Time Management : Why Doing it Yourself Doesn't Work in Your Business

As a small business owner, you likely consider yourself to be a self-starter who is willing to work hard. Initially, it felt terrific to have your own business. After all, you are your own boss. No more answering to somebody else. You have received good feedback from your customers. Business is picking up. Yet, something doesn't feel right. Lately, working in your business has not been fun. You are working weekends and late into the night, just to keep your business afloat. You are doing everything in your business--advertising, bookkeeping, dealing with customers, ordering supplies, etc. You are seeing your business grow, but you dread it getting any bigger because you can't manage the demand now. You are making a common mistake of the small business owner--doing it all yourself. That's right, being a hard working, self-starter has undermined you!

Although you are doing all sorts of tasks yourself to save money, you are spending an incredible amount of time learning to do things that are totally new to you and outside your area of expertise. And, you have run out of time. There simply is not another hour in the day that you can find to do all those unfinished tasks for your business. Your spouse is fed up with your absence around the house. Your children have quit asking you to do things with them because they already know you are "too busy."

Tragically, many businesses fail or fail to turn sufficient profit, not because the owner did not have a good product or service, but because of poor time management. Many business owners fail to consider that time is a precious, valuable commodity. As a business owner, you must think strategically about your time.

I recently worked with a small business owner who had been in business for over fifteen years. Throughout the fifteen years, he had always felt his business was barely staying afloat. He hired me to coach him to develop his business so he could sell it and retire in five years. As we began working together, it became clear why his business was struggling. When repairs needed to be made, he would run to the hardware store to buy the supplies and attempt the repair himself--to save money. This wasn't the only thing he did himself. He had a staff of 30 employees with managers for his departments. Yet, when there was a problem with an employee's performance, he was the first to address it with the employee, rather than delegating that task to the appropriate manager. This "do it yourself" attitude was subtly undermining his business. When I began talking to him about strategic planning for his business, he questioned having the time for that. Sometimes, he was even too busy to keep his appointments with me because he was too busy doing tasks in his business.

What he failed to consider is what many small business owners fail to consider. Even though he seemed to be saving money by doing tasks, such as repairs, himself, he actually was losing money because he was spending his valuable time that could have been spent on strategic planning to increase his profits. When he had the opportunity to delegate tasks to an appropriate manager, he did not do so because he was concerned about making sure situations were handled the "right way" (i.e., "his way"). When I dug a little deeper, I learned he had been reluctant to invest money in training his managers because most of them quit within a year. He failed to see how he was undermining his managers by doing their work for them and not valuing them enough to invest in their training.

Although it took some time, he began using his time and other resources more wisely. He invested money in training his managers, who began managing more effectively. Turnover decreased across his staff. He no longer had to spend as much time recruiting and training new staff. The combination of these efforts freed up even more of his time for strategic planning. He began working on implementing effective procedures to streamline his business. By developing procedures for his front-line staff, his customer satisfaction ratings improved and he has begun getting repeat business. Thus, he now spends less money on advertising. He also has been able to reduce considerable waste in a number of areas of his business, which meant saving more of the money that was coming into his business. He is now seeing a significant increase in his profits simply by investing his time strategically. He has let go of his "do it yourself" mindset and is doing more strategic planning.

Begin thinking about your time like you think about money. Your time is valuable and it is limited. Is it really the best use of your time to be doing everything in your business? Once you are making some money from your business, it is wise to reinvest in your business by delegating tasks. How do you decide which tasks will get you the best return on your investment when they are delegated? If you haven't gotten around to repairing the leaky faucet at your home in two years, hire a contractor to make repairs in your shop. If you have difficulty keeping your personal checkbook balanced, hire a bookkeeper for your business. Even if you do a task well, it is important to ask yourself if it really is the best use of your time to do that task. For example, if you are great at office management, but are in business as an attorney, is it really the best use of your time to develop that new filing system?

Delegate, then use your time to think strategically about your business. Develop your vision for your business. What will your business look like in five years? How will you continue to deliver the same high quality product or service when your customer base has grown from 10 customers to 1,000, or even 10,000 customers? When you are asking those questions of yourself and developing well-thought out answers to those questions, you are investing your time wisely as a business owner.

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