How to Replace Yourself At Your Small Business

As a small business owner, you may feel that your entire business rests on your shoulders. You bring in the clients, handle most of the customer service, and ensure that everything runs smoothly. You want to spend time growing your business, but it can be challenging when you spend all of your time keeping the business running as it is.

In order to invest time into growing your business, you have to find ways to replace yourself for carrying out basic functions of your business. Here are some tips for doing that.

Hire The Right People:

When looking to hire someone to take over some of your functions, hire for their potential and ability to grow with you, rather than just to fulfill a function. Instead of hiring a specialist, look for multi talented employees with the potential to wear several of your many hats.

Train Employees and Trust Them:

It will be daunting to relinquish control, but in order to scale your business, you will have to train employees to perform the jobs that are sucking up your time. Bring them along with you to client meetings to introduce them to clients, and train them to accomplish the tasks that you want them to handle. Be patient. Through repetition they will learn and grow. When they are ready to perform, give them responsibilities and trust them.

Look for Automated / Time Saving Processes:

You can automate a lot of traditional business functions. Computers can now handle PR legwork like tracking who responds to your emails, and publishing press releases and social media updates. You can use Google’s “Canned Responses” function to save email templates that you are going to send multiple times and easily select them for future emails. Use auto-emailers to send follow ups to customers and prospects based on a schedule, so that you don’t have to manually create emails. For accounting, Quickbooks Online lets you connect your bank accounts to automatically import transactions, so that you do not have to manually enter them. You can replace yourself in many functions by automating time consuming tasks.

Outsource What You Can:

From payroll services to virtual assistants, you can outsource a lot of the administration of your business to outside companies. You can outsource manufacturing, as well as shipping and delivery of products. You can outsource your accounting and finance, human resources, and many administration functions to companies that offer “virtual” employees.

For non-recurring tasks, you can use sites like Upwork to hire freelance professionals for almost anything your business will need, including web development, graphic design, customer service, virtual assistants, accounting, and sales and marketing. The next time you need a market research report, or a website update, you can turn to someone else to do it to allow yourself to focus on growing your business.

By hiring people, automating processes, and outsourcing, you can replace yourself for many business functions, and devote your time to growing your business.

 

Sources:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2015/04/13/6-key-areas-to-outsource-when-starting-a-business/3/#2c6fff3b7241

http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/6862c22c-f9c1-4d48-aab1-b91e9e6db731.aspx

http://time.com/12436/quick-gmail-trick-pre-write-email-messages-with-canned-responses/

https://www.yast.com/productivity/15-common-business-tasks-automate/

https://www.upwork.com/