Prioritizing, Delegating and Outsourcing – Small Business Show 216

The Small business show episode 216 for Wednesday, March 27, 2019. Greetings folks and welcome to the Small Business show here at BusinessShow Co, the show that is BFA Small Business. Sponsors for this episode include Action AbbyConnect.com SBS and Textexpander.com podcast. We'll talk about what those URLs mean to you and what you get when you go there in a minute. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton and out on the.

West coast, I'm Shannon Gene. How are you doing, man?

I'm good, I'm good. Crazy but you know, it's good. I think I say that every time we do.

I mean that's a, I think it's a mental trick that we tell ourselves. We talk about kind of self programming here on the show and a lot and creating own reality so that embracing the kind of craziness and the, the, the wave of monster tasks, you know, I think that that kind of, oh, this is just normal. This is okay.

It's okay. It's true, actually. Yeah, you just, you have to get used to that as being normal and, and then it's okay.

Yeah, that's true. And I think it is. You know, it really goes to that, that whole idea of like we talk about Scott Adams concept is we're just a moist robot. Right. And so the more you tell yourself, the more you train your inner judge. And we're going to talk about judge being judgmental in a minute on some other topic. But if you can, you know, continually train your, your inner judge to be telling you things like that, like, oh, this is just normal, you can handle another task, you can do another deal or whatever it is, I think it's easier to not be overwhelmed.

Right, that's true. I agree with that. Yeah.

Yeah. And I do a lot of volunteer stuff. I'm really into a few causes that mean a lot to me. And I find because I'm constantly using these skills and things that we talk about on the show to recruit volunteers and to try to delegate and try to, you know, get people on board, the people that I have the best success with are the ones that are the busiest.

Oh, if you, I forget who it was that said it. But if you want, if you want, want something to get done, find the busiest person and they'll. Yeah, they're used to it.

They're used to it. But the people that have lots of time and I'm not saying it's a bad thing and some days I really envy people that have a lot of excess time on their hands and don't go crazy with it like I do. But those folks. Oh, I just. One more task. I don't think I can handle that. I don't want to handle it.

I don't want to handle it. That's what it is. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, it's true. I saw. I wanted to share this. I'm not sure it's related, but it's all related. I saw a fortune cookie. It actually was a friend that posted it, but the fortune cookie said something that I really, really liked. It said, failure is the path of least persistence. Failure is the path of least persistence. Yeah. Isn't that great? Yeah. Yeah, it's true. Just gotta keep going. Right? Right. Yeah, that's. As soon as I saw it, it was like, oh, I gotta share this with everybody that I know.

That's really good. Yeah. And that. That, you know, it is that persistence and the grind. We talk about it a lot, and it's hard, you know, I mean, you listen to the show and you hear about us talk each week, and Dave and I are pretty upbeat, you know, and we're really. We love to. I hope you can tell. We love talking about this stuff. That's why we do the show. But, you know, there's days where it's like, oh, man, you know, I got to make this. Yeah, you never have them. Come on.

But I mean, today was actually one of them, so. But it was like, well. And you know what it is? I saw something else. Somebody was saying that procrastination is more stressful than actually, you know, getting. Doing whatever it is. You're procrastinating.

And it's.

For me, that's definitely true. If I'm. If I know I have stuff to do, I'm way more stressed than I am just doing. Just diving in and doing it, you know? And today was one of those days where it was like, I don't have enough time in the day to do the things that I have to do. And. And that actually can slow me down sometimes. It wasn't.

It does.

It wasn't that I had intentionally. There was one thing that. That I need actually do some prep for a theater show that I'm doing. And this morning, I was woefully underprepared, and I should have done this on, like, Sunday, but I didn't. And then yesterday was way too busy, and so it was like, oh, crap. Here I am, like, you know, getting squeezed from both ends. Well, Gotta make it happen, you know, and there is something to be said for that. And I think we've got some, you know, some things to talk about with that. But yeah, learning how to maximize time. And honestly, when you're really busy, you learn which corners you can cut while still being successful. And I, you know, and that like, and still, still delivering quality and all of that stuff. But it's just, you know, learning where to, where to put your time. I think is, is a better way to say it, as opposed to cutting corners.

Yeah, yeah. And we're going to talk more about that today. None of this is really what the show's about, but I do want to, I want to mention I have a couple more topics that I want to talk about before we actually start the show.

