shared with me their approach: they would actually make an effort not to be at the property during the renovation process, they actually hired a project manager to supervise the process and to avoid the need for them to be at the property. They were subbing out everything, focusing only on acquisition and selling aspects of the business. This approach allowed them to avoid falling in love with each property and to become the biggest company on the market within literally a few months!
I have another great example for you.
Back home, in Russia, we have this belief that has been around for decades: you have to grow your own potatoes, because if you do it yourself - it's free. I'm not joking!
Financial background didn't matter at all. Everybody planted their own potatoes! It takes a lot of effort to plant potatoes in the spring and harvest them in the fall when you're doing all the work by hand!
I never understood why my parents refused to buy potatoes in the market. They were cheap enough but every time I brought it up, they would say that by growing the potatoes ourselves, they were free.
I hadn't been to college yet, but I was already feeling that it wasn't the way to go, that this one-sided self-sufficiency was wrong, but I couldn't figure out why everybody was still doing it.
I remember eventually, when I was already in college, when the time came again to harvest potatoes, I said to my family: "Hey, guys, I can handle it myself, you don't have to go with me. I'm a strong guy and I will take care of it without your help!" They said: "Are you sure? It feels really weird, because for years it's been an activity that the entire family must participate in! Everybody else does it this way!" I said: "No, you are fine. I got it!"
Then I went to the place in town where bums were sitting all the time waiting for work and for barely any money I hired them to take care of this potatoes situation and it was done by the end of the day.
I never told my family what I did. I knew they would be beside themselves if they ever found out.
They were so proud of me!
And, eventually, in college, I learned that I was right, when I read in the book the words that I remember by heart: "A world of individual self-sufficiency would be a world with extremely low living standards. Trade allows people to specialize in activities they can do well and to buy from others goods and services they can not easily produce. Specialization and trade go hand in hand because there is no motivation to achieve gains from specialization without being able to trade goods and services produced for goods and services desired. That's why economists use the term "gains from trade" to embrace the results of both."
I had been right and there was the proof!
It sounds like poetry to me!
One more time: you don't have to do everything in your business and you don't have to be good at everything in your business!
John Assaroff told me: "Hire people who play at what you have to work."
The faster you learn how to delegate, the faster you will be able to develop your business to the point where you can finally move to Costa Rica, learn how to surf and get to spend day after day on the beach with your family relaxing and drinking those fruity drinks with little umbrellas!
You are a business owner! That's what you do: you own your business!
Let somebody else handle the technical aspects and that's when you will experience the freedom you started your business for in the first place! - 15465
About the Author:
Author: Pavel Becker is a known contributor of articles on the subjects of Web-Promotion and Home-Based Business. To find out how to earn money on-line go to his website PavelBecker.com
