What if you had an assistant who not only handled all the drudgery of your business, but did it around the clock, 7 days a week. What if he or she never needed a vacation or personal day? Oh, and what if he or she worked for free? [level-members]
Sounds too good to be true. And unless you’ve someone found a way to inhabit The Jetsons‘ world, you’re probably out of luck trying to get around the clock help for nothing. (Where’s Rosie when you need her?)
But you can buy yourself more time to focus on more important aspects of your business by automating the details.
Automate everything you can – from bill payments to supply orders to inventory. Anything you can’t automate, systematize. Things like utility bills, which vary from month to month are a good example. (We don’t recommend setting up automatic payments through your vendors or for things like utilities. They can be a bear to stop if things go wrong. Stick to using your online banking’s recurring bill feature, which you have much more control over.)
If you’re like most small business owners, you like having your hand in as much of your business as you can. It keeps you informed, and you feel like you’re on top of things.
But if you devote more of your time to what’s really important – building a stronger customer base, increasing sales, developing key relationships – you’ll strengthen your business to the point where it can weather seasonal dips, an economic downturn, and other hardships.
This should be one of your primary goals as a business owner: creating a business that can survive the occasional hiccup, even if you’re not around. [/level-members]