Okay.

And one of those is this wanting to share, you know, you're coming on and you had this, oh, I want to share this fortune cookie, you know, thing and us sharing here, you know, and I get, I say it all the time. I get so much benefit out of doing this show. And it's all because sharing things that have worked for me, sharing my mistakes, getting other people to come on and share what they do. And, you know, one of the things I've done over the last few years as my friends and colleagues, kids have gotten older and into high school and then, you know, getting into colleges, the young people that I have a good relationship with, I say, hey, can I send you a quote now and then? And so I've got a list of, you know, maybe half a dozen young people that I share a quote that means a lot to me. And sometimes it's a quote I wrote myself and because I think, you know, this is kind of valuable.

Right.

And so, but it makes me feel good to share that data or share that tidbit of information with them. And I would encourage everyone to do that in your own self interest. And also it makes you feel better.

And it makes you feel productive. It makes you feel valuable is really what it is.

Yeah, that's right. And so you know what? I was, I didn't want to be pretentious and come across like, well, I know all this stuff and now I want to share it with you. I was like, oh, I wanted to share you a quote. And I, and I research and I have a couple apps that give me some quotes each day and I kind of save the ones I think that are relevant to their lives. Because I thought back, you know, when I was that age, I would have loved to have someone that was interested in my success. Of course I had people, but someone that would check in and be like, hey, this is an important thing to understand about this journey that we're all on, or whatever. So I would encourage you to share, just like we try to do here, because I think it's really a valuable thing for your own success.

Yeah. You're talking about becoming a mentor, but in a very sort of compartmentalized way, at least to start. And if someone, if one of those half a dozen or dozen people engages back and says, hey, I'm interested in. Ask questions. I know you. I know you'll answer them. And then it can sort of, you know, flourish into whatever level it makes sense to turn that into. Yeah.

And you. You want to impress your. Your friends or your colleagues when their kid says, oh, Mr. Gene is sending me these quotes. And the next time I see him, they're like, dude, that's so great. Thank you.

How did you get through to my kids? Yeah, because they're not my kids. That's the answer.

Yeah, you got it. Yeah.

Can I rant for a second about customer service? You know that I am a customer service maniac, and I know the reason that you know this or one of the reasons is, well, that I talk about it all the time. But the other one is that you are the same way. We all know here that every business is the customer service business. And if you treat your customers well, that's better than having, like, the best idea in the world or whatever. Like, that keeps people coming back. What the heck is going on in dental school where they are not teaching this lesson? And separately, Shannon and I like pre show. We started this little discussion and then we stopped it and detoured it right here to the show. Separately in our lives, we've both been sort of ranting to our families about this scenario where you go to the dentist, and to me, it's only the dentist. I go to other healthcare professionals, and I don't get this judgment that I get at the dentist's office. What's the deal? Like, why is it that I've been driven away from most dental practices? Because it's like, I don't want to go back there. Like, I'm paying you money. I know you know more about this than me. We've accepted that. That's okay. In fact, that's why I'm paying you money. I want your expertise, but I want it nicely. What's like, what's the deal? Why. Why did the. The dentist and the hygienist like, it's, it's, it permeates the office. It's systemic, and it's, it's like, oh, well, you're, you know, like, I leave there feeling like I'm a terrible person. It's like, I just paid you to feel this way. I don't think so. I, I've actually thought about this with dentists, where the next one that I go to, I'm going to tell them, here's the deal. I, I, what is, what's your rate? I want to know up front, because I ask every doctor, that's your first problem. I know, I know. But then I can be a little judgmental to them, like, what do you mean? You don't know how much it's going to cost. But anyway, I find out what it's going to cost up front, and dentists are better at telling you that than medical doctors are, but that's a whole other rant. And, and then I'll say, okay, cool. I, I will agree to pay you this if no one in your office treats me judgmentally in a negative way. And otherwise, otherwise, I don't owe you a thing. And, and that's going to be my conversation up front because I'm just not interested in that sort of relationship. I don't know.

Yeah, yeah. Well, no, let me, let me take. Can I tell you my favorite terrible customer service story related to dentist?

Sure.

So I'm not a fan of the dentist. You know, I have a great one now, and I'm trying to get him to come on the show.

