“I want to grow my business but I’m too busy to do it. How do I solve this problem?”

As a Business Sounding Board, this is one of the most common questions/problems I get asked about. It’s the same issue whether you are a start up, been going a few years or a large, successful SME. And in my opinion, the route to the solution is the same, irrelevant of the business size. It’s a route that will ask lots of questions and, probably, open a Pandora’s Box of issues. But bear with me, it may be a complicated road, but it does lead to clarity and a solution to your problem.

This article also appeared, in a more abbreviated form, in the Yorkshire Post, on June 7th 2022. Click on the image below to read the full article;

The first place to look for the solution is in the mirror; at you the MD, CEO, Owner, Founder. Ask yourself ‘am I doing the right things?’. This question will inevitably be followed by ‘but what are the ‘right’ things?’. And here begins the problem… but also the solution to the initial problem of ‘I’m too busy to grow the business’.

The problem you face in asking what are the ‘right’ things that I should be doing, goes all the way back to a more basic question. Ask yourself ‘What, as a business, are we aiming to do?’ and off the back of that ‘What is my role within that?’

It may be that your business this year is targeting sales growth, or increased profitability, or an improved profit margin. It may be the sale of the business, or a competitor acquisition. Whatever your target for this year, your role must be clear in what you, as the head of the business, should be doing to deliver that target. The simplest way to do that? Ensure that you have a ‘roles & responsibilities’ document; exactly the same as all of your team have. Why do you give them a roles & responsibilities document? To ensure that they are doing the right things, and to the right level of competence. And so should you.

In many SME clients that I work with, the Founder/Owner doesn’t have a clearly defined role. You start the business and as it grows you ‘slice’ roles off as you employ people. What tends to happen is that you continue with roles that either haven’t been ‘sliced off’ yet (that you shouldn’t be doing) or you’re holding onto tasks that you like doing but, again, shouldn’t be doing. And this is where the ‘I’m too busy’ kicks in. You’re simply doing so much stuff that you shouldn’t be doing, that it’s stopping you doing the stuff, as the business leader, you really should be doing.

Grow your business

So, what’s the solution? Here’s three simple steps, amongst many others, that can get you focused on doing the right stuff to grow your business;

1) Write yourself a Roles & Responsibilities document
Ask yourself ‘What is the purpose of my role?’ ‘Why am I in the business?’ The answer should be one sentence only. Then identify three, or a maximum of four, areas of responsibility. Ask the question ‘What are the key areas I’m responsible for?’ List them, with maybe a one line of explanation. That’s it. It’s not easy and you may need some time to really focus and think about this to ensure its accurate and clear.

As an example, when I ran my business, my purpose was;

‘To be responsible for the direction, growth, stability and operation of the whole business‘.

My areas of responsibility were;
a) Formulating the company’s long-term strategy
b) Ensuring adequate resource to deliver the agreed strategy
c) Overall financial control
d) Managing, motivating and developing the senior management team.

Once you have this in place you can now see clearly what the ‘right’ things are.

Have a read of this article that explains this in more detail.

2) Delegate, delegate and delegate
Write down every single task you have on your ‘To do’ list. Then put them all in priority order, using whatever system you prefer. (I use a my own personal bastardised version of Covey’s ‘urgent v important’ – read more about it here).

Now start at the bottom of the list (the least important tasks) and work your way up, one-by-one and identify who in the team you can delegate that task to. The aim is to delegate EVERYTHING. Whilst you may not succeed in that, what you will find is that you now have a much shorter ‘To Do’ list… as well as one that is focused purely on the important things you need to be doing. If you’ve created your ‘Roles & Responsibilities document, you can further get rid of the tasks that are simply not your responsibility.

3) Opportunity Cost
Look at some of the tasks you are doing. With all due respect to admin people, book-keepers, junior staff etc, would you pay them your salary to do their jobs? No you wouldn’t, so you actually save money by employing specialists to do the jobs you shouldn’t be doing that you’re currently doing, which then allows you to do the important tasks that you should be doing.

Give it a go

Try all of the above and you should have the time to drive the business forward, grow your business and deliver that growth you so long for.

Let me know how you get on, or if you have any other suggestions.

If you’d like to discuss how I could help you on your journey as a Business Owner, then please give me a call, drop me an email or connect with me on LinkedIn. Details below. However, you might find a peer-to-peer business mentoring group is better for you.

I’ll be happy to have chat with you to explore how I may be able to help you. I’ll be honest and I may not be able to help you myself and in that scenario I’ll try and point you in the right direction.

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