Making the Leap Beyond a One Person Business

Making the Leap Beyond a One Person Business

A lot of extremely successful people run one person businesses. They work alone, have no assistants, do everything themselves, and what they do they do very well – better than anyone else could.

These people work hard, feel satisfied and make enough to not have them feeling like they want more. So this article is not directed to them but to others that might want more and would like to build a business independent of their own hard work and sweat. Following are some suggestions for these owners:

• Consider hiring an assistant.
• Using people to help with easy to delegate tasks such as envelope or package stuffing, mailing list maintenance, or bill paying frees up the owner for selling, product or services development and other more creative and essential parts of the business.
• Many phone calls and emails can be responded to by an assistant. It is much easier to sit with an assistant for 10 or 15 minutes and tell them how to respond to a dozen or so callers than to return every call. If someone must speak to you personally, your assistant can tell them when you will call them, assuming you cannot do it right away.
• Many people are reluctant to use others because they feel they do not know how to delegate. Delegating is not hard, but it has to be tried and learned.
• Many don’t delegate because they believe no one could do it better than they could – stuffing envelopes? Get over it.
• Even if they cannot do it better, the cost of the assistant is the price you are paying for the extra time you are getting from yourself. By most measures this is a bargain.
• Another reason people do not delegate is that they feel they will spend too much time “teaching” and supervising and they will not pick up any additional time and just more responsibilities. That is true for the first or second time you delegate something to them, but that is an investment that will be paying dividends in a very short while.
• Depending on the type of business, a better presence and stronger participation in social media activities could help branding, customer and prospect engagement, and sales. This can be done by an assistant or outsourced to a consultant.
• I know many businesses where assistants became heads of technical or marketing departments or shadow “owners” able to deal with customers and clients more easily than their boss and certainly be more available with the ability to provide needed information almost on demand.
• Establishing your business with staff creates greater equity and value that is transferrable along with sustainable and predictable cash flow.

Some of the best violinists can make heavenly music but when accompanied by an orchestra they create an unforgettable experience for the audience. A suggestion is not to be a soloist, but to be the conductor. When you are ready for that, you are ready to take the leap beyond a one person business.