A real business is an entity that allows some form of leverage, employment is the most obvious one.
In other words you must have some things being done and money being earned without your direct input.
This is said with all due respect to sole traders an operators whose business is entirely dependent on them.
To help entrepreneurs take their business to the next level, a new andless committing form of employment has arisen world wide thanks to the internet: outsourcing.
If you consider that well over 85% of small businesses are either "trading water" or plain struggling and slowly heading for the exit door, outsourcing would have to be one of the most immediate solutions to consider.
But let's take a step back and outline the main reasons for business failure.
Michael Gerber's book " The Emyth revisited" is a great start to understand how small business fails, here are the main ones: If you are a "technician" you are passionate about your product or service, and you take pride in making sure it is delivered with the best possible quality to the customer.
Therefore you stay so close to the product creation and delivery that you are automatically a very hands on business owner.
From that moment the other 2 essential tasks of business growth start falling behind and become neglected, to your detriment...
I am talking about innovation and promotion.
If you have ever heard the famous saying:" all the tasks in your business shouldbe delegated except for marketing", you will be aware that remaining at the coal face is not a sustainable way to own a business.
So before you hit the burnout syndrome or stagnating cash flow, you must consider outsourcing.
Successful businesses are sales and profit focused at all times and this why they are successful.
To allow time for driving business growth you must identify all the tasks that are not directly related to growing your clientele and increasing your cash-flow.
Then investigate how you can delegate or outsource these tasks.
The next step is to create a cash-flow forecast that shows you how much increased profit your could generate by focusing at least 50% of your time on sales and marketing.
Once you have investigated the various outsourcing options and their cost,you will quickly see that outsourcing is actually very cheap and provides a great ROI (Return On Investment).
Typical tasks you can outsource are as follows: doing the books, typing long documents or reports, cleaning premises, writing articles to drive traffic to your website etc...
In fact, all the tasks that the business owner is currently performing and that could be performed faster and often better, for an average hourly rate.
The point is that such tasks are non revenue generating, and doing them yourself is actually driving your business backwards, with the illusion of saving money.
Once you have determined your outsourcing plan you will find yourself in a position where you can truly focus on all the revenue generating tasks, commonly identified by Brian Tracy as "A" tasks.
The major benefit of outsourcing is simply to allow you 100% focus on "A" tasks, the ones that otherwise only get done when you run out of fires to put out.
In other words you must have some things being done and money being earned without your direct input.
This is said with all due respect to sole traders an operators whose business is entirely dependent on them.
To help entrepreneurs take their business to the next level, a new andless committing form of employment has arisen world wide thanks to the internet: outsourcing.
If you consider that well over 85% of small businesses are either "trading water" or plain struggling and slowly heading for the exit door, outsourcing would have to be one of the most immediate solutions to consider.
But let's take a step back and outline the main reasons for business failure.
Michael Gerber's book " The Emyth revisited" is a great start to understand how small business fails, here are the main ones: If you are a "technician" you are passionate about your product or service, and you take pride in making sure it is delivered with the best possible quality to the customer.
Therefore you stay so close to the product creation and delivery that you are automatically a very hands on business owner.
From that moment the other 2 essential tasks of business growth start falling behind and become neglected, to your detriment...
I am talking about innovation and promotion.
If you have ever heard the famous saying:" all the tasks in your business shouldbe delegated except for marketing", you will be aware that remaining at the coal face is not a sustainable way to own a business.
So before you hit the burnout syndrome or stagnating cash flow, you must consider outsourcing.
Successful businesses are sales and profit focused at all times and this why they are successful.
To allow time for driving business growth you must identify all the tasks that are not directly related to growing your clientele and increasing your cash-flow.
Then investigate how you can delegate or outsource these tasks.
The next step is to create a cash-flow forecast that shows you how much increased profit your could generate by focusing at least 50% of your time on sales and marketing.
Once you have investigated the various outsourcing options and their cost,you will quickly see that outsourcing is actually very cheap and provides a great ROI (Return On Investment).
Typical tasks you can outsource are as follows: doing the books, typing long documents or reports, cleaning premises, writing articles to drive traffic to your website etc...
In fact, all the tasks that the business owner is currently performing and that could be performed faster and often better, for an average hourly rate.
The point is that such tasks are non revenue generating, and doing them yourself is actually driving your business backwards, with the illusion of saving money.
Once you have determined your outsourcing plan you will find yourself in a position where you can truly focus on all the revenue generating tasks, commonly identified by Brian Tracy as "A" tasks.
The major benefit of outsourcing is simply to allow you 100% focus on "A" tasks, the ones that otherwise only get done when you run out of fires to put out.