Today’s #businesslunchclub discussion (July 13, 2009)

Great discussion today on #businesslunchclub (on Twitter; but see BusinessLunchClub.com for more details).
The conversation today centered around delegation, and specifically around something that @IAC_Heather calls “the 3 Strikes, You’re Out” rule. The conversation was primarily between @IAC_Heather, @askleo, and myself (@AaronHoos), with @Hazewalker chiming in towards the end.
You can read our entire conversation on BusinessLunchClub (If you’re not reading this on the day it’s posted, go to BusinessLunchClub.com/users/archive and select July 13 from the calendar).

The “3 Strikes, You’re Out” rules are 3 simple rules to help you know what to delegate. The rules are:

• 3 strikes rule 1: Is it something that you don’t personally have to do; is it something that someone else can do or be trained to do for you?

• 3 strikes rule 2: Does the alternate person that could do it for you have an hourly wage less than your billable wage?

• 3 strikes rule 3: Could you use that spare time on revenue generating activities or to increase your quality of life?

@askleo talked about the challenges of finding the right person and training them appropriately. And I talked about the challenge of being a sole operator for so long that it was difficult to “disassemble” projects I normally do automatically and identify which portions of the tasks should be done by me and which portions should be outsourced.

@IAC_Heather used the example of a babysitter when responding to @askleo, pointing out that parents do the best job of raising their children but they still “outsource” to a babysitter from time to time. She also recommended the use of Camtasia to capture processes to enable faster training.

I was curious to know what people outsourced (which is relevant to a conversation I had yesterday with a friend who suggested that he only outsources items that don’t add value to the client relationship). So far, I’ve only outsourced administrative work but kept my value-adding work and most of my sales efforts as my own tasks. @IAC_Heather outsources as much as possible (except where liability might be a concern) and, just as Business Lunch Club was wrapping up, @Hazewalker added this helpful advice: As long as you are unwilling to delegate, you cannot create a business that runs without you.

Good conversation in today’s Business Lunch Club!

As originally posted on: Blog by Aaron Hoos

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