Are You Drowning Trying to Get it all done yourself?

Here’s a hot-button topic that is making its way back into business news this week… I have to be honest and say that I struggle with this myself. How do I figure out what I can do versus what I can hire other people to do for me?

I can take this one step further this week because I had to have some minor surgery on my right foot to repair an old running injury. The bottom line is I have to be off my feet for 7-12 days- no driving, no walking- just bed rest- yikes! And I won’t be walking or much less running for at least 4 weeks- double yikes! Talk about needing help. Now, this is taking asking for help to the extreme. Yet, I found that I’m not the kind of person who will ask or even accept help very easily. Now that I’m laid flat out with my feet up, I need help, so it’s been a great lesson for me to find that balance of accepting and asking for help. (Photo- Lily and I are getting some bed rest.)

When we take this into the business realm, there are a million ways to go about this exercise of delegating your work and hiring others to help you. One way that I know of that’s worked for me is to figure out how much my time is worth- what’s my hourly rate if I were to do this myself? Then go to websites like www.guru.com , www.elance.com , www.sologig.com or www.craigslist.organd see what the going rate is if you hired someone else do to the job for you. These websites are a beautiful thing. You can post the job you have, and everyone bids on it, and you have a wonderful range of people who will basically do the work for very reasonable amounts of money.

The real trick here is if your hourly rate that clients pay you is over $175 an hour, and you’re taking time out of your day to do simple tasks like input data into your client database or schedule client calls, if you went on elance or guru, you could probably get someone to do either of these tasks for much less than $175 an hour. The key here is to spend your time wisely on what you do best and what will bring you the most bang for your buck and your hourly rate. Hire someone to take care of things that will free up your time so you can spend it on more important things to grow your business.

When you’re in business for yourself, the best thing you can do is think smarter about how you’re running your business. You need to use your talents to the best of your ability. Hire out others to do the things you know you have no business doing yourself. There’s a terrific book by Tim Ferris, The Four-Hour Workweek that I read a few months ago. I would highly recommend you read it if you haven’t already, and implement what he says into your business. He does an excellent job of explaining his whole philosophy about delegating, automating, and simplifying your business. Plus, he gives you a ton of great resources. Check out his website- www.fourhourworkweek.com

Consider this a wake-up call to be more productive in your business. Hire others to help you, so you can grow your business into the incredible money making machine that you deserve. I’ll be cheering you on from my couch in the coming weeks!

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