Excuses, excuses, I have heard them all.
“It is faster if I just do it myself.”
“No one does it better than me.”
“I don’t know what to delegate.”
“I can’t afford to hire anyone.”
Sound familiar? The key to controlling delegation is to establish what tasks are, how they should be completed and what the final outcome looks like BEFORE you assign them to someone.
No more excuses. Here are 6 steps you can take to develop your what, how and final outcome.
#1 What to Give Away and what to Keep
Think about what you directly contribute to the business. Keep those tasks. Anything outside your expertise or easily performed by others . . . give away.
Your Actions:
Make a list of everything you do on a weekly or monthly basis. Determine what is essential to keep and what can be given away.
#2 Create a Plan
To be effective, you have to share exactly what you want done. Maybe, “no one does it better than you” because no one truly understands what you want.
Your Actions:
Create the specific, detailed steps needed to create your desired result. Give those steps along with any files, forms and checklists to the person helping you.
#3 Results and Accountability
Start at the end. Picture what you should be holding when you get those final deliverables. Communicate those expectations. All expectations HAVE to be reasonable, clear and measurable. For example, “complete a minimum of 30 sales calls per week” as opposed to “complete sales calls”.
Accountability is not a bad word. If you are not getting results, you and your business suffer.
Your Actions:
Create specific goals, quotas or outcomes. Communicate those expectations. Have consequences for results not being accomplished.
#4 The Right Person
Determine what skill sets your position requires. Ask yourself, what do I really want someone to do? Search for a person that has those skills.
If you need someone to spend tons of time logging information, don’t hire someone who can’t sit still and chats on the phone all day.
Your Actions:
Look at the tasks being performed. Decide what skill sets are needed. When interviewing, ask open-ended questions.
#5 Checking In
While watching late night TV, I landed on an infomercial. The product tag line was, “set it and forget it”. The same rule does NOT apply to delegation. People are human. They make mistakes and they may even (gasp) drop the ball.
Set specific times to check in. Set a regular appointment time, such as Tuesday at 2pm, or at a specific spot in the process. For example, “after you have called all 50 prospects, come see me.”
Checking in allows you to stay in the loop, fix problems, educated the people working with you and be informed.
Your Actions:
Set specific times to check in. Actually check in when you say you will.
#6 Delegate to Technology
Money is tight and you desperately need help, but there is no budget. What do you do?
I am constantly amazed at what technology can do. I’m not talking about, no one can figure out how this works stuff. I’m talking about everyday, just push a button, anyone can do this stuff. Finding what works for you could save you hours of time and money.
Your Actions:
Learn some of the more intermediate or advanced features of software you already own. Incorporate it into your day-to-day workflow.

© 2005 Beth Schneider. Want to reprint this article, feel free as long as you include the following: Beth Schneider, Chief Infopreneur of Process Prodigy, is a business process consultant who helps solo-entrepreneurs, small business owners and network marketers who want to systemize their business to increase profits, increase productivity and grow their business without having to give up the family oriented, flexible, balanced lifestyle they desire. Beth works one-on-one with her clients, offers home study courses, and teleclass boot camps. For more information visit http://www.ProcessProdigy.com and sign up for your FR*EE 5- Step Process Starter Kit and FR*EE Process Tips. Also visit our family sites http://www.YourBusinessMachineBasics.com and http://www.MadeItToAMillion.com.


