
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Questions? Be sure to email me at [email protected]
Also, sign up for my small business email list, here.
Today we’re going to be talking about where your first hire or outsource should be in your business. This can be an intimidating thing to do, especially if you are working on a tight budget as many small businesses are when they are starting out.
Remember from last episode, I talked about ways to identify where you might want to hire: a pain point in running your business, lack of knowledge, something to give you an edge over competition, or mentor relationship.
Keeping those in mind, we need to get more information about your day to day - if you’re anything like me, you are going to be hesitant about committing to spending money. This is an exercise that I would encourage you to complete: first, you need to record the different tasks you complete on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Don’t worry, this is not going to be a super detailed list, we simply need a list that has a general task type along with an approximate time spent on each task. For instance, if you spend two hours re-ordering shipping supplies, packing up orders and heading to the post office for drop off, simply put packing orders, 2 hours on your list.
Once you have a couple of weeks recorded (I would aim for a full month), take the tasks with the time allotted, and divide them into three columns - love, hate, indifferent. The love column is most likely going to be parts of the business that made you start the business in the first place. The hate column is going to list tasks that you know need to be done but you struggle to get through - for me, it’s accounting. Tasks in this list can also be things that you would love to do but you don’t have the skill set or the time to learn the skill set to complete: for me, it’s creating a custom website - I would love to be able to edit the code in my Shopify website to create an awesome customer experience but I don’t have time to teach myself to code. And the indifferent are tasks that you complete without any strong feelings - for me, it’s packing and shipping, I kind of like the mindlessness of it, it gives my brain a break.
From here, you’re able to identify with real data who you want to reach out to for help. You might be asking me, where on earth do I start with finding help once I identify what I need help with? I’m so glad you asked! I have a couple of suggestions: first, use your network, do you know others who run small businesses? Ask them who they love for different services. If your small business network is still growing and you don’t have friends you can ask, facebook groups that are focused on small businesses or your industry are a great place to start, too.
4.8
88 ratings
Questions? Be sure to email me at [email protected]
Also, sign up for my small business email list, here.
Today we’re going to be talking about where your first hire or outsource should be in your business. This can be an intimidating thing to do, especially if you are working on a tight budget as many small businesses are when they are starting out.
Remember from last episode, I talked about ways to identify where you might want to hire: a pain point in running your business, lack of knowledge, something to give you an edge over competition, or mentor relationship.
Keeping those in mind, we need to get more information about your day to day - if you’re anything like me, you are going to be hesitant about committing to spending money. This is an exercise that I would encourage you to complete: first, you need to record the different tasks you complete on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Don’t worry, this is not going to be a super detailed list, we simply need a list that has a general task type along with an approximate time spent on each task. For instance, if you spend two hours re-ordering shipping supplies, packing up orders and heading to the post office for drop off, simply put packing orders, 2 hours on your list.
Once you have a couple of weeks recorded (I would aim for a full month), take the tasks with the time allotted, and divide them into three columns - love, hate, indifferent. The love column is most likely going to be parts of the business that made you start the business in the first place. The hate column is going to list tasks that you know need to be done but you struggle to get through - for me, it’s accounting. Tasks in this list can also be things that you would love to do but you don’t have the skill set or the time to learn the skill set to complete: for me, it’s creating a custom website - I would love to be able to edit the code in my Shopify website to create an awesome customer experience but I don’t have time to teach myself to code. And the indifferent are tasks that you complete without any strong feelings - for me, it’s packing and shipping, I kind of like the mindlessness of it, it gives my brain a break.
From here, you’re able to identify with real data who you want to reach out to for help. You might be asking me, where on earth do I start with finding help once I identify what I need help with? I’m so glad you asked! I have a couple of suggestions: first, use your network, do you know others who run small businesses? Ask them who they love for different services. If your small business network is still growing and you don’t have friends you can ask, facebook groups that are focused on small businesses or your industry are a great place to start, too.