Oh, that'd be great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's smart about it. And it's not that feeling at all when you go in there, but I had one before. Excuse me, before. And my wife went to him. I was like, oh, you know, I'll go to this guy. And, you know, it was fine. But I had that same thing, you know, it's like, oh, this and what are you doing? And you got to do more of this and more of that. And I know they're trying to improve your dental care, which is critically important. However, the way they go about it.

Yes. Shaming you into it.

Yes. Shaming is good.

Is that actually motivational for people? Like, I don't think it is. I, I certainly don't get any success trying to shame people into motivation. It doesn't work.

Yeah. So I went to this guy, I went to them for a couple years, whatever, and it was just terrible. So it didn't make me want to go. So I missed my six Month appointment. Like, I can't make it.

I'm too busy. I can't do that.

So the next appointment came around, and I said, you know what? And I just. I blew through it, too. So that's a year. And I'm thinking that's, this is bad. I got to get to the dentist. But literally, like a week after I missed that, and I canceled the appointments, I didn't just not show up. Of course, when I missed those, I got a letter in the mail telling me that if I did not make my next appointment, they were going to destroy all of my dental records they had on file because they just didn't have the room to keep those.

You know what I mean? That's judgmental, too. Like, how underhanded. God. What.

I may have kept the letter because I remember showing, you know, my wife Renee, I was like, this is the worst, worst example of customer service or one of them that I've ever seen in my life. It's like, you have some digital X rays and a few pieces of paper about me, and you're telling me you're going to get rid of it. So I never went back. I canceled the next one, and I found. I did some reviews. I started looking on Yelp and stuff, and I found a low one right close to my house. And these guys are awesome, and the hygienist is totally cool. And what I found is, I go in, I start talking to this person, the dentist. I talk in business. How's business? Yeah, what do you. And he's doing all this cool software, and I'm all, hey, do you pay a subscription for that? You know, because I have a software business. And I start going to think. So I was like, hey, you know, we better get to my teeth. You know, why don't we talk for half an hour? You know, and so it's. It is what. It's a great opportunity to. To build a successful businesses, change up that whole concept.

Yeah, I just. I think about it like, a perfect example for me is when someone, you know, I don't do a ton of it now, but some consulting where I help people with their computers, but I used to do it all the time, and I'd walk into somebody's house, and the understanding. Now, sometimes it wasn't this way, but the understanding was I probably knew a whole lot more about this stuff than you did. And realistically, the problem that you're having with your computer is something you caused. Right. Like 99% of the time, that's what happens. It's Fine. Never once did I. I mean, I say never once. Certainly never once with a new customer. If I knew somebody for a really long time and we had a different rapport and we were joking with each other, then I might walk in and say, looks like you installed some more spyware. You know, like that kind of thing. But walking into somebody's home for the first time, it's like, oh, you've got some spyware on here. Let me help you get this off here. Let me. Let me talk with you about how this might have gotten on here and what you can do to, you know, avoid this in the future. And is there anything else I can help you with? Like, there was no. There's no benefit to me to take the, you know, sit on my high horse and tell them how terrible they are because they got spyware on their computer.

Yeah. Shame is not a part of your. Of the business model.

It would never get me invited back to their house.

You got it. Yeah. Yeah. I just had some big lessons there, man.

Yeah, yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy. So that's.

It is crazy.

That's where I start this.

All right, so I guess we should start the show.

Well, yeah, I actually, I have. I want to talk about our two sponsors, but.

Oh, yeah, let's do that.

