V2MOM - Moving Internal Projects Forward When You Are Busy
“All of my time is spent taking care of client work… When am I supposed to get to the ‘on the business’ initiatives I have in mind?” - Every Business Owner I know
Most small and medium sized businesses are in a constant state of almost scaling. Do any of these sound familiar to you?
“We just need to get through this busy season and then we will be able to revamp our project management system.”
“I can’t afford a social media manager and I don’t think I need one. I just need to get in the habit of posting more…”
“I wish we had standard operating procedures for this new hire, but we don’t have time. We’ll get it done for the next hire.”
I’ve heard all of these statements a few times, and they all end the same way - by showing up again next quarter.
The Problem
There is a key difference between scaling your business and growing your business - one leads to continued performance and increased revenue, the other leads to chaos, turnover, and a plummeting standard for your brand.
Take your pick.
The problem is that scaling is just not as easy as it sounds. In order to scale, you have to build out your systems. In order to build out your systems, you have to spend time working on the business and not for the client, but who’s got time for that?
The Solution(s)
Charge a company hourly.
This one is for all of my solo entrepreneurs out there: You need to think of yourself as a business owner, not a contractor. In order to have a business, you need to spend time on your business. Too many solo entrepreneurs think they can wait until they have employees to charge a company hourly.
Your hours spent working directly for a client, whether it’s coaching sessions, wedding shoots, or piano lessons, need to pay for the hours you spend generating new business, creating job descriptions for an assistant, configuring billing automations etc.
If you aren’t charging a company hourly, you aren’t getting paid for your hours working on the business. It’s no wonder you don’t feel motivated to work on your social media… if you aren’t getting paid for it! Also, none of my other tips will work unless you charge a company hourly… so… start with that.
Delegate Production
When solo entrepreneurs hire, they tend to hire an assistant - someone to take care of all those annoying tasks that you just don’t have time for. This model can work if your goal is to offer a premium service to a select few clients - totally viable. (This works great for artists, for instance.)
But if you want to scale your business you need to find a way to delegate yourself OUT of the client work. This is easier than it sounds, but most early entrepreneurs face psychological blockers in this regard.
If you're at the point in your business where you’re having trouble getting away from the client work, you're ready to hire a contractor underneath you.
There is someone out there who does great work, almost as good as you albeit a little different, and they don’t want to scale a business. Maybe they aren’t as experienced as you or maybe they haven’t built the connections that you have. For whatever reason, they’d rather work for you than work for themselves. Hire them. (Part time). Trust them. Let it take the time it takes to get them to the necessary standards. Then delegate as much client work to them as possible.
In doing so, you’ll be forced to simplify and clarify your product/service to a point where it is repeatable. The systematic scalability has already begun.
Manage Your Deadlines
In order to have time to work on your business - you have to be realistic about your deadlines. The temptation is to take on as many projects as possible, because it seems like the increased revenue will help you scale.
Not so! Recall the growth vs. scaling distinction above…
You need to learn to look realistically at your bandwidth, and provide more conservative deadlines to your clients. This is going to take humility. It would be exciting to triple your revenue this year… and you have all these potential clients knocking down your door! Stay humble, trust the process, and build your business slowly. Steady conservative growth at the beginning (0-10 employees) will allow you to scale more effectively down the line.
In Closing
These 3 techniques will alleviate the upstream issues causing you to be glued to the client work. If you’ve signed on for V2MOM coaching with eGuide, you are already on the right track. I know so, because you’ve agreed to set aside time each week to return to your overall vision and track progress on specific measures towards that goal.
Excelsior,
Coach Clayton
Help Someone. Have Fun, Be You. Learn & Teach. Finish What You Start.
