Kill Your Inner Control Freak: Delegation Tips for Entrepreneurs And Small Business Owners

“If you want something done right, do it yourself.”  That is the lie too many entrepreneurs believe. Unfortunately that lie keeps all too many small business owners from getting out of their own way to grow their business.

One of the big differences between CEOs and entrepreneurs is CEOs know that they can’t do it all alone. They don’t buy into the fallacy of “self-made” businesses. The truth is there is no one who ever made it far in business all by themselves.  Entrepreneurs try and try to “get er done” by themselves but what tends to happen is they aren’t spending their time on the things that will advance their businesses.

That is where the need for delegation comes in. Having someone who works on your behalf is ideal if you truly want to make an impact. And when you think like a CEO, you know from the onset of your business that you need people on your team to extend the life of your business and brand.

The fact is that if you have to be the one who does it but it’s not tied directly to revenue, you limit your cash production time, which means your business will be stuck, and stagnate.

If you truly want to drive revenue for your business, it’s simple. Delegate.

In a business, you’ve got two types of activities – revenue generating and profit producing.  Now, at first glance you might think they are the same but that’s not true.  A profit producing activity is an activity, usually administrative in nature, that when systematized can help your company to become profitable over time.  These are activities like writing blogs, calendar management, client management, customer service, etc.  Whereas revenue-generating activities are those that when done lead to revenue for your company right away or, in a shortened window of time (depending on your average sales cycles).  Those of activities include cold or warm calls, discovery sessions or initial consultations, networking, speaking engagements in front of your ideal clients, etc.

The difference between these two types of activities is the key to what to delegate.  You can delegate any profit producing activity but you had better be the one performing the revenue generating tasks.

The following pencil-and-paper activity will help you drill down and identify these tasks for yourself:

1. Take a piece of paper and draw two lines to create three columns.
2. In the first column, list everything that must be done operationally to run your business.
3. In the second column, list only those things from the first column that you enjoy that also directly lead to revenue. These are the tasks you must perform daily in your organization.
4. In the third column, list everything that is left in column one after you’ve populated column 2. These are your delegate-able tasks.  You will need to use this list to create job descriptions and identify the skills of your team members to best determine who should be doing what.
5. Create a sign for your office that says ONLY PERFORM TASKS THAT ARE DIRECTLY RELATED TO DRIVING REVENUE.

If you follow the steps listed above you’ll be one step closer to dropping out of the “if you want something done right, do it yourself” school of thought. Congratulations!

“Business optimization strategist, Darnyelle A, Jervey, is CEO of Incredible One Enterprises, a business consulting and coaching firm that helps entrepreneurs and business owners realize financial and spiritual abundance. Jervey is an award-winning coach, consultant, strategist and a best-selling author with 7 books to her credit, including her latest projects: “Burn the Box: 7 Breakthrough Strategies for Standing Up, Stepping In and Igniting Success” and “Market Like a R.O.C.K. Star.” Jervey may be reached online at www.incredibleoneenterprises.com.

Photo Courtesy of Marjan Lazarevski [FLICKR]