This great article was written by a personal friend – Erin Alli – who first came into my life quite a few years ago when I hired her as my VA! Life intervened but we remained close friends and we do our best to meet up each year even though we now live on different sides of the Atlantic.
Her article suggests you ask yourself three questions to determine whether you need a business manager.
Your business may be going quite well but are you? If you are doing everything yourself, my guess is no, you are not doing that well.
Running a business can get overwhelming and lonely when you don’t have people in place to help you.
But how do you know if you are ready to bring someone on to help?
Here are 3 questions to ask yourself to determine if you are ready for a business manager:
How many hours a day/week do I put in?
If you are putting in 10 hour days and working 7 days a week to keep up you are in need of help. You need someone that can be your gatekeeper so you are not taking care of things that you don’t need to be. You need someone to take over day to day tasks so that you can focus on what only you can do and not have to worry about the rest.
Am I spending time learning new things or trying to figure out things that I don’t need to be?
If you are trying to fix your website yourself, or set up your shopping cart, or fix a glitch in the system and this is not what you are good at, the answer is yes, you are spending your time this way and it needs to stop. You need someone that can take care of that for you or hire the people to do that so you are not even aware of it unless you need to be. This takes the worry and stress off you so you can focus on bringing in more clients or selling more products. This also increases your revenue because while you are paying someone that is skilled in this area to take care of the project, you are able to be spending your time out connecting with new leads and prospects.
Did my family forget what I looked like until they glanced at the family photo on the wall from 3 years ago?
Yes, this is something I hear often and it is a huge problem if you are spending all your time working and your family is coming in second. You shouldn’t be missing their important moments. You should be going on family vacations with them (and not working while you are there). You should be home at bedtime to tuck the kids in and read stories and be available for your spouse afterward to talk and connect. If you are finding that you spend more time working than anything else, it is time to look into hiring a business manager.
Many times entrepreneurs think they can do it all themselves but that just isn’t the case. You need to invest in getting the help you need because that investment is worth it. You shouldn’t be losing your sanity, letting your family slip away or wasting your precious time. You should be working with someone that cares about your business, wants to see it grow and wants you to experience freedom and relief from the pressure cooker you are currently in.
Erin Alli is a Virtual Business Growth Manager. She helps her clients to rediscover the joy in their business by removing the tasks from their plate that they don’t need to be focused on.
Erin also helps her clients create new offerings, monetize what they are missing to increase revenue and has strategy and accountability sessions with clients so they stay on track and keep moving forward with their ideas in a simple, step by step way that doesn’t overwhelm them.
Visit www.ErinAlli.com to learn more about Erin and how she can help you in your business. In fact if you’re interested in finding out more about different ways to delegate projects or to bring on a business manager contact Erin for a free consult at Erin@EssentialAssisting.com.
