Recently, we talked about 3 tips to help you reach those stretch goals and it reminded me of a question I get a lot from readers and private clients: “How do I know if I’m ready for support?”
This is a great question for any entrepreneur to think about, including newbies and established business owners. Because let’s face it, you have tons of options out there to get support but you always want to be sure it makes sense for your bottom line. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should!
So, let’s take a look at whether you should get support in the context of reaching your goals.
The first thing I usually recommend looking at when you’re evaluating your need for support is how you’re allocating your time. Is a significant portion of your day spent doing money generating activities? Think consults, marketing, client interaction for instance. Ideally, you’re going to want to be spending a majority of each day doing these activities and not simple admin tasks for your business. I call these IPAs.
This is not to say that administrative tasks aren’t important because they really are critical to your business success. But, if you are spending too much time on these sorts of activities on a daily basis, then you are going to have a harder time reaching those goals.
If you identify that you are not spending a majority of your time on money generating activities, the next thing to look at is
Do you need support to reach those goals?I like to start with my least favorite activity and go from there, but you may have a different approach. The idea though is to find something that is not money generating and doesn’t require your unique brilliance. Then, figure out how to have someone else take that over.
Once you identify the items, then you just need to find the right assistant to help you get these things done. This could mean a virtual assistant or an in-person assistant and you could start with just a few hours a week (or even per month!). It will probably also require you building a few systems in your business that make it easier to add another person into the mix.
I want you to remember that starting to get the support you need can be done in a variety of ways. So if you only want to get support on 1 item (like your ezine, social media, or billing for instance), you can start with just that 1 thing. Ideally, you want to have a sense of what projects you’d add when you hire that perfect assistant so you can know which qualities to look for but that isn’t a deal-breaker to getting started.
Comment below on what kinds of projects you get support for or what kinds you think you should get help with!
