Ever heard of the term "The One Man Band"? Well, I don't
know who this "man" is, but I can tell you that he will set
you up for failure.
If you look at most of the books out there on running a
small business, or becoming an independent sales
consultant, they're trying to make you a master of
everything. And, I think that is ridiculous. Because, if
you are doing both money generating, and non-money
generating business tasks, you will find that you are not
mastering anything. You're not an American Idol star,
you're really a One Man Band, a mediocre generalist, who is
probably over worked. And the only beat you hear, is your
head beating against the wall wondering why you can't
attract enough clients. Why do that?
I'm also seeing a major trend picking up speed in my
client's lives. Regardless of whether or not they're doing
well financially, more and more tension is popping up
between their professional and personal lives. They are
spending more precious business time handling non-money
generating details and activities. Adults are moving from
one personal crisis to the next. And, when I ask them, "So
what did you do this week to build your business", all I
hear is a deep, "Sigh....".
For a lot of self-employed professionals, things are
getting a lot complicated. Longer sales cycles, clients in
different time zones, global competition, never ending
technological changes and vanishing trade barriers have
created a new business model - the globally integrated
business. The new global business model didn't exist 20
years ago. Twenty years ago, work was a place you went to
and it was defined by time lines. We knew our competitors
well; frankly, we had dinner with our competitors and their
kids played sports together. If they weren't across town,
they weren't far and we could study them, speak their
language and understand their moves.
And, this new way of doing business leads to frustration
because on one end of the spectrum you have self-employed
professionals that are loosing business to overseas
competition and they are panicking; trying to save their
sinking ship without a plan. On the other side of the
spectrum you have businesses who are growing too fast. In
either case, there is no time to plan or reflect because
basically things are out of control.
So, from my experience, one of the number one reasons for
businesses failing during this time in history, is because
the business owners are spending time in their business,
instead of working on their business. And, not knowing the
distinction here, is costing you clients. Let me put it
this way: spending your business hours on something that
you can have done for you, for $30 - $40 per hour, just
doesn't make sense.
Look at these two activities and tell me which one makes
you more money: You could be spending time building a
high-trust relationship with a client and closing a sale,
or waiting on hold to figure out when a late shipment will
arrive. Here is another example: You could be talking to a
prospect to understand their immediate needs, or you could
be opening up the mail and reading it. John Dudek says it
better, "Take the stuff you do great and that have the
greatest impact, and do only those activities. Don't do
anything else." Well said John.
When you finish reading this article, I need for you to
make a list of the organizational tasks that you can pay
someone else to do for you. Consider hiring a virtual
assistant or high school student to help you recapture
those non-money making hours to be strategic, speak with
new clients, close more sales, make more money ' or
whatever you're really good at. Those hours are precious
and irreplaceable. If your time is worth $80 or $8,000 an
hour, it's just plain silly to spend several hours a day
doing something that you can delegate, or outsource for the
equivalent of $15, $20 or $40 an hour.
My final thought to leave you with is this: every time I
outsourced an activity, my income grew exponentially. I'm
not just talking about an incremental increase in revenue,
but a catapult to a higher profit margin. If you feel like
you are becoming a human 'doer' instead of a human 'being',
then you need support from a team that you can outsource
work to.
----------------------------------------------------
Kim Schott, your Global Client Communication Expert, is the
author of the Keys to Client Communication System™,
the step-by-step, paint by numbers client communication
program to attract more clients in less time. To receive
your weekly how-to articles on consistantly attracting more
local and global clients in less time, visit
http://www.SchottCulturalConsulting.com
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