Walk into any large organisation and you’ll find people! Dozens, hundreds, sometimes thousands of them; doing a range of roles but all there for one reason: to help that organisation not only maintain its position in the marketplace, but to grow. Whilst people are the most expensive resource a business has, these businesses know that, without the support of committed and skilled people, across a whole range of roles, they cannot survive or thrive.

Managing those people, getting the best out of them, so they and the organisation thrive, has been my focus for the last 8 years. I’m a team builder. I know how to get things done through others: to get the best out of people so businesses can grow and prosper. For over 8 years I’ve worked with thousands of managers to help them understand some basic human psychology and teach them techniques which will give them more confidence to build more motivated and engaged teams, even in tough economic times.

But what if you’re a small business? What if you’re just starting out? What if you are building some success in your business, but you’re working punishingly long hours and still finding it difficult to get everything done?

What if you are becoming the bottleneck in your own business?

Over the last 2 or 3 years I’ve worked increasingly with directors or managers of smaller organisations and I am finding many of them come to my workshops because they realise they need a team to help them grow, but they’re not experienced managers, they don’t have big budgets and they’re unsure how to build their teams in a way which will not cripple their cash-flow. Sometimes they’re simply overwhelmed with stuff to do but don’t want to go down the whole employer route, seeing it as too complicated or something they simply cannot afford.

I know what that feels like. As my own business has grown I’ve found there have been times when I’ve had so many projects, tasks and deadlines I’ve felt totally overwhelmed and exhausted. Juggling too many plates often means you drop one or two along the way. For many of us, (and I include myself in this, because I’ve fallen prey to it too!), this usually means the tasks which get dropped or put back are the strategic planning, or the marketing, because we’re so busy serving our existing clients or customers.

The truth is this leaves many small business owners in a cycle of “feast or famine”, chained to their business and feeling a long way away from their initial dreams of freedom and financial security which were often the reason they quit their jobs in the first place.

All too often, we’re spreading ourselves so thin we’re simply not doing the things we should be doing, nor are we doing what we’re best at, or what we love doing. Small wonder the initial excitement and enthusiasm wears thin as we end up in a daily grind which in some cases, feels more punishing than the job we left when we were employed by someone else.

We’re trying to do it all – and we’re stuck.

Michael Gerber, author of the classic business book, “The E-Myth”, talks of business owners being the “technician”: stuck in the doing, but chained to their business.

Robert Kiyosaki, in his best-selling book, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” says if you can’t walk away from your business for 12 months, and come back to find it in as good or better shape, then you don’t have a business, you have a job.

Richard Branson, told my own business mentor when she and several other business owners visited him on Necker Island last month, that every business owner needs to think about how they can fire themselves from their own business.

Now that might seem a long way off to you, the small business owner – but the fundamental principle of putting systems, processes and people in place to continue to generate profit without you is at the heart of everything which makes a business successful.

Even if you haven’t thought as far your “exit strategy”, what would happen if you fell sick? How would you continue to make income? Do you worry that everything you know is “all in your head” and no-one else could replicate it?

Money, systems and time: the 3 key things you need to leverage if you’re going to grow your business.

The truth is, successful businesses focus on leveraging 3 things: money, systems and time. Building a team covers the latter two, in order to help you grow the first. More importantly, a team helps you do this better, faster and more cheaply than you could on your own. Let’s look at these in reverse order.

1) How outsourcing a virtual team can help you leverage your time.

You don’t need me to tell you your time is finite. Each of us has 24 hours in a day, and there is only so much we can do in that time. The problem for most small business owners is they try to be “chief cook and bottle washer”, which means they are missing out on opportunities and losing money because they are trying to do it all themselves. I call it doing “busy work”: jobs which have to be done, but which are not actually bringing in money or helping the business to grow.

At its most simple level, outsourcing to others is about giving some of your “busy tasks” to someone else: it’s about hiring people to do tasks or projects that you don’t like to do, can’t do or which are not the most profitable way of you spending your time. It is also about hiring people to do what you do – but for less money, so you make a profit by outsourcing it.

Now which tasks you outsource takes thought and some understanding of basic principles, as well as understanding what stage your business is at: but at its most rudimentary, outsourcing is about delegating some of your tasks, freeing you up to concentrate on the most profitable projects, on “steering the ship” and on the things you do best.

Done well, not only will you make more money, you will actually have more free time to pursue whatever you choose: more time with family, more leisure time or other profitable ventures.

More importantly, you can get your virtual assistant to help you write up a step by step guide as to how to do any particular task, which will become part of your operations manual for the future, and which will help you with the second key to growing your business; developing systems.

2) How outsourcing a virtual team can help you develop systems.

What is a system? Basically, it’s simply a plan or set of steps anyone takes to complete a particular task. There are 2 main reasons you need to think about creating systems in your business:

1. To stop you having to re-create the wheel every time you do a particular task. By creating a system, you create a plan or series of steps that you follow every time you do that task, so you don’t have to think – you (or someone else!) just follow the plan.

2. To help you automate what you do.

You will already have certain things you want done in a particular way and a system helps you do that. Here’s an example of just some of the areas of your business where developing a system could relieve you of a significant proportion of your time:

* Follow up cards or e-mails for new leads

* Reminders for events or phone calls

* Dealing with customer service enquiries or refunds

* Purchasing and delivery for your services or products

* Writing blogs or social media activities to help you drive new business

* Product launches

* Answering routine enquiries

* Handling your diary

Just take another look at that list. How many of those activities are you trying to do all on your own? For too long I was trying to do all those, and more – as well as preparing for and delivering my service to my clients! No wonder I was burning out fast! The truth is I really didn’t enjoy doing those jobs either.

Often a whole morning or even a whole day each week could be spent pursuing these tasks and you know what? They could probably be done faster, better and more cheaply by someone else other than you!

Not only can all those tasks be outsourced, they can be set up in an operations and training manual, so, as you continue to grow (which you will do much quicker!) any new team member has a really clear guide about how you want certain things done, and can hit the ground running.

And what does all this do? It frees you up! Frees you up to the third key to leveraging your growth:

3) How outsourcing a virtual team can help you leverage your money.

Jay Abraham, one of the top marketing and business gurus teaches there are only 3 ways any business can increase its income:

1) Increase your prices

2) Increase the number of customers or clients you have

3) Increase the average transaction or lifetime value of each client.

Succeed in any one of those, and you’ll grow your business, but increase all three and you massively grow your business. Looks so simple – but of course, behind each one of those is a series of steps and a whole load of actions which need to take place to help you achieve that goal.

You’d have to be superman (or woman!) to do it all on your own!

It’s also important to understand outsourcing is not something you begin to consider once you’re a certain size. The time any business owner needs to start thinking about outsourcing is at the start of their business journey, but, quite frankly, even if you’re growing but you’re still trying to do it all alone, or even if you tried outsourcing and had your fingers burned in the past, if you’re serious about having a business instead of a job, then you need to start thinking of how you can build your team to support you.