In This Episode…
Sometimes you have to take two steps back in order to make large leaps forward.
I have spent far too long doing everything myself to the extent that I am now the brake and the limit on my own business growth.
So I am taking on a virtual assistant to support me. It is an important step, but requires a significant amount of effort to make sure her introduction and integration to the business goes well.
In this episode I share my feelings around what I’m doing to leverage the effort of running my business.
Episode Transcript
Hi, and welcome to today’s episode of the Profit Productivity Podcast . It’s your host, Michael Tipper. Who else would it be?
Now today has been another day of what feels like taking a step back.
But actually what I’ve been doing is putting together something that is going to give me a huge leap forward in my productivity and in the effectiveness in doing and achieving the goals I’ve set for myself.
Now yesterday, I talked about my experience of going into the supermarket, exploring a new system and finding it was clunky.
It was difficult. I had to think about it and it was hard to make work. But I pointed out that when that system is in place, it means my shopping experience is going to be far quicker.
That might save me 10, 15 minutes every time I go into the shop because when it’s working, it’ll be brilliant.
And that’s the principle here.
When you spend some time understanding the problems you’re facing, solve them and find an efficient way of doing it, it is well worth the investment.
It might require setting in place a system or a process to do it. You might then need to evolve that system until it is refined and working really well.
Whilst you’re going through that process, it is going to take some time. It is going to take some learning. It’s going to take some iteration.
There may well be some dead ends to go down before you get it right.
In the moment, that can be quite frustrating when you’re doing it because you want to improve.
You want to get faster, you want to get more effective. You want to become, become more product. But in the moment going through that experience, it sometimes doesn’t feel like you’re making progress.
But you need to take the longer term view.
That’s really important to be able to do this.
Today I Have Invested In The Future Growth Of My Business
So what am I doing today?
Well, I have realised I am at the end of my effectiveness. I’m at the end of the tether. I’m at the limit of what I can possibly do on my own in order to move my business forward.
And that’s because there is only so much time in the day and there’s only so much leverage I can add.
I am in the process of bringing someone else onboard to start helping me do some of the tasks that although I enjoy doing, and I’m really quite good at them, I don’t need to be doing,
I’ve got to start focusing my efforts on the stuff that really juices me, the stuff that I can add value to other people’s lives. Putting stuff up on Facebook and on YouTube and doing all the technical stuff on my website are not good uses of my time.
I have spent the last two weeks, defining what I want this person to do, advertising for them and interviewing them. And finally, yesterday I made the choice of my new virtual assistant who starts with me next week.
There Are Some Important Questions To Ask When Taking On Staff
- What I’ve been doing is thinking about how are we going to work together?
- What are the tools we’re going to use?
- What are the project management tools ?
- How am I going to communicate with them?
- How am I going to define what it is I want them to do for me?
- How am I going to get them to report back to me?
- How are we going to work around the significant time difference there is between where she lives and where I live?
- How am I going to bring her on board in terms of the ethos of what I’m trying to achieve?
All of those questions have now been answered and the necessary things are in place.
Of course, working on that has taken me out of the progress I was making on actually running the business. But I realise it’s an important step to take.
To do this I’ve had to step to the side, to allow me the space to put things in place and deal with the inevitable teething troubles.
I know that as I learn to understand how to work with my new assistant and her with me, we’ll overcome the challenges of the geography and the time differences.
As I start to understand the extent of her skillset and the limitation of my management and leadership style we’ll evolve and adapt to that.
The Investment You Make In Fully Preparing For A New Staff Member Is Worth It
But I know that once it’s in place, it will double, triple even quadruple my effectiveness because I will have someone whose time I’ll be able to leverage by giving her a task to do that I don’t need to do.
She will be able to do things for me that will allow me to be more effective.
It’s a bit of a side step to put the effort in to prepare thoroughly for her arrival and that causes a bit of frustration because there’s so many other things I need to do.
But I know that I’ve got to do this now. This is my main thing at the moment.
I often talk about having a main thing. And whilst my main thing is to grow my business. This is my current main thing, because it is an enabler that will help me grow my business.
So I’m really excited and frustrated in an equal measure. Excited, because of the possibilities it opens up, and frustrated because I’ve got to take a side step to set this up stopping me from doing what I know I need to do.
The future is bright. The future is positive and the future will have its challenges.
But I think what will happen now is that my efforts, or the results of my efforts and the efforts of the people who are now going to be working around me will mean that I’ll be able to make much better progress.
So that’s today’s episode.
Until tomorrow.
