Business mentor: How to make time to work on your big business issues

Q. As a business owner I know I should be working on my business but I'm not very good at actually doing that. I find I get bogged down in the day-to-day running and lose focus on the important issues. How do I implement what I know I should be doing?

A. Mike Wiggins, managing director of Icon Business Solutions, replies:

Many business owners know they should be working on their business, but most find it difficult to let go of the reins to give themselves the time they need.

To create the time, a business owner must first start working on introducing systems and procedures to every part of the business.

This process can be as quick as six months or as long as five years, but it does mean involving all the team in making the systems work.

Many business owners want (and sometimes expect) this process to happen overnight. But which area should be started first?

The answer depends on the needs of the business.

We normally suggest starting in the team or employment area, because the owner is usually trying to do the work of two or three employees and often complains that "it's easier to do it myself".

Creating your own business book, with each chapter representing a different section of the business, gives a focus and order to what needs to be achieved.

The first purchase for any business owner wanting to improve should be a dictaphone. Instead of trying to write everything down you will find it easier to use your dictaphone to describe the tasks you want your team to undertake.

Stand beside your team and describe exactly what job they are doing and how they are doing it (or how they should be doing it).

This then becomes the start of your employment, induction and operating system, or a chapter of your business book.

Get your tapes written up to become a procedures manual under the various headings you have created along the way. These then become the living documents of your business and can be upgraded, changed and formatted as your business evolves.

When you have finished one chapter of your book, move on to the next area of most concern.

You will find that by picking through each area of your business instead of trying to do everything at once you become more focused on that particular area, and the chapters slowly evolve into the full-length novel of your business book.

By creating the systems step by step, chapter by chapter, for each area of your business and then making your team, your management and yourself accountable for your systems, you will find the time you didn't have before will slowly become more available to you.

You may wish to employ a business adviser to help you put your business book together.

There will be times when you wonder if you are doing the right thing, when your team seems determined to defeat everything you put in place, but that is also the time when your procedures will show you that accountability is also one of the major steps to being able to work on your business.

* For more information Email Mike or Ph (09) 579-8720.

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