Leading your first business? You'll need to manage your time first
Your time is the only thing you truly own when you’re starting out. How you spend that time matters greatly to the success of your business.
Over the past 24 months, we’ve seen a flood of people move from full-time employees to being self-employed. As a business owner at one point or another for over 15 years now and I’ve learned a few important lessons in the process. Firstly, your time is the only thing you own when you’re starting out. How you spend that time matters greatly to the success of your business.
So here are a few things that I would strongly consider you doing right now to ensure that you have success here:
List of Services
-
1. Set a firm schedule of working hours and commit to it.List Item 1
I’m always at my desk by 9am and I keep a committed space to work within. I take breaks at noon and at 4pm for my dogs. I know several parents who have a similar schedule picking up their kids from school. Since I took an hour out of my business day, I’m usually back in the evening for about an hour or two to create more content and work on long-term projects for my business
-
2. Write a Job Description for yourselfList Item 2
You’re the boss AND the only employee in your business when you start out. You can (and should) have advisors and consultants to help you with certain elements of your work, but they won’t know the details of your business the way that you should know it.
- What tasks are you responsible for (sales, accounting, advertising, etc.)?
- What skills should you have (whatever skills you’re missing you need to figure out how to get them)?
- When will you give yourself your first performance review?
-
3. Track your time and effortList Item 3
Your time is the most valuable thing that you own and can’t be replaced once you spend it. So you need to keep your efforts into a calendar to keep yourself accountable. It’s easy to see when you’ve wasted your time if you have nothing related to the business on your calendar:
- Daily and Weekly Plans: At the beginning of every week AND every day, write down a list of things that you want to accomplish in that period of time. Then review the list at the end of the day to ensure that you’ve completed that.
- Project Management: Get in the habit of using a Project Management tool to track every initiative that you’re working on and organize all of your notes, questions and answers with others who are working on this with you. Share that information with someone to help hold you accountable to complete those tasks.
- Time Tracking: Create a calendar specifically for your work. Block out time chunks of 3-4 hours for each thing that you’re working to accomplish in a week… Every 30 mins of that calendar MUST have something on it (even if that means that you went to lunch or went to the coffee shop). Please share that with others as well to keep you honest and accountable to your efforts.
-
4. Multiply your time by automating your workList Item 4
You can’t be in two places at once, but you can set up systems to handle multiple tasks for you. In your personal life, you probably use a washing machine to clean your clothes while you handle other household chores.
In your business life, using tools like Marketing Automation or Salesforce Automation helps you complete tasks that would otherwise take up your time. This frees you up to work on other areas of your business that deliver direct revenue and results.
Can’t AI do this for me?
It’s worth noting the Artificial Intelligence can expand the number of tasks that a system can handle for you, but there will always be tasks that require your personal attention. That’s why it’s important to strategically think about how you use those tools to deliver value for you. At this point, you can’t just say “Hey ChatGPT, build me a successful business…” and it’ll happen.
Some of these tasks might seem trivial, but they make a world of difference to your success. I’d recommend that you present these points to anyone on a regular meeting in a slide deck, just like you’d present it to your boss at a normal job.
But what if I’m the only person in my business?
If you’re a solopreneur or a team of one, get an advisor or a consultant to help you. If you haven’t built out a revenue stream for your business yet, then present it to a friend or family member. You might even be able to do this to other business professionals you’d meet in a community group like the Charlotte Digital Marketers group.
The bottom line is this: Are you willing to do what it takes for the success of your business???
Subscribe to our Blog
Read the latest updates and insights about how to make the most of your marketing technology to meet your business and revenue goals.
Contact Us
