Circumstances often conspire to spur us on to better things, particularly in business.\u00a0 A few years ago we sold a commercial cleaning business to an ex farmer.\u00a0 He had no experience in business, apart from successfully running his farm, but wanted a complete change from the \u2018feast or famine\u2019 that farmers have to contend with.\u00a0 He saw the potential in a cleaning business and immediately after settling the contract, ran into a major hurdle.\u00a0 Whilst working in the business himself cleaning up a ladder, he fell and broke his leg so badly that he was in a wheelchair for six weeks.\u00a0 He now had a serious challenge to overcome: he had just invested several hundred thousand in a business he really knew nothing about and had to make it all work, without his day to day input.\u00a0 To his credit, he took the \u2018bull by the horns\u2019 and set about the task of running the business without his day to day input.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Running his farm had given him very few skills in people management, so he had a steep learning curve.\u00a0 His wife couldn\u2019t assist because she had her own full-time job so, stranded in his wheelchair, unable to drive to the cleaning jobs, he just had to delegate the managerial role to one of his staff.\u00a0 And, surprise, surprise… nothing went wrong, the wheels didn\u2019t fall off the business and the staff member rose to the challenge and handled the day to day running without any serious mishap.\u00a0 No clients complained and the owner sat back in his wheelchair at home running his newly acquired business from his lap top and mobile phone.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He devised a fool proof quoting system, based on a \u2018room by room\u2019 price, so his staff could quote correctly.\u00a0 After a few weeks of this, where the owner was working \u2018on\u2019 the business rather than \u2018in\u2019 the business as he had been doing, everything began to work like clockwork.\u00a0 He now realised that he could grow the business a lot more effectively when he delegated every task he could.\u00a0 He engaged a bookkeeper, whereas before he\u2019d done all the invoicing and wages records himself, and he had no part in the day to day cleaning jobs.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So many new business owners want to do everything themselves because they mistakenly feel that it\u2019ll cost too much to employ someone.\u00a0 This is very short sighted thinking.\u00a0 Successful business owners soon realise that the way to higher profitability is to delegate everything you can and devote more of their time to growing the business.\u00a0 For some business owners, this simple and basic business maxim is too hard for them to grasp, so they forever remain doing everything themselves and are never able to realise the full potential of themselves or their business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Circumstances often conspire to spur us on to better things, particularly in business.\u00a0 A few years ago we sold a commercial cleaning business to an ex farmer.\u00a0 He had no experience in business, apart from successfully running his farm, but wanted a complete change from the \u2018feast or famine\u2019 that farmers have to contend with.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-news","entry","has-media"],"yoast_head":"\n