The hardest thing about growing your business is the time it takes to plan for it. In my last three blogs on growing your business, I talked about creating a vision, getting information on where you currently stand and getting perspective. In this blog, I want to address and acknowledge that setting aside time for these tasks is no easy feat when you are running a business.
If you spend all your time racking up billable hours for your business or 100% of your focus on selling your product or service, you will burn out because you didn’t take time to manage your business. Yet, if you spend all of your time managing, you will fail because the selling process was neglected. There has to be a happy medium to maintain your current business and create a plan for growth.
Here are some tips to help:
- Delegate or outsource. If there are things you can get others to do for you, do it. Investing time into your business is worth the expenditure.
- Create a project plan. Pretend you are your own client or customer. Divide the project into a timeline with milestones and set aside time each day to meet those expectations.
- Keep it a priority. It’s so easy to put your own business on the back burner when client issues come up. Make sure you keep focused on your own business goals.
With my busy days as head of Fourlane, it takes a concentrated effort to think about the future, let alone get a perspective on how we need to do things differently. For me, it took scheduling a staff retreat where we took a closer look at the company.
Having enough time is the most difficult part of growing your business. Stay with it! It pays off in the long run.
