As a small business owner, it can be hard to let go and let your team members step in, whether that’s for marketing tasks or something else. We get it — you’ve built your own business from the ground up, and you want to keep making sure everything gets done the “right way.” But at what cost?
Trust us when we say we’ve been there. We understand the solopreneur and small business grind and the struggle to let go. That said, there always comes a point where it needs to happen, and that’s usually long before it actually does.
Here are a few steps to loosen the reins a little and allow you to best utilize your team members, whether they’re employees of your business or outside partners who are part of your team.
Setting priorities
What are your priorities? What would you feel most comfortable and confident about letting go of? What are tasks that you absolutely must do yourself? Usually, day-to-day administrative tasks are a good place to start. For example, delegating a team member to take over monitoring the general company email address or contributing to proposals or whatever else makes sense for your business. It doesn’t have to be anything big – just something to take off your plate so you can focus on bigger projects.
Assessing time
What is something that you are doing that’s taking up a lot of your time that someone else could do for you? Think about your perfect business day — what do you want to spend your time doing? What gets done in a typical day of work? Once you’ve identified tasks that are taking up a lot of your time, you can start delegating those to your team members.
Delegating tasks
Once you’ve set your priorities and have assessed your time, you can start delegating tasks for your team to handle. Take baby steps and let go of a few things at a time. Start by handing off something simple like email management, calendars, or monitoring social media accounts for likes, comments, and shares. Keep in mind, this isn’t just about marketing or communication tasks – it’s about everything that keeps your business running.
Checking in with your team
Be sure to check in with your team frequently. While your goal is to let go of some of your daily tasks, you don’t want to make the mistake of overloading your team. There’s a line between staying involved in the processes your team takes over and micro-managing, and you don’t want to be the micro-manager.
Also, make sure your team is adequately trained and comfortable with the tasks you delegate. You don’t want to hand them something they don’t feel qualified to do. As always, communication is critical, and this where things can get lost in translation. Be sure you’re communicating with your team and staying aware of things, but also use that extra time to focus on some of the business tasks that only you can do.
Of course, if you’re ready to hand off some marketing tasks to a strategic partner, we would be happy to chat with you about our services.