Are You Running Your Business or Is It Running You?

By Drue Lawlor, FASID
Director of Coaching, Gail Doby Coaching & Consulting & Design Success University

Do you find yourself ending each day with a “To Do” list that just keeps getting longer?  How often do you wish you could have more hours in the day or just find some way to shorten that “To Do” list? Well, I can’t stretch a 24-hour day, but I can suggest a way to reach a goal of working more effectively and efficiently.  And do it while able to concentrate on the parts of the business that you truly enjoy — AND that reflect CEO activities rather than “employee” activities.

The key is to bring on one or more team members to whom you can delegate “lower cost” work.  The definition of delegate is to “entrust (a task or responsibility) to another person, typically one who is less senior than oneself.”

If you make $100 or more per hour, and you can add an employee or hire out bookkeeping, or AutoCad for $30 – $40 per hour you can pay for this just by billing out another several hours.  What should be obvious here is that you can use the time you will gain for CEO activities — possibly spending more time marketing or billable time designing for clients — not working on tasks that can be delegated to others.  Do the numbers and estimate the amount of time you need for someone to do AutoCad or for bookkeeping, etc. and then figure what the cost would be.  Push yourself to begin to add a few more billable hours to build up enough money to outsource or hire another team member.

And of course you need to put together a clear job description so that when you are ready to bring someone on, the job will be clear both to them and to you!

Many times the stumbling block is that you don’t want to give up control — someone else will not do it the same way and/or you don’t have time to train them and so it’s faster to just do it yourself.  Well, then ask yourself how serious you are about wanting a change.  Do you really want to increase your income?  It won’t happen if you are trying to “do it all.”

Plan for the future, and after outsourcing jobs such as bookkeeping, etc., the next step toward a more successful business is to bring on a design assistant.  Again, as long as you have a very clear job description and effective training program, think about the many processes that are involved in putting together a design project — many of which can be effectively completed by a team member other than you.  The key is you need to be willing to release some control — and remind yourself of the advantages that will offer.

To design a more effective and successful design business, learn the art of delegating — it can effectively increase your bottom line — but remember that you need clear job descriptions in place to make it effective.

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