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Day 11. Getting help.
If you have completed yesterday’s challenge you will now have your project plan so today we’re going to consider where you might need to get help and how to get it.
We all have different strengths and weaknesses, the things we do really well and the things that are best left to others. How much time do you spend doing tasks that someone else could do better and more quickly? Ask yourself, is doing this task the best use of my time? If you can sell your time at £50 per hour why are you doing a task you could delegate to someone who charges £25 per hour?
Do you ever find yourself saying, ‘By the time I’ve explained what I want to someone else I could have done it myself’? Do you think Richard Branson does everything himself? No, of course not, he knows his strengths and his weaknesses and has built a team to work alongside those. He appreciates the value of delegation and knows how to do it. I know that, for many small business owners, the costs of employing other people to do things for you may seem prohibitive but we’re going to look at ways of making it affordable in today’s challenge.
Know your strengths and weaknesses
Do you show a preference for left brained or right brained traits? If you’re left brained you are more task focused, you may be analytical, results driven and detail conscious. If you are right brained you will be more concerned with people, building relationships and may be more creative.
Of course we’re all a bit of both although one side is likely to be more dominant than the other. If your dominant side is right brained then you may need help getting things done and if you are left brain dominant you may need some help to generate ideas.
When we’re looking for help it is tempting to go for people like ourselves but this is often a mistake, two right brained people will probably have a lot of fun but struggle to get things done whereas two left brained people will have all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed but may not be able to find creative solutions to problems. Which are you?
ACTION: Use the SWOT analysis tool from Day 7 to analyse your own strengths and weaknesses; be honest!
If you would like a more objective view of your strengths and weaknesses I am offering 20% off Prism Brain Mapping profiling for the duration of this challenge. You complete a questionnaire and then receive a report detailing your strengths and weaknesses which I will go through with you by telephone or, if you are close enough, in person. Click here for more information.
Work to your strengths and delegate the rest
Take a look at the project management plan you completed yesterday. Which of the tasks on the list are ones that you are good at and should be done by you? Which will take you a long time and cause you anxiety? What skills, qualities or experience will someone need in order to those tasks well and speedily? Develop those into a job description or project brief which you can then use to recruit the help you need. You can then get on with making money at what you do best.
Finding help
Do you have other members of your team whose skills are better suited to those tasks? Do they have capacity in their working day to take on these new tasks or is there something you can do to rejig workloads?
If you don’t have anyone on your team is there someone in your network with the right skills and experience whom you could pay as a freelancer? If paying for help is not an option is there something you could trade in return for the help you need? For example a beauty therapist might be able to trade a treatment in return for some copywriting; a virtual assistant might be able to offer some admin support in return for a wardrobe makeover.
How about turning your problem into an opportunity for someone else? For example many graduates are looking for work experience to help them get a better job. Could you offer an internship or work experience to help them and help yourself (whilst graduates are sometimes willing to work in the right job for no money they do have to live so try to pay them a minimum wage or at least their expenses). N.B. Employment law varies from country to country so make sure you know what you are allowed to do in your country.
Could you offer an Apprenticeship to a young person looking for training and qualifications to improve their career prospects? In the UK there is some government help to support employers taking on an apprentice (the Mayor for London is topping up that help for a limited number of London employers to encourage them to take apprentices.) Apprentices have to be paid and receive training but this is still less expensive than taking on a more experienced person and allows you to do something to help young people and your business.
Do you need the sort of help that can be done from anywhere? If so why not post your job on the internet and invite bids from people who would like the work? Websites such as http://www.peopleperhour.com/ can connect you with people who are willing to work at very affordable rates. Other options are http://www.guru.com/ and https://www.elance.com which allow you to post your job opportunities which freelancers can then pitch for. To find more just Google ‘posting freelance opportunities’.
ACTION: Decide which tasks to delegate and give yourself time to recruit the appropriate help in line with your project plan.
Next steps, should you choose to take them…
- Share any insights or recommendations in the comments section here.
- Join the conversation on Facebook to gain support from the 21 Day Challenge community (we’ll be looking at some of the benefits of social media later in the challenge but for now being active on this page and on Facebook can help boost the way people can find you on the Internet.)
- Tweet this ‘I’m working on Day 11 of @Glenda_S 21 Day Make money Challenge #21DMMC‘
- Join us tomorrow to when we’ll be putting together our budgets.
Join the Challenge!
The Training Pack is 21 years old in September 2013 and we’re celebrating! The 21 Day make money challenge is our gift to you. It’s free to join and suitable for anyone who would like to make some more money.
Perhaps you are a business owner wanting to increase your turnover. Maybe you want to make some money for a good cause. Perhaps you just want to make some money to supplement the family income.Maybe you are thinking of starting a business. Whatever your reason the challenge is for you.
You set your target. You set your deadline. We’ll publish one activity a day for 21 days to help you develop your plan to reach your goal. We first ran this challenge starting on September 21st and will be running it again starting October 21st and November 21st. You can join at any time.
This is what we’ll be covering:
- Day 1: Set you goal
- Day 2: Create the vision
- Day 3: Who will buy?
- Day 4: Money raising ideas
- Day 5: What’s your competition?
- Day 6: Will your idea make you a profit?
- Day 7: Decision time.
- Day 8: Breaking down the actions
- Day 9: Using your Power Hour to get things done
- Day 10: Developing a project management plan
- Day 11: Establishing priorities
- Day 12: Budgeting
- Day 13: Financing your plan
- Day 14: Managing cashflow
- Day 15: Developing your marketing plan
- Day 16: Promoting via a blog
- Day 17: Using social media
- Day 18: Off line marketing
- Day 19: Using public relations
- Day 20: Get ready; Get set; Go
- Day 21: Sharing Success
Our Facebook group allows you to connect with other challengers. You’ll be able to share ideas, celebrate achievements and just get more support. You can join it here.
We might just find some prizes for those who make the most progress so why not join in? Click follow this blog to receive each post as it’s published or fill in the form. There’ll also be a link in the Facebook page.
Let’s see how much money you can make! Join today.