You know, our. Our first sponsor is Abby Connect. And it. You know, we were just talking here about how important customer service is and how important that relationship is, and they are right there to help you bring that to the next level. Because every touch point you have with your customer needs to be optimal. You know, unless maybe you're a dentist, like we just talked about. But in every other business, success means optimal customer service experience. And that means even when people call you on the phone, you want that to be a perfect experience. And one way to make that start at perfection, especially in today's world, is to have a human answer the phone. And not just a human, a friendly, professional, well trained human that can answer the phone, because nobody does that these days. And that is your leg up, because that's what Abby Connect does. Sure, you could hire someone to be in your office and answer the phone, but that obviously is very expensive. You know, it's going to cost you several thousand dollars a month. Abby Connect puts the personal touch back into customer care with their team of professionally trained customer service representatives that are going to answer your phone. And they're all in the same office. They've got a place just outside of Las Vegas, as I understand it. And they are the Frontline of your business now, right? You tell them how you want to have people trained and then they take care of training all of your team of receptionists. And it's a fraction of the cost of what you would pay to have just one person in your office doing this. And the cool part is you can sort of use it when you want to use it. If you're in your office and you can answer your phone, well, by all means, you know, if that makes sense to you, answer your phone. But if you're going to be out of your office or you're just busy and doing other things, you can have the calls go to Abbyy Connect. And we've worked out a great deal to get you started. So the first thing you get with this deal is a no obligation free trial with Abby connect. Then number two, after your free trial, you get 95 bucks off your first bill. Now, in order to get all this, you have to go to this special URL. It's abbyconnect.com SBS that's A, B, B, Y, C, O, N, N, e, C, T. One more time. Abbyconnect.com SBS Our thanks to Abbyy Connect for sponsoring this episode. Our second sponsor. Yeah, it is cool. Our second sponsor today is textexpander. Textexpander is a tool both Shannon and I use and it too can help you with customer service. Because what textexpander does is it allows you to take a snippet of text, let's say an email response or a piece of information that you need to share, like an address or anything like that. And you put these into textexpander and you can craft them perfectly. So the next time that you have to send that same response to a customer who's asking the question, you don't have to dig through your sent folder and find the last time you sent it. And maybe you iterated on this thing, but you know, you found an older version in your sent folder and now you just sent the wrong thing out. Or you've got to edit and you've got to deal with like formatting from an email. No, no, no. You put it into textexpander and it's right there. You can either click with a mouse or you can actually type. Little short, little keystroke to invoke it, hence text expander. And it puts this right there for you in your email or wherever it is that you're typing it, maybe a web form, that kind of thing. And it's always the most up to date version because it's synced to all your machines and you can sync it with your team too. The new version, Textexpander 6.5, gives you a visual editor for your snippets. It used to be if you wanted to like insert the date or, you know, other little fill in forms, you had to know these percent codes and that sort of thing. It wasn't terrible, but now they made it even better because it's all visual. You just drop these things in. Looks great. Syncs to all your devices, syncs to your team. And if you visit textexpander.com podcast, you get 20% off your first year of Textexpander. So you gotta check it out. As I said, go to textexpander.com podcast you get 20% off your first year. Our thanks to Textexpander for sponsoring this episode. All right, Shannon, now what do you got next?

Real quick? Yeah, I want to comment on the textexpander. You know, that's the beauty of the subscription model is that you're always going to have the latest version and as you kind of lean into using textexpander and expand it across your organization, you know, they just keep adding new features. And it is, it's a life changing piece of software that everyone in your company will love to use and will come to rely on it every day. It's fantastic.

It's true. It's true. Yeah. Cool.

Okay, so we're what, 18, 19 minutes in. It's time to start the show, what we were going to talk about. But you know, we, we, we had a great response to some of the topics recently that we've been talking about, specifically when we talked about the, this idea of a to did list. And if you missed that episode, I would encourage you to go back and listen to it. Lots of emails, questions, comments in the small business support group at BusinessShow Co Facebook and a few comments were made about not only oh, it's great that you're tracking what you did, but we had a couple people specifically talk about tracking what you didn't do. Basically a two didn't list and a about not wasting your time or well, maybe that's not the right phrase, but not, not spending your time on tasks that are not, you know, not important to what you need to get done. And so I thought we'd talk about, expand on the topic, discuss the importance of prioritizing, delegating and, you know, how to get through your day and be the most productive, you know, using these concepts.

I like it. Yeah.

Good.

Yeah. For sure.

Yeah. Yeah. And I, I think it ties back to. We had a recent guest, Joseph Stewart from the Mac Outlet and from Felt that came on, and he made a comment that really hit me. He said, I paraphrase here, make sure that you're doing $1,000 per hour work and not $10 per hour work. And I thought, God, I'm definitely adding this to my short list of questions that I ask myself most days. And I always ask, you know, what is the number one thing I could be doing to generate revenue? But I don't ask myself enough, you know, is this really the best use of my time based on, you know, what, what the value is? And so I think that's a really good thing to ask yourself. And it's part of one of the first things when you're trying to prioritize. Should I be doing this? Should I delegate it? Should I outsource? It? Is, you know, ask yourself that question. I think it's good. And then I think the next thing to do is trying to identify these tasks. You know, you're going to, you know, if you're a list maker, make a huge list, just giant of everything you want to get done, and then break it down. It could be yearly, monthly, weekly, and then daily. And, you know, people like to put their goals down there, but I think it's better and, you know, we lean on Scott Adams again rather than setting those goals, but develop a system to achieve what those tasks are that you've set up.

