3 Ways For an Entrepreneur to Delegate

There comes a time in the life of every entrepreneur where the tedious tasks add up. We have to keep updating those spreadsheets and filling out those accounting sheets. But how are they moving our businesses forward? The answer is that they're not. We do them to avoid pain, not to realize gain. When we're meeting with clients, we're trying to realize gain. When we sit at the desk and make cold calls, we're trying to realize gain. But when we write checks to pay the bills and fill out the accounting sheets? We do that to avoid the pain of not performing those tasks. Perhaps the smartest bit of advice I ever heard was that great entrepreneurs should be laser focused on realizing gain. Our time is best spent there, since those are the tasks that will drive us closer to our goals. What, then, of the tasks that avoid pain? They take time and dedication. Are we just supposed to ignore them? Once you have this revelation that you should be working 100 percent on realizing gain, you understand that it's time to start delegating out other tasks in order to free up your full concentration. Many entrepreneurs arrive at this point and discover that they don't have anyone to whom they can delegate. Then what? It's time to find a solution.   

It's Time to Delegate

1. Use automation servicesYou don't have to be a big techie to take advantage of some of the recent developments. One great trend that has emerged is automation. Two services in particular, IFTTT and Zapier, help people automatically perform tasks without even opening an app. We'll focus on Zapier, because it's built more for businesses. Have items in your email that you need to take care of in, say, your QuickBooks or FreshBooks account? You can set up an automatic trigger based on certain criteria. Get a new lead through your contact form? You can extract that information and add it automatically to your CRM like Zoho. No, you can't delegate everything using Zapier. It can't write your blog posts. It won't make your cold calls, and it won't follow up on communications. But it can help automate some of the most tedious tasks on your docket. At some point, though, mere automation won't get the job done. That's when it's time to graduate. 2. Hire an assistant If you don't have any subordinates to whom you can delegate tasks, the most obvious solution is to hire one. This is where I see many mompreneurs struggle. Hiring costs money. Can you justify that cost? Think long and hard before you answer that question. If the answer is no, then you have some more rethinking to do. By saying no, you're admitting that your business is not ready to grow. There's nothing wrong with that. Different businesses grow at different rates. But if you can't justify the cost of hiring an assistant, then you certainly aren't ready to expand your business. If you are ready to grow, then hiring an assistant can be an expensive, but ultimately profitable, investment. It will take time to screen candidates to find someone who fits. It might take even longer if you work from a home office, since you have to find someone you trust in your home with your kids around. Once you have an assistant, you can delegate all those tasks. Since you now have not only bills to pay, but also someone's salary, motivation should be high to perform your gain tasks. For a greater understanding of what you can do to maximize your gain, I recommend reading Jason Selk's Executive Toughness. You'll immediately understand what you need to do in order to succeed by focusing on the tasks that will push your business forward. 3. Hire a virtual assistantPerhaps hiring an in-person assistant isn't feasible for you. Perhaps you, understandably, don't want someone in the house while your kids are around. Perhaps you can justify the cost of an assistant, but not someone full-time. (After all, you need to keep the employee busy for 40 hours a week, and not every entrepreneur is at that stage.) Hiring an in-person assistant on a part-time basis can be difficult. There aren't many qualified candidates in most areas. The solution? Going virtual. Many people have a misconception about virtual assistants. They believe that they're overseas workers making pennies an hour. This might be true in some cases, but today's virtual assistants are true professionals. You can integrate them into your business just as if they were actual employees -- only, you don't see them live in person. The trick to hiring a virtual employee is to understand what you want before you start the hiring process. How many hours of work do you need? What kind of tasks do you need accomplished? How much more are you willing to pay for someone who is based in America? Knowing these answers before you start interviewing can save you a lot of frustration. One key to hiring a virtual assistant is to find one who can do more than just simple administrative tasks. When I hired my first virtual assistant, I searched around for someone who could handle some writing tasks. My website was woefully idle for a long time, so I knew that my assistant would have to help keep it updated. A little help with marketing would have helped, too. I found a business-grade virtual assisant through the agency Worldwide101. They made the process very easy, allowing me to interview as many assistants as I wanted until I found one who fit. Once I did, we got to work. Using just 15 hours a month, I got done what many of my peers' assistants get done in closer to 150. For moms who work from a home office, or who just want to spend their money in the most efficient way possible, I highly recommend at least researching how virtual assistants can help. You have taken on a big load as a mompreneurs. With these tips, you can delegate the day to day maintenance and focus on the gain of your business!

Thinking about hiring an assistant? Surely you're already getting aboard the automation train. So tell me in the comments below: how do you delegate your tasks?

 photo credit: Nguyen Vu Hung (vuhung) via photopin cc