29 Nov
Yay! Your business is stable, with the promise of growth around the corner…and you have a bunch of ideas to implement that will improve your customer reach and profitability. The only catch is, where do you find the capacity to do it all? Without overtaxing you, your team, your current processes and operating mechanisms? Because, you know your business can’t implement anything new without the capacity to create and maintain it. So now what?
The first step in unlocking your businesses’ capacity (without unlocking Pandora’s Box of pandemonium) is to assess your current capacity. Perform an audit (read: create a list) of what you do — you actually do — each day. There are likely a bunch of things you do no-problem every day. And, there are also a bunch of things you *think* you do every day…or need to do every day, but never actually get around to doing.
It’s OK, we all do this. But have you ever stopped to think of why? Is it possible that the things you are putting off are things you don’t like doing? (It’s OK to admit it, we’re all friends here.) What if you were to offload these tasks to someone that actually liked doing them? You may have that person on your team already. To find out, have your team audit their daily tasks too. Then, you’ll need to open up a dialogue to determine what they like and dislike about their tasks and responsibilities. Trigger warning: this may be a really difficult conversation for your high-performing or overachieving employees. Too often, we think we need to be all things to all people in all tasks. If your employee is finding it hard to say what they don’t like doing, dig in a little more…it’ll be worth it to find out. When we’re doing what we love, it never feels like work.
If you don’t have a person on your team that likes doing the tasks you don’t, it may be time to outsource the task to someone else or an outside agency.
The next step for assessing capacity is to develop a habit of keeping your biggest priorities top of mind. You may have heard the phrase, ‘chase two rabbits, catch none?’ This absolutely applies to your business priorities, daily. Too often we are inundated with the tyranny of the urgent (which has this really annoying habit of knocking our to-do lists off the desk and into the trash can). To put an end to this madness, commit everyday to your biggest priority for that day. Make this a priority, and watch your weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual goals get accomplished…almost like magic.
If you’re in need of capacity-building magic in your business, give us a call. We’d love to show you how a simple roadmap can keep your business on-track, profitable, and pushing toward growth and expansion, without all the headaches.