Yeah.

You know, not, not just, I want to do this, and we're going to do this by this date. I'm going to do this by this. Well, but more importantly, okay, great, we want to grow by X, but what is the system that you're going to put in place to propel growth so you can blow past X? And even if you, you know, you're halfway to X, that's still success and. Oh, yeah, continue to grow on that sec. On. On that success.

Well, yeah, it, it's, it's great to say. I want business by June. Okay, cool. Great. Ask yourself, like you said. Right. Then you get to stop for a moment. You get to stop working in the business and work on the business and ask the question. Okay, well, what does that look like? Like paint whatever picture you want in June. How are you generating twice the revenue? Right. Or twice the profits? And, and first, maybe that's the first question you want to ask. Like, are you looking to increase your, your top line or your bottom line? Because it might be a Different, very different path to either one of those, right? And there's reasons to go after either and then say, okay, what's that look like? You might say, okay, well I want to, in order to increase my business, I know that I can do it by adding only, you know, I don't need twice as many customers, I just need 50% more customers. Right. Because I know how to sell better to new customers than I did my existing customers. Maybe you have some people on, you know, paying you less than new people would or whatever. Okay, great, fine, no problem. Great. I need to add, you know, If I got 100 customers, I need to have 50 more. No problem. Okay. Now you know what to do. You don't just know you want to get there, you know what to do and then you say, how do we get more customers? And this is where the system comes into play.

That's right.

Right where you're like, okay, this, now let's build a system to get more customers. Because the good part is if you build it, if you build that system now, your goal to double your business by June also then quadruples it by October. It just keeps going, it just keeps.

Going where being really goal specific is you're going to put out this goal that's out there and there's no success until you hit it. And if you don't hit it, it's a failure. Right? That's how most people think. So it's the underlying system that you develop over time that you tweak and adjust that builds longer term success. I love that, I love the concept, you know, is it really, it really works. So as you build this, this, you know, this list, it's critically important that you leave a space and even label it for a name next to each task. Just like, and we're going to talk more about this in a few minutes. But, but just trust me on it. Put a name next to everything. So one of the other things kind of along this system process of things that I've been really embracing lately is the concept of not getting attached to specific outcomes. And what I mean by that is, you know, keeping some uncertainty in your day and embracing different ways to complete tasks. I finding it very helpful because you kind of set your thing, oh, I need to do something this way or whatever, but it may turn out a little different and you may attack it a different way so that not getting attached to a specific outcome, but you're going to just continue focusing and working on that system, I think can be really a different way to look at things each day, I really like it. And then along the along, the idea of prioritizing is look at the impact on this list. You know, what is going to have the biggest impact on your business? It may not always be sales. I mean, one of my big flaws is I focus. I'm always out there looking for revenue to the hindrance of many of the underlying systems that are required to be successful.

True. And when lots of revenue is coming in and you're successful at attracting that, it's really easy to forget about creating and delegating or, and, and creating and maintaining your systems.

So yeah, and I suck at that. So I always try to get a partner and if I can't find a partner, you know, hire somebody, whatever, but someone that can ensure that those systems are developing as I'm ramming, you know, charging up the hill to find more revenue streams and to get things going. So. Because the revenue that you generate can, you know, be very short term if you don't have the systems in place to support it.

That's right. That's right. Yeah.

Look at the impact, you know, what's going to have that impact on your business and make sure you obviously develop those systems as you're, as you're going through each day. And another one that's kind of contrary, this works for me, but most people don't do it is I welcome interruptions during the day, but interruptions that I need to handle, not interruptions, you know, someone else's problem. And I, and I typically when my employees would come in my doorway and mention a problem, the first thing I ask them is like, well, what do you want to do? You know, what's your idea? You know, don't come dump your problem on my desk and expect I will help you solve it. But I want to hear what you think we should do first. And most of the time they want, what they want to do is correct. And you're hopefully instilling them in that confidence. That's. Oh, I knew I knew how to do it. Maybe next time I don't have to come into my office.

