It’s essential, as the lead visionary entrepreneur of your business, to review the impact of what you are spending your time on and then prioritize the most leveraged activities first. Here are some suggestions to help you make some shifts to improve your business:

1.  Do an inventory of your highest use skills: Does it make sense, if you are an expert at business consulting, for you to be programming websites? No. Does it seem a smart use of resources for you to learn how to program websites from scratch when the genius high school kid down the street can already program circles around you and needs a summer job? No, no, no.

Start releasing your need to have your fingers in everything. Build a team of  people you can rely on. Trust people who know better than you. There is nothing wrong with outsourcing your weaknesses. Your lesser skills are not a disease. They don’t need to be cured. Play to your strengths only. Those skills are your specialty–insist on utilizing your highest skill.

2.  Reduce your availability: It’s a myth that human beings are capable of multi-tasking. If you are having to apply your creativity to create a proposal that has a looming deadline, it doesn’t help for you to hear every ding from emails coming into your inbox, your cell phone ringing, your pager going off, and your latest training seminar flowing out of your computer speakers.

You need to shut it all down and focus. Check your email mid-morning after you’ve had a few hours to get some work done. Let your calls go to voicemail (with the ringer turned to mute) and return calls at specified, limited times of the time. Chunk your time so that you can focus on one important task at a time. One of your chunks might be “miscellaneous to-do’s” so you can catch up on all your loose ends, but don’t intertwine them all together. It negatively impacts the quality of all of your work.

3.  Know your rhythms: If you struggle to do analytical thinking first thing in the morning (or at least until you’ve had 2 cups of coffee), don’t. You will make more mistakes and your task will take twice as long. If you are sharp as a tac in the morning but at 2-4 pm you can’t focus anymore, don’t plan meetings where you have to be “on” during that time. Be honest in your evaluation of yourself and your preferences. You didn’t choose to be an entrepreneur to limit your choices. Live and work the way that fits your personality best.

4.  Dump the meetings: Traditionally, face-to-face meetings have been a requirement. Salespeople would go to cold calls where they had no clue if they were even welcome to be there at all, let alone could hope for a sale to close. But go they would. It’s very old-school and it is not automatically the only way to do business. It’s often the least productive way.

Same goes for employee meetings.  Ask yourself if a face-to-face is really the only and best way. If it’s not, do something else. Don’t let travel and perceived tradition restrict your productivity. Try webinars, tele-conferences, phone calls, video conferencing, IM and maybe even don’t have any “check-in” at all. Let your employees impress you with their initiative rather than report in on their compliance.

5. Systematize and automate: If you are doing the same task over and over, the same way, in the same circumstance, figure out a way to systematize or automate that task. Computers totally shine in these circumstances. Email autoresponders, automatic downloads, sales scripts, order entry checklists, outsourced virtual assistants, website FAQ’s (frequently asked questions) and interns work great. Use them. It’s fun once you make the adjustments.

I know I might sound harsh. I also realize that these suggestions fly in the face of traditional approaches.  I can own that. But, there is a method to my madness.

Why do I feel so strongly about this? It’s because I know what you are capable of, the  brilliance that is there to be tapped. Playing small does no one any good. Fully stepping into the best use of your best skills can literally revolutionize your world. And my world. Our world. Start today examining what you can leverage so that we can all enjoy the wonderful fruits of your labor. Please? Pretty please? 

Together, we are stronger.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman

My Favorite Books About Leveraging and Outsourcing

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

This book made a huge difference for me in organizing my office, desk top, filing system and my focus. It’s an gentle read with practical, step-by-step processes to help you get going and keep going more productively.

 
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich

I’ve recommended this book before–it has changed my entire work philosophy. Don’t let your skepticism stop you from embracing the idea that you can design and live the life of your dreams, with time to do as you will and deep job satisfaction too. 

                                       Be sure to check out Tim’s blog entry about “Time Bind”

It’s easy for Life to push against a woman entrepreneur’s work agenda. You have kids, chores, errands, TV, etc. You also have something that I can inertia. It’s easy to stay still if you are already still. The opposite of that is that it’s also easy to keep moving if you are already moving.

So, how do you start moving? You begin small. The smallest step you can take. Don’t berate yourself that it’s not enough. Just pick a small task and complete it. Set a schedule, and if you can make the small task an important one, even better. But either way, do a small thing. And, even if you go off schedule, get that one thing done before you get into bed that night.

Flow develops when you move consistently. Flow makes work easy. For me, you get extra points if the small task you choose to complete is also fun. Keep focused on why you are an entrepreneur to begin with. If you wanted a slave-master boss, you’d be in the corporate world, right?

Micheal Cheney, a wonderful internet marketer, says you should choose your task with your F.E.E.T. Here’s what his acronym means:
F: fast
E: easy
E: exciting
T: Tingle  (as in, makes you tingle)

So, if you need to shift your inertia, get moving. Don’t try the biggest thing first. If you’ve put off a very important thing because you are concerned you aren’t going to do it so well, pick a warm up activity. Do something that lets you practice or feel comfortable. Just do something and do it consistently.

Tomorrow we will talk about goal setting. To me, it’s a bit overrated and tomorrow you’ll see why I say that.

Together, we are stronger!
Vicki Flaugher

p.s. Thanks to those readers who checked on me over the weekend–I took some much deserved time off. I am glad you noticed….

Today I woke up excited that I was getting new toilets installed. Our 24 year old toilets finally gave up and the city has a cool program to give you new low-flow ones for free. Great, right?

A few hours have passed now, and I do have new toilets, which work like a charm. We also have a hole in the yard where the septic tank had to be uncovered and pumped out with the promise of a potential major system repair looming. Ouch.

Hmmm…..what does this have to do with being a woman entrepreneur?

Well, first off, stuff happens. I feel fortunate that my partner and I have some cash reserves to handle what comes up. If you don’t, you might want to start to build towards having some flex in your budget. Some problems can’t really be put off. Imagine your life without plumbing…not a pretty picture.

Secondly, even when you put in new bells and whistles (the toilets), you still have to deal with the major underlying systems involved. Systems are the lifeblood of a successful entrepreneur. It’s how you’re going to build your business, sustain your business, and have a life outside of your business. (If the show stops running when you take time off, that could lead to trouble. If that time off is because of a major illness, rather than the more whimsical jaunt to Italy, then you can run into some real problems.) Get your systems in order and you’ll be much better off.

Lastly, you have to have a sense of humor and let it go. Being able to calmly (and dare I say joyously?) weather the ups and downs of Life is good for your health, creativity, and relationships, all of which you need in full working order to attract the success you deserve.

I love my new toilets and I am hopeful that any other repairs will be minimal. Regardless, I am most grateful that I have developed a point of view that lets me bend with the breeze. So, what about you—how do you deal with the challenges of Life? I’d love to hear your story.

Vicki Flaugher

p.s. I almost forgot to say-don’t forget the power of delegating. I am definitely glad I was not the one who had to stand knee deep in mud and…uh, stuff…to get this problem under control.