 |
Archive for January, 2010
The other day I was out my best girlfriend, a naturopath who started her own practice a couple years ago. Well, it’s growing fast and lately she’s been finding herself stuck with piles of charts that need all kinds of detailed info written in.
While she’s thrilled her services are in such great demand she’s had to expand her hours to accommodate it. And that doesn’t leave much time for all the admin work that goes with running any small business. I could here the pain in her voice as she described her recent long workdays and the stacks of files piling up on her desk.
I could feel that pain deep down in the pit of my own stomach too. Heck, I’m in the same place right now because I’ve been expanding my business in so many ways lately.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, anytime I get that feeling—whether in myself or from my clients—something has to change. Because if it doesn’t you risk serious burnout.
My suggestion to her was hiring a transcriptionist. While it might not be feasible for all her charts to be done by a transcriptionist, I bet she could easily have 50-75% taken off her plate. Then she can spend more time with patients and still get out and have some fun, or get a good nights sleep too.
In my own business I realize it’s time to evolve and fully embrace the next phase, while letting go of some types of work I was doing before. So I’ve expanded my team of outsourcing professionals again and am getting ready to launch a whole bunch of new products, services, and even a sweet new brand next year.
If you’ve been feeling that icky, “Uggh, I really don’t want to spend another minute doing THAT!” feeling…Or you’re just plain old exhausted and overworked…It is time for a change in your business too.
That means making time to work ON your business instead of just IN it. And taking a long, hard at what’s worked and what hasn’t in your business at least once year—minimum…Then making changes to improve your processes and your results.
Below are a few different ways to decide what to change and how:
1) Take a step back and see what’s been working and what hasn’t.
Are your sales growing or shrinking?
If you have more than one product or service, are you still selling the same ones at the same levels? If there are duds, it’s time to either change them or let them go so you can focus on what IS selling.
What is the competition doing differently now? How does that impact you?
What makes up the majority of your expenses? Can you cut those costs?
2) Check your marketing.
Where do most of your new customers or clients come from? Has that changed over time?
What marketing tactics are working and which ones aren’t? Consider putting more money and energy into the ones that are
working, then either change or ditch the rest.
Are you leveraging your Website and social media in the best possible way?
Make a list of what’s working, and what you’d like to be doing but aren’t. Then make a plan for adding new strategies and tactics (especially online ones) to the mix.
3) Ditch the ick!
Are there business tasks that need to be done that you dread doing or are bad at? If so, then either change the way the task is done, or outsource it so you’re not one doing it.
For example, one of my clients runs cooking classes at grocery stores. And she hated pulling together all the supplies and schlepping them to each store for each class. So I had her sothey’re always ready to go. And in some cases she was even able to secure storage space on-site just by asking.
4) Move forward.
Once you know where your business is now, and what’s working and what’s not, it’s time to make a plan for making change and moving forward. The first rule of thumb here is: Anytime you think to yourself, “That’d be great but I can’t do it because…” instead ask yourself “How CAN I do that?”.
So write down your goals for this year. Then make a list of everything you need (or need to do) to make that goal a reality and get started.
5) Get help.
If you’re really strapped for time (and who isn’t), or you have tons of tasks you hate doing or are bad at that really need to be done, consider hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA).
They can do everything from answering emails (hallelujah!), to setting up social networking profiles on Facebook, Twitter and more, to building blogs, creating newsletters, sending holiday cards and more. VAs are the secret weapon of every seriously successful entrepreneur I know.