Right.

And ask me. But I like that being interrupted with things because sometimes those present really unique opportunities to make you feel more creative to, you know, something fell on your desk and instead of being like, no, no, I've got my list and I've got to focus on it. You could, you can work on it and achieve something. Just make sure you add it to your to did list, you know, because it's going to impact your time and what you can get done that day, and I think that's okay.

Brain hack, what you just said right there. So I. I've often said that the people you can tell very quickly if someone is cut out to be an entrepreneur or not by how they deal with interruptions and specifically how they deal with the phone ringing and they don't know who's on the other end. I have made it a point to answer the phone every time it rings. I'm very adept at getting rid of someone on the phone now. I mean, obviously, if I'm already on the phone or if we're doing this podcast or something, of course I don't answer the phone. I'm engaged here. But if I'm at my desk or otherwise not committed to something and the phone rings, if I have the option to say, oh, I could answer it or not, and either one is okay, I answer it. And oftentimes there is an opportunity on the other side of that phone, and you don't know what it is until you know what it is. And you can suss out very quickly. You know, it's 10 seconds whether or not this is going to be worth your time. And if it's not, you can. And the best line I ever learned is, oh, hey, thanks so much for calling. You know, thanks for your time, and you thank them for their time. That's it. The phone call's over.

Yeah.

There's no way to get out of that. And they hang out. Great. How else do they get out? Unless they want to put on their jackass shirt, you know, and say, actually, we're not finished. It's like, no, no, no, we're finished. I was being polite.

Yeah, I don't need my. My AC ducts cleaned.

Correct. But. But I've had enough times where I've answered the phone and it's been new business or like you said, some new opportunity that opens things up. And I've always said that people that shy away from that are generally not cut out to be entrepreneurs because they're not looking for that. But what you just said might be the way to hack your brain, because if it's, well, I'm really busy and I have to get this whole long list of things done. And if I answer the phone, that takes my time away. And at the end of the day, I won't have my list of things to look back on. Well, to your to did list point, you can answer the phone, deal with that, and put it on your to did list. There you go. Opportunity knocked. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's your daily success list that you're building and continue to program yourself. Like, and you come in in the next morning, you look at your to did list and you're thinking, man, I didn't even know I got all this stuff done.

I did it.

You know.

Yeah.

Or you look at it and go, wow, yesterday really kind of fell apart in productivity. So today I need to kind of, you know, focus more and pick up the slack or whatever. Totally. It's a very helpful tool. The other thing I think is important to do when you're prioritizing things is, you know, set. Set realistic deadlines, you know, putting all these crazy things on your list that you think you're going to knock out and then feeling bad about it at the end of the day, that that's not productive. It's not good for you. You know, over time, you're going to kind of get a sense of what you think you can get done. Be realistic when you know you want to push yourself. I think you need to know your limits so you can have some downtime, so you can think and breathe and get out of your office and walk around. And the last thing I would say on prioritizing is unplug. And, you know, there's a lot of distractions. Like, I welcome some of them, but. But certainly don't welcome a lot of them in social media and texts that come popping in. If you need to get your tasks done, unplug for a bit and focus on it.

Yeah, yeah. There's nothing wrong with going heads down for sure, and you want to get something done, that's fine. Yeah. Do that by scheduling time with yourself. Like I said, Shannon and I are right here. We've scheduled time to record this show. We've committed that to each other. And usually we make it. There's times when either one of us has something and it interrupts it or whatever and we have to change, but it becomes a thing. You can do that even when there's no one else involved. You can schedule time with yourself and just block it out. And just like, I am here, I've turned off my texts and my phone and I'm in and doing something that is productive for me. And then I come out and I look at my email and everything else, and then my day kind of spirals for a little bit, and then I get back to the next thing that I need to focus on.

Yeah, yeah, you reset.

Yeah. Don't make other people a greater priority than you would make yourself is really the Lesson. Yeah. Because I'm making you a priority and this show a priority right now. If I've got stuff to do that benefits me later, I should do the same thing. So you can do the same.