What are you Doing to Create a Thriving Business?
“That will never happen to me!” is a cliché many of us apply to a number of topics in our lives, yet many of us subconsciously take precautions to protect ourselves from unforeseen possibilities. We buy home insurance in case of theft or fire, we buy life insurance to protect our families in the event of our death and we buy car insurance in case we are in a car accident. Some of us even buy business insurance to protect our company. The problem is many of us overlook the biggest “insurance” we should be investing our time and money in from the beginning. The “insurance” provided by creating a thriving business. What does it mean to create a thriving business?
The first step to creating a thriving business is preparing an operational manual that will ensure that your business can survive any hurdle including business growth, owner absenteeism and even owner death. Most business owners never stop to consider what might happen if they were injured, sick or worse. By taking a precautionary role in your business and considering things such as: “What if it happened to me?”; “What if my spouse, child or parent was sick tomorrow – could I dedicate the time to their recovery?”
These are all things we think we won’t have to worry about, but what if? Step back for a minute and think about how your business would change if you needed to take the time to dedicate to a personal problem. Perhaps in the short term it wouldn’t change much, but what about if you needed to step back for an extended period of time? What would happen then?
The success of many of today’s small businesses hinges on the expertise and skills of the owner. What happens to the business though should the owner become ill or die? In many cases a family member steps in out of a feeling of obligation, but often they lack the skills necessary to allow the business to truly thrive. They don’t have the same dedication, determination or passion to see the business succeed as you did. In many cases, a promise to maintain a family business is made with the thought of “I won’t ever have to worry about that” in the back of the family member’s mind. After all, no one thinks it will ever happen to them.
By creating an operational manual that outlines every faucet of your business operations including pertinent company information and a full description of how daily tasks are carried out, your business could easily continue uninterrupted without fear things were not being handled in the same manner you, as business owner, would expect. Family members could easily hire someone to handle the business operations with your Operations Manual with the confidence of knowing things were being handled as you would handle them.
Step back for a minute and think about what it means for you to truly create a thriving business. Just like plants need essential tools to survive, so does your business. The ingredients may be different but providing them is no less important. Plants need water, sun and dirt in order to grow vigorously and healthily. Your business needs a successful team leader, a needed product or service and a plan in order to be successful and profitable. Most businesses only have two of those important ingredients and are missing the most important ingredient. If you leave instructions for watering your plants, shouldn’t you leave instructions for running your business?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Yvonne Weld is the author of The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Thriving Business and is the owner of ABLE Virtual Assistant Services. For more information about The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Thriving Business and how you can protect your business from unexpected absences due to injury, sickness or even death, visit the Web site at http://www.thrivingbusinessmanual.com. This article may not be copied unless in its entirety and the author’s bio is attached.


Evaluating Product Lines for Your Site
If you have a product oriented site, you obviously need products. There is an interesting way you can use keyword research to help you evaluate the products that are going to sell.
Assume I decide to open up a fashion site. Now that my friends have stopped laughing, I need to take the important step of figuring out what I want to offer in the way of different designers and such. I go ahead and find out my options. I get catalogs of the clothing available. All I have to do is choose, but how do you know what will sell versus what will not?
Keyword research can be a tremendous help in figuring out which product lines are going to do well on the web. The first step is to research the brand. Yes, you are interested in the total number of searches for the brand, but you need to take a second step. You need to look at the keyword phrases being used to search for the designer that contain product names. If you see a lot of searches for Calvin Klein jeans, shirts, etc., you have a good line. If you see a number of searches for an individual product, you have found an excellent series of products to put on your site.
So, what happens if you don’t see much interest in the brand when you do the research? Does it mean you should move on to another product line? While it doesn’t look good, you can’t be sure until you do more research. Many product lines are known by a name other than the brand. Fans of Toyota 4Runners tend to search by the phrase “4Runner”, not Toyota. You need to identify any such names in the line you are considering and do research on it. If you find a lot of searches, you have struck it rich. Most people don’t take this step, so you can optimize the pages of your site for the products and get top rankings pretty quickly.
Now, there are a couple caveats I have to mention about this approach. First, you need to make sure the product company will allow you to use their name in the keyword phrases. Most do, but check your reseller agreement to be absolutely sure. Second, this process takes a lot of time. Depending on your niche, it can take weeks. You have to stick with it. If you find that particular line, you can absolutely clean up.
Halstatt Pires is an internet marketing consultant with MarketingTitan.com