28 Things You Should Not Be Doing As a Business Owner and 4 Things You Should

I was recently talking to a new business coaching client about their plans to scale their business. After a few minutes of going over our plan of attack he posed the question to me: “How fast do you think I can grow my business?“

My answer: “It all depends on how you handle these thirty-two things.”

Every single day there are tasks and items that need to be done. And the more things that you personally handle, the longer that it will take to grow your business. So the first thing that you need to address is who is really handling the day-to-day tasks within your business. I want to encourage you to print out the following list and then write next to each item the person that handles each task.

They are as follows:

Operations:

Producing your core product or service.
Managing the production of your core product or service.
Customer service.
Fulfillment.
Purchasing.
Admin.
Managing of your facilities or company infrastructure.

Sales/Marketing:

Lead generation.
Lead conversion.
Sales management.
Creation of sales collateral.
Sales strategy.
Tracking of your sales and marketing efforts.
Branding.
Offer creation and strategic pricing decisions.

Finance:

Accounting and general bookkeeping.
Accounts payable.
Accounts receivable (collections).
Budgeting.
Cost controls.
Cash flow management.
Management of financing.

HR:

Hiring.
Orientation and onboarding of new team members.
Training, review, and retention of team members.
Managing employee benefits.
Labor law compliance.
Exit processes when you need to let a team member go.

Executive Leadership:

Strategic planning.
Creating company culture and traditions.
Vision casting for the company.
Communication processes company-wide.

How did you do? How many items do you personally handle and how many of these tasks have you outsourced and handed off to other team members? The less items on your plate, the faster you will grow. With a few exemptions.

What You Should Be Focusing On

There are four items on this list you shouldn’t outsource to save time. These include:

Strategic planning.
Creating company culture and traditions.
Vision casting for the company.
Communication processes company-wide.

By freeing up your time by delegating other tasks, you create the most value by focusing on strategic planning and helping guide your company to the next stage of growth. This can be done with your executive team, but you should be the guiding hand when it comes to steering your company in the right direction.

Tricks to Delegation

If you are still handling many of the tasks listed above it’s time to focus on delegation. Pick one or two items each month and hand off to a team member, focusing on the systems and controls that would not only help them be successful but putting the foundation in place for their predecessors.