2 Sure Fire Ways to Know When to Delegate Tasks

Written by Traci Brosman

Have you ever felt like you had way too much to do and not enough help or time in the day to get it all done? As a small business owner knowing when and when not to delegate work can make all the difference in the world.

If you delegate too early by hiring employees or subcontractors that you can’t afford than you are setting your business up for catastrophe. If you continue doing the work when you should have delegated, than guess what you are also setting yourself up for not only failure but also a lot of heartache, stress and anxiety because now you are doing the work of two or three people.

Knowing when to get help could mean the difference between your business thriving or your business sucking the life out of you. So how do you know when to delegate?

Number 1

If you do not like the task, if you dread it or procrastinate you must delegate it. Your business will be so much better off. Because imagine a doctor who hates following up with patients. They do it anyway, sporadically though because it is something they dread. However, he or she knows it has to be done so they do their best but even then, they dread it and put it off as long as possible. How do you think this helps their business?

It doesn’t…it hurts it tremendously. All of the negative energy that is put around tasks you dread keeps your business from flourishing.

Do something different instead. Choose to pay someone $50.00 a week to do 5-6 hours of follow up with your clients. The person you choose should be happy and outgoing. They should love to send emails, make phone calls, send birthday cards and little tokens of appreciation.

How do you think this is going to affect your business? Do you think that you will be losing $50 a week or do you think you will be gaining much more than that?

Number 2

As business owners, we often wait until the last possible moment to hire someone. We are trying to conserve the bottom line and keep more money to ourselves. We are actually sabotaging our businesses with this mentality though. Instead, develop a new way of thinking.

For ALL tasks that do not directly bring you in additional income, ask yourself what you need to do to be able to delegate the task. Let’s use the doctor as another example. The doctor’s main source of income is seeing patients not answering the phone, doing paperwork or anything else related to the office. The doctor can’t bill the insurance company if the patient was never seen. Therefore, the doctor needs to look at all of the hours that need to be spent on having an office that runs efficiently and is consistently attracting new patients and retaining current patients. In this example, we will say the doctor is spending two hours a day doing paperwork when they could be seeing patients. If instead they hired somebody, to do this paperwork for them they will now be free to see many more patients during the week and they will have increased their bottom line in the process.

It doesn’t make sense to not delegate when you are doing work that can be done by someone else more efficiently while freeing you up to do the work that makes you money.

For more information check out 10 Tasks You Can Get Done for Under $50.