Do You Own Your Own Business
or Your Own Job?

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Does this strike a chord with you: you’ve identified your niche, you’re getting the clients in … yet you feel at times as if you’re about to drop from exhaustion.

What’s happening is that you’ve built a job for yourself rather than a business. Many businesses fail at this juncture because their owners abdicate rather than delegate.

You’ve probably coached your own clients about delegation – but do you do it yourself? It can seem hard initially, but soon becomes a (much nicer) way of life.

The time to start on this is now, even if it’s just a couple of small steps. For example, I don’t delegate writing tasks because I enjoy them so much. However, although I’m proficient enough do do my own book-keeping, I’ve learned to delegate the task because it’s time consuming and boring (for me).

Before you start using other people’s skills, time and effort (which is what delegation is), take note of what business guru Keith Cunningham  said during a transatlantic call:

1. Be aware on what the output must be
2. Choose to delegate to people who have demonstrable competence
3. Communicate the output to your team or outworkers
4. …In fact, ask them to repeat back what they think they heard you say – this is better than saying, “Do you have any questions?”
5. Let them know verbally and in writing what the deadline is, and if there are any mini deadlines to be met before the final one (such as a first draft, or research in a particular area)
6. Agree how you are going to communicate and feedback with one another, what you’re going to measure, and how often
7. Finally, and just as importantly, let the team know how what you’re delegating to them fits in with what you are doing with your business … and let them know the effects/consequences of both success and failure to do your task

A great book to read to get your delegation juices flowing is The Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris. It’s in most book stores, and available cut price on Amazon (www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.com, www.amazon.je, etc).

Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris - you can get it on CD as well

You can find out more about Keith Cunningham by clicking on this link.

Keith Cunningham sharing successful business tips