This week I want FURNITURE WORLD readers to take a little bit of time to think about the activities you spend your time on throughout the days and weeks in your furniture business.
What are you good at? Probably a lot of things for sure, but if some of the things you are good at are things that lots of other people can be good at too, then you should likely delegate these tasks, and focus your business efforts instead on things that are not easy for others to do or not easy for you to delegate. The things YOU personally use YOUR time on should primarily be activities focused at growing your business.
I have a short video (about 4 ½ minutes) for you to listen to sometime this week about the ORGANIZATIONAL CHART. This is a tool that you can use in a VERY SIMPLE WAY in your business.
An organizational chart will give you a good visual and a good basis for knowing what YOU should be doing to make more profits, and what OTHERS should be doing to totally support that.
With a simple and powerful organizational chart in place, YOU feel amazingly focused and empowered, and others on your team do too, because they know they are supporting you in your efforts to have a phenomenal business.
By the way, as a natural compliment to talking about YOUR own simple but powerful organizational chart, I have included some tips on DELEGATION— on when, how, what, and to whom to delegate tasks. The tips are listed after the link to the short video on Your Organizational Chart (about 4 ½ minutes).
http://www.degangigroup.com/ff_vid_3_organizational%20chart_4_min
Delegation
Learning to release certain tasks and even projects to others can free up much of your time for more important tasks. As a business owner, it is imperative that you spend your time (work time) on the activities that will bring in more revenue, grow your business, and increase your profits. The other activities should be delegated out.
Many people think they cannot delegate for several reasons:
• They feel they are too unorganized to show another person what to do
• They feel they do not have the funds to be able to delegate jobs
• They feel they are just too busy to stop and take the time to delegate
Each of these reasons reinforces the need to delegate. As long as we hold onto doing the jobs that keep us from growing our businesses, we will fell frustrated, overwhelmed, unproductive, and behind on our goals.
Delegation will free you up. It will allow you to focus your personal efforts on those things that will make you more productive. Delegation is a skill like any other. It must be learned.
Which Types of Tasks to Delegate
The types of tasks and projects to delegate are the ones others can do without negatively affecting your business, or the ones where delegating them will positively affect your business. Delegate the tasks that free you up to grow your business.
These include:
• Tasks that require low skills (such as filing, cleaning, running errands).
• Tasks that someone else is especially proficient at (this would include companies that offer services in a specific area like book-keeping, tax-preparation, newsletter service, etc.
• Tasks that tie you up and keep you from working on your personal and professional goals.
• Tasks you dislike and are not those that MUST be done by the business owner-those which will not negatively affect your business if you delegate them.
Begin to delegate by choosing low skill tasks that most people can do. As you get used to the idea of delegation, you can begin to release other jobs that require more skill.
To be successful at delegation, you must find, and sometimes train, someone who is responsible and competent. You must make clear to that person what your objectives are. Be specific about the results you expect. Write down these goals and the results you are looking for. Make certain that the person is sure of what is expected of him/her.
Give a time frame or date for completion. Check in occasionally to monitor the process, but do not spent too much time here. The point is to find someone who is capable of the task so it will free up your time. Refrain from trying to control the situation, which is actually a type of procrastination and will waste time. Allow the person you delegated to the freedom to do the task—even if they do it a bit differently than you would. If the results are what you want, it will not matter how you got there.
Set up a basic organizational chart for yourself and your business, and learn to delegate, and you will begin to see changes in your business that you once only dreamed of. It is not difficult to have a successful business, but it does take time, effort, and commitment. Follow the road that other successful people have traveled before you. The results will amaze you!
Have a Wildly Organized, Focused, and Profitable Week,
Margo.
Margarett (Margo) DeGange, M.Ed. is a contributor to FURNITURE WORLD Magazine an a Business and Design Coach in the Home Fashions Industry. She creates and delivers custom training programs for managed businesses and their sales consultants to help them communicate better with customers and increase sales and profits. Margarett is a Writer and Professional Speaker, and the President of The DeGangi Group and The DeGangi School of Interior Decoration, with both on sight and on-line courses in Interior Decorating, Marketing, and Redesign. For almost 20 years she has helped individuals and managed business owners in the interior fashions and decorating industries to earn more while fully enjoying the process.
Two of Margo’s popular products for furniture store owners and their sales professionals are The Decorating School Crash Course Power-Ed Pack (9 design lessons on video/audio with 12 hours of content), and the matching Decorating School Crash Course Learner Files to measure learning, provide added interactivity, and motivate sales consultants to own their opportunities for growth.
Visit Margo DeGange’s website at www.DecoratingForProfits.com for more information. Send email and questions to her at Margarett@furninfo.com.