HANDLING OTHER BUSINESS OPERATIONS
Accounting, fulfillment, customer service, IT, design, legal, R&D, buying, inventory: all these activities barely generate any revenue. All these activities need fulfilling, but to grow an 8-figure company, none of them require YOU to devote your time to them. It’ your job to get everything done, but you don’t have to be the one who does everything.
You know the saying: “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” You’ve heard this sentence hundreds of times. Let me tell you why I disagree with it.
Maybe if the sentence was: “If you want something done PERFECTLY right, and you want it right away, you have to do it yourself.” In that case, I would tend to agree. My objection is: do you really need everything done perfectly? Aren’t you better off doing something more important, more meaningful, while leaving the low-value activities to someone else?
Who’s working on your business’s strategy, if you’re fixing things on your website? Who’s doing the public speaking if you’re busy trying to figure out some legal stuff? Who’s watching the finances, if you’re doing customer support? Delegating down consists of choosing the right people to do the small things right. And I mean right. If you really want them do be done perfectly right, then give your people the appropriate training. Until then, some things don’t need to be perfect, so you can delegate them to someone who’ll get the job done to a good standard; doing so allows you to move on to high-value tasks, which is the ultimate goal of delegating down.
It’s like letting your kid clean the car. Does it need doing? Yes. Does it need doing PERFECTLY? No. Good enough is enough. If you want your kid to GROW, to be more mature, and finally be independent, you have to relinquish control. More importantly, let your kid do it again, and the standard will get better each time. The worst result you’ll get is usually the first time. After that, seek to coach them and help them refine it for next time. You can’t be there all the time—for their own good. Having a business is much like having a child, at times. It needs nurturing, support, practice, but there comes a time when it has to stand on its own two feet.
Among the activities that distract many business owners in the beginning of their journey is handling their customer service processes by themselves. But this needs to be delegated as soon as possible. This doesn’t mean that customer service isn’t important. Quite the opposite! Yes, you have to deal with potential customers, but you can’t spend your time with just anybody willing to buy your products or services. Can you imagine Jeff Bezos spending half an hour talking to someone in the street about the advantages of being an Amazon Prime member? It’s foolish.
Actually, you want to delegate customer service for two reasons:
You need to give them clear guidelines, train them regularly, and let them know that the work is of the utmost importance.
You want your business’s customer service to be a gold standard in your industry. It shouldn’t be hard, given that most customer services suck, especially in big corporations.
Train your people to answer queries very quickly. When your business receives an email or phone call from a client, train them to respond as soon as possible, even if they don’t always have a solid answer. Following up immediately builds trust and demonstrates to your clients that you value them and their business. Do it especially for important clients; yes there are clients who are more important than others for your business; and that’s the reason why you need someone entirely devoted to this task.
You should be in the habit of periodically conducting surveys to know how your clients evaluate your customer services, and closely monitor the results. Make it a priority from the very beginning, because you need recurring clients and you need a stellar reputation in order to reach a wider audience. Once you find great people who make your clients feel awesome, those will be the ones who will train your new recruits and pass on their savoir faire.
BOOKKEEPING
In the early days of your company, you’ll have to perform a wide range of duties. Low-value finance tasks (bookkeeping, invoicing, collecting money, setting up payment methods) are the ones business owners are often reluctant to delegate because they believe the subject to be highly sensitive.
Each of these tasks takes enormous amounts of time away from business owners, doesn’t bring in additional business, and can be easily delegated to professionals. In the beginning, you can do it yourself as long as it doesn’t take up too much of your time. But when the time comes, hire an external accountant or a freelancer, and send over your stuff to them. This is typically the kind of work that would take you weeks, while an expert would take care of it in twenty minutes flat!
Until your company reaches a certain size, you don’t need a full-time employee for that.
INVOICING AND COLLECTING MONEY
Automation can handle this for you, and I highly recommend it. It’s inexpensive, and it’ll allow you to easily track which clients aren’t paying on time. In addition, automated reminder messages don’t trigger any tension or shame from a client’s perspective, at least not when compared with speaking to someone on the phone.
If it’s necessary to chat, you can hire somebody to make the phone call on your behalf, for an administrative one-time job using Fiverr or Upwork. It’s better to not be involved in the payment process because it puts you in an awkward position with those you want to nurture a relationship with. That’s why intermediaries are used. It allows you to remain on good terms with your customers.
You can also get your virtual assistant involved in the sending of emails. You don’t want to deal with that either; it’s a waste of YOUR time. If necessary, ask your accountant to step in. Communication coming from an authority in the field is always taken more seriously. As a last resort, ask a lawyer to do it. You can find affordable ones on websites such as rocketlawyer.com or legalzoom.com. Besides, a one-time job can often develop and lead to a long-term collaboration.
PAYING YOUR BUSINESS’ BILLS
This is one of the few exceptions which I suggest to NEVER delegate it, at least not above a certain amount. In my medical device company (low 7-figure business), I was handling every payment of more than $1.5k and asked my managers not to bother me with claims of less than that. For my nutritional supplement business, when I was making low six figures in revenue, the amount was $250. Even then, I closely monitored expenses. It won’t take much time, as you’re the one who knows at a glance if there’s a discrepancy or any incoherence in your expenses. Control every dollar that goes out of your company. We’re talking about your business’s cash flow: your hard-earned money.
Note: financial analysis and forecasting is a high-value activity, and not to be mistaken with the low-value accounting tasks mentioned above. Negotiating a loan or a line of credit is also a high-value activity, so this is not to be delegated.