A discussion in one of my recent articles has yet again highlighted lack of time as being one of the biggest issues small business owners face.

In this context of that discussion it’s about not having enough time to get away from working IN your business to the point where you can work ON it, and really start building it fast.

As Shuaib mentioned in this discussion referred to above, it’s a frustrating situation.

So what’s the answer? How does a business owner find the time to create a system they can then use to extricate themselves from working IN their business?

Well I can only talk about my own experience — but I have a lot to share in that department.

In my recent ebook I explained how automating and delegating (or outsourcing) is one of the keys to getting big results from your website. And it’s that point that started the discussion about how to do it.

To quote Shuaib…

Secret No 6 in the book states that not only is there so much to do, but most of it can be delegated / automated and outsourced (which is a bit of a paradox for me in the sense that you as a business owner, not only should / would you want to plan every minute detail of your business, but you got to THEN QUICKLY DELEGATE 99% of it! (and most business owners are self-admittedly lousy delegators, because THEY WANT TO MAKE SURE THEY DO EVERYTHING PERFECTLY BY DOING IT THEMSELVES!!)

Well first of all the quest for perfection is a killer of (business) dreams. If you suffer from it, you have to get over it fast. And I don’t say that lightly because my quests for perfection on some projects has cost me dearly over the years.

However, what I’m not saying is that you or I have to accept things to be ‘sub-standard’ just because we aren’t personally involved.

The answer is to document exactly what you want doing — to a level that if the said document is followed, step by step, then the end output will be to the standard you expect.

Now to some that may sound like a LOT of work. (If you’ve ever tried to create a detailed procedures document in Microsoft Word it can take a lot of tedious effort.)

Thankfully there are two much betters ways of documenting procedures these days.

First of all you can easily create video recordings of each procedure being performed.

My Shrink Wrap Your Brain! home-study programme shows how to create information products that can be sold on DVD and the web… but the exact same software and process can be used to create training videos you can then give to staff and contractors.

The other piece of software I swear by these days and find invaluable for creating training manuals (procedures) is ScreenSteps software — which makes procedures documentation a lot easier to update.

Then all your member of staff/contractor/outsourcer has to do is watch the video (or follow the document) and perform the procedures and tasks in step with it… and you get the same standard of output, every time.

Of course you may want to monitor output to keep checking the output is up to specification. You may even want to create another procedures document that can be used to check the output from other procedures.

Simply record what you do to check the output created by the first procedure, and then delegate that too.

Finally, you need some sort of feedback loop or reporting mechanism.

So for example if the checking procedure finds a problem that should obviously get reported to either you or a manager so it can be rectified (and the former procedure can be improved to ensure the same problem doesn’t happen again).

Remember, every hour or minute you spend working IN your business is one hour less spent growing it.

Work ON your business is defined as anything that will acquire more customers or clients, make a buying opportunity available to one or more categories of customers or clients, or any activity that increases your average customer/client spend.

How about next week you start recording what you do… and turn that recording into a process document or video that can then be delegated?

Do that for every task that can be delegated to someone else ( and I’ll bet there are more than you think).

Eventually, after a few weeks you should see a remarkable difference in how much time you now how to work ON your business, not IN it.

For example I’ve created screen recordings and PDFs (ScreenSteps recordings) for different aspects of my book order fulfilment — separate procedures for…

• Processing PayPal book orders.
• Processing orders from bookshops.
• Dealing with post-payment requests for alternate shipping addresses.
• And others

All of those documents are detailed enough that following a quick induction, when someone new joins my fulfilment team they can be given the documentation and train themselves on the job.

Click record.

My point in this lengthy article is that creating a business system may take a while — but it doesn’t have to take much if any extra time — just start recording what you do.

Of course finding decent staff, contractors and outsources is another issue which I won’t go into today.

This is a big subject and these are little more than general notes, but I hope they help Shuaib and anyone else looking to reduce how much time they spend working IN their business.

Have a great weekend,
Ed.