• 19Mar

  Find A Great Service Provider

  Business and Health, Inspiration for Business, entrepreneur to ceo 4 Comments

  As a CEO, it’s vital that you find, create and maintain great relationships with the right service providers to support various aspects of your business. Remember, these ARE the people that help your business flowing when you’re absent, expanding to new heights and thriving during the most challenging economic times.

  Keep the primary focus of your business at the forefront of your mind as you consider these relationships. You may have the skills to handle lots of activities in your business. Is this the best use of your time and skills? More importantly, are these activities helping you to leverage your strengths? Are you truly the best person to handle the activity? These are tough questions you’ve gotta ask yourself. The answers are equally tough and lead you to the best place for your business. The bottomline is: if the activity takes you away from your primary focus, it’s not in the best interest of your business.

  Here are a few considerations:

  What do you want the service provider to do for you?
  List all of the things you do everyday to keep your business going. Outsource ALL activities out of alignment with your primary focus. Remember, if it’s not a good use of your expertise then you MUST let it go, delegate it, or outsource it so you can focus on doing that for which you’re best suited.

  Do they have the skills to provide the services at the level you want?
  Unfortunately, someone telling you they know how to do something doesn’t mean they actually know how to do it. If you’re like me, you have a certain way you like things handled and it’s all part of your brand and reputation. Ask detailed questions and get referrals so you know the exact capabilities of the provider. It pays HUGE dividends in the long and short run.

  How will the service provider support your overall business goals/objectives?
  Managing your service provider involves sharing your vision and goals with them. You want the service provider to know the big picture and how things work together so they have a greater sense of what’s important. It’s also a great opportunity to determine if your business values and work ethic are closely aligned.

  These considerations are just the beginning of creating a great relationship with service providers. The relationships with the service provider you choose will be an integral part of the success of your business. In my next post, I’ll share details about specific “soft skills” that are VERY important to the selection process. These skills are equally important to keep your business moving and shaking.

  Share your comments about how you select your service providers.

  Tags: encouragement for business, entrepreneur to ceo, hiring the right staff, service providers

• 11Mar

  Delegation Success in Nine Easy Steps

  Business and Health, entrepreneur to ceo 2 Comments

  People think delegation is as simple as giving the process to someone to handle. Review these steps and look for ways to improve your delegation so it’s easy, effective and more importantly, productive:

  1. Delegate the whole process to one person.
  It’s really difficult for someone to manage one little piece of a process they don’t fully understand. The person to whom you’re delegating has to understand how it all fits together and it’s your job to explain it so they get the impact of it.

  2. Select the right person.
  I can’t emphasize this point enough. In my last post I drove home the value of delegating to the person with the right skills to handle the assignment. Having the right attitude is equally important.
  
  3. Clearly specify your preferred results.
  Be sure you communicate what you desire as the finished product. Allow the words to flow from your mouth and don’t assume the person knows what you want. She can’t read your mind and it hurts you when you expect her to do so.

  4. Delegate the responsibility and authority.
  I laughed when I first wrote this because I know this may be a little tough for the person focused on perfection or control. Responsibility and authority are part of what you’re delegating. They give the right person the ability to make decisions without having to ask you about every little detail.

  5. Ask the person to summarize it back to you, including their impressions of the project and the results you prefer.
  Here’s your opportunity to discover whether your instructions were clearly understood. If she missed something, review it again until you’re confident your direction is clear and she’s ready to move forward to complete the assignment, successfully.

  6. Get ongoing non-intrusive feedback about progress on the project. Invite them to tell you what they prefer.
  I like to say, “I don’t want to bug you so let me know how you’d like to update me on this project.” My team LOVES it! It gets me out of the way yet keeps me in close touch if any challenges arise.

  7. Maintain open lines of communication by sharing your concerns openly.
  If you have concerns, be sure to share them WHEN they occur. Ask questions, listen to the responses and communicate to get things back on track if they go awry.

  8. If you’re not satisfied with the progress, don’t immediately take the project back.
  Patience is a virtue, right? Take the time to learn who can handle what assignments and give the person every opportunity to get it right. Remember in #7, you’re asking questions, listening to the responses and communicating to get things back on track.

  9. Evaluate and reward performance.
  I like to shower my team members with thank yous, special hugs via text and more. I also like to let others know how great they are at what they do by talking about them in my social networking circles. Pay attention to the individual so you know what true rewards look like for the individual.

  This is a delegation success in nine easy steps. Anything you might add?

  Tags: delegation, outsourcing, team productivity

• 10Mar

  Outsourcing Done Right by the Right Person

  Business and Health, entrepreneur to ceo 2 Comments

  As you know from my previous post, the best way to move your business forward is to delegate and outsource tasks to your support team. Isn’t it nice to know what you give others to do is entirely up to you?
  It’s very important to choose the right team members to support every aspect of your business - team members to whom you delegate successfully for maximum benefit.

  Remember this phrase: “Right person, right job!”

  The right person on your team is aptly qualified and highly capable of handling the assigned task. The right person has the necessary skills to perform the assigned task. The right person is able to anticipate challenges that may arise based on knowing and understanding very clearly what’s required to complete the assigned task. Too often, clients tell me about family members, friends or other low/no cost people are prepared to support them. My response is always the same, “Is that the right person for the job?” Delegating to the right person is crucial to eliminate costly rework. When you were an entrepreneur you did much of the work yourself; but as the CEO it is time to consider your bottom line and the part that right people play in helping it grow.

  Delegate processes and systems, not just tasks.

  Knowing what to delegate is tied closely to the processes and systems you’ve identified for your business. List the necessary skills associated with each of the processes. For example, blog updates, content writing, website maintenance, client management, appointment scheduling, video/audio production, are all tasks that require unique skills to accomplish.

  Outsource activities that don’t match your skillset or ability.

  If you are a coach whose core expertise is helping your clients thrive in business and you want to develop some information products, you may want to hire an information product expert to support you. If you have a blog that desperately needs the love and attention that you can’t give at the moment, find a great content writer to support your blogging goals. If you have a subscriber list along with some great content but don’t have a newsletter template or the time to upload the content, find a virtual assistant who specializes in newsletter design and management.

  Where there is a will - there is a way and with the right team you can outsource with tremendous success. In my next post in this series, I’ll share the nine steps to effective delegation.

  
  Whose is on your team?
  How’s outsourcing helping your business to thrive?

  Tags: delegation, outsourcing, support team

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