Benchmark Business Group

Do You Have Control Of Your Time?

January 24, 2023

As a business leader, you’re constantly pulled in multiple directions. It can be difficult to feel like you’re in control of your time because everyone and everything is competing for your attention.

So how do you decide what gets your time and energy? Many business leaders don’t have a solid answer. But they have a lot of reasons why they don't have time to do everything they need to do.

A few reasons owners spend their time doing work others should be doing:

  • I’m the only one that can do this type of work.
    • This is an opportunity to create training and processes.
       
  • I drop everything to help clients or for a sale.
    • Clients and sales are vital, but the leader isn’t always the one that needs to be handling those tasks.

There are many tasks that are on your plate that could, and we say should, be completed by a member of your team.

When a business leader is so busy doing technical work or sales, there’s other work that typically isn’t getting done. Work that makes the business primed for growth. It’s easy to push this work to the side, but it’s vital to the business.

So, when you’re too busy working in the business, it leaves no one to work on the business. To get the results you want from your business it requires different actions, but also a different mindset.

We’re challenging you to stop and really look at the work you do. Why is it on your plate? Why can’t anyone else on your team do that work? The first step in getting a different result is to change the way you think about your work.

The changes that you make can be simple. You don’t have to immediately stop doing sales, handling client issues or the technical work that you do, but you can make small changes that will allow you to stop doing this type of work in the near future.

A few suggestions include:

  • Train your team to deal with difficult issues. Our Take the H.E.A.T. training can help.
     
  • For the next month track every client issue that you get involved with. Pick the top three issues and work with your business coach to create systems and processes to ensure your team is trained to handle those without you.
     
  • When your team brings you an issue, ask more questions and provide fewer answers. “How would you handle this issue if I wasn’t here?” or “How do you think we should handle this?” These questions build confidence, allow you to train if the answers are not what you would expect, but also break bad habits of bringing you into issues they can and should be able to handle.
     
  • Document your sales process. It’s a struggle for many business leaders, but it can be done. We can help. Start by recording your own sales meetings and then use that as a start to your system.
     
  • Create videos of how you handle technical issues. These can become training videos and they can be starting points to creating systems. We recommend working with a professional that understands how to create systems. It’s difficult to create a system when the task is second nature to you. Working with an outside party can help draw the information out of you. Don’t feel you have to get this perfect. Create a rough draft, have your team try it, and then improve on it. Repeat those steps until you’ve trained them to do the work that you do.

Remember, small steps are the best way to get results. Sure, big steps feel great, but many times they’re not realistic. Instead, work on changing small things and when you look back in a few months, you’ll be shocked with how much progress you’ve made, and proud to see others in your business getting results without you.

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