Absolutely. Yeah. So, okay, so let's talk a little bit about delegating. I only have a few things because the more I started writing, I started thinking, wow, we could really do an entire show on this. And I think we should. But remember the names that I told you to put next to your big list of tasks, your blt. So as you look at those tasks, start adding names and work as hard as you can to put your name down last, because I think it gets you to really think about, do I need to do this? It goes to that $10000 concept. And even if you're a sole proprietor or you have one or two people small and can't do it, if. If you can outsource that, if you can hire somebody from Fiverr, you know, I'd have some graphic work done for, you know, business that I'm involved in about a week ago. And I said, well, I could mess with that and whatever, but, you know, I got it done for 40 bucks, you know, and. And that is just. I have to always kind of remind myself, we'll get back to. To this. So if. If you don't have a name to put on it, but you don't have to do it, just write down outsource. I need to find somebody. Do that. Because let me tell you, it's inexpensive to find people to help you, whether it's upwork, whether it's Fiverr, whether it's an intern that you could bring in. And I was recently talking to a guy that him and his wife run a business. They're pretty successful, and he kind of sells himself short. He runs a couple little stores. One is a dough selling cookie dough business. And I was like, man, you guys should get an intern in here. He's like, oh, there's nothing here. It's like, like, man, you have a lot of knowledge that some young person or someone who wants to start a business like this would love to come get, you know, so don't sell your concept in yourself and your knowledge short. Get an intern, put an ad up there, put an ad on LinkedIn, put an ad on Craigslist, Put it. Find the local, you know, community college and talk to them about someone that could come work with you and get credit and learn about business and about being accountable and about customer service and about all the stuff that you know about to be successful, they can come work for you, and it's most time not going to cost you anything because you're sharing your knowledge and that. And that's priceless. So leave those spots and outsource anything that you, you know, want to do. And I'm going to leave the delegating at that because.

Yeah, no, I would like to dig more into that.

Yeah, yeah, we'll do a. And I'm not sure if we can do it for our next episode, but if we can, you know, I think that would be a good thing to. To put into, because delegating as much of your work each day is a powerful way to really increase your productivity and ramp up your success.

It is a hard habit to develop, especially for the solopreneur. You start your business, you're just doing everything yourself because either you have to or even you want to. The very beginning things, you want to be in control. You have an idea, you do this. And as things progress, that habit cements itself very, very quickly because you trust yourself, even for the things where trust is not as important. You know, there's a big difference between delegating your, you know, all of your accounting and handling of all your finances. Right. Versus, you know, like somebody creating a logo for you that you spent 40 bucks on. Well, you know, if you spent 40 bucks and the logo comes back and it's crap, well, okay, fine, just throw it away. It's fine. That's 40 bucks. Whereas if you spent money and somebody took. Took all the rest of your money because you gave them access, you gave them the keys to the bank, that's worse, right? So think about where the trust is. But we'll. We'll get it. Yeah, I'm dragging us too far down that path. Sorry.

No, no. Yeah. There's a lot to talk about because I've, I've. Especially along that. That when you have less people, because I've kind of come full circle, you know, sold a couple of my businesses, you know, where I had a bunch of employees, and it was easy to just delegate. Pop, pop, pop, pop. You do this, you do that, you do that. But now I don't have that. So I'm definitely struggling with. Especially like our luxury handbag business where, you know, the concept was to start it, run everything on my phone, but. And it's been successful. I mean, you know, it'll. It'll. We'll probably do a quarter million, you know, this year. And it's great because there's, you know, very low overh kind of stuff, but it's taking a lot more of my time now as that success grows. And I was just telling my wife, she's like, you know what? I either need to find somebody to take this over, because this is. I'm coming up on my third, almost to the third year of ramping it up. And I either need to find somebody to take it over or I need to sell it because it's not. It's. I'm constantly battling that $10000 hour work and I can go find something else to do that that fulfills me in a different way. And now that I kind of tested the concept of I could do this, you know, it's time to do something else. Yeah, it's interesting. So we'll do that. But thank you for listening, folks. And if you have tips on prioritizing, delegating, how you use your time, please come share them with the hundreds of other small business owners that go to the small Business support group each day at BusinessShow Co Facebook. That'll ramp you up there and. And send us your feedback@feedbackusinessshow.co. we really appreciate you listening and we'd love to hear from you.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

It's a good thing, man. And I'm looking forward to that delegation show. It's good to talk about it because like I said, it's a hard habit to develop. Keep living that charmed life, folks. We'll see you next week.