Never let a menial task get in the way of a meaningful task, or an admin task get in the way of an income or impact task Be honest, are you outsourcing enough?
Are your current results getting in the way of your desired results? Could it be that no matter what level we’re at, what we’re doing is keeping us there, and our next level awaits in what we’re not doing?
The solution?
Leverage.
What is Leverage?
Leverage is the scale and speed of serving and solving. The more people you can serve and solve for, the higher the transaction volume and amount. The bigger the problem, the higher the transactional amount, as fairness is dictated by the scale and size of the problem.
You will only leverage and scale wealth if you have value and fair exchange, because anything that doesn’t serve and solve won’t scale or the downsides will scale reducing reputation and sustainability.
How to effectively Leverage in business
If in doubt, delegate it out. You have to let go to grow Here are the 4 most important Qs to as yourself before you do almost ANY task…
1. Who is better at it than me?
2. Who is faster at it than me?
3. Who is cheaper than me?
4. Who enjoys it more than me?
Do what you love & delegate (most of) the rest.
Who is better at it than me?
The first stage of what I am about to suggest is that you begin by defining your strengths and weaknesses. Take a sheet of paper or a spreadsheet, split it down the middle, and write your professional strengths on one side and your weaknesses on the other. We are taught from an early age that if we are bad at something, we should practice it, seek to improve it, battle it and keep on struggling until we have defeated it. That’s the traditional storyline, but I’m here to say that it’s a pitfall that often causes a lot of pain. It’s damaging, and in the end, it’s total nonsense.
If you would like to read more about self-development accepting yourself, you may be interested in this blog
Who is faster at it than me?
Ensure that you’re genuinely inspired by your goals, otherwise you’ll be trying to motivate yourself and simultaneously resisting your own efforts!
If you can start an idea or action, and then hand to over to someone to complete it, then you have leverage. Good start up creatives are wise to have finishers around them. Perhaps some of your ideas only need you at the start. Start them up and then set them free. You can manage monetise multiple ideas with this strategy.
Everyone has their own triggers that get them fired-up, in the zone or in a peak-state, ready to take on challenges.
If you haven’t recognised that we are working in Darwinian times, what world have you been living in for the past couple of decades? Pensions have become a vulnerable, endangered species. Manufacturing or manual labour jobs are being devoured by automated systems. Money is changing form and moving faster, technology is accelerating and contorting the whole financial, professional and private landscape, and businesses that sell no products and hold no stock are floating for billions.
Who enjoys it more than me?
To increase productivity in your business you can give your staff/outsourcers ownership and leadership over projects so that they are perceived as leaders even though they are not and you can continue to guide them from a managerial point of view which is vital to the business.
Always aim to offer your staff guidance, support and education over micromanagement. I really believe more and more as I grow older that people learn the best when they learn lessons themselves, rather than just by being told how to do something. Challenge and support them but allow them to learn themselves.
This is surprisingly liberating, as long as you are completely honest with yourself, but most people will struggle with one side of the sheet. Spend some time on this until you have a fairly thorough breakdown of what you believe that you can and can’t do. Here is your foundation for growth.
Who is cheaper than me?
Outsourcing and embracing the fact that you aren’t capable to doing everything is a revelation. You can strengthen your weaknesses, but focusing on what you are best at is essential, as is outsourcing all other weaknesses that aren’t necessary for you to be good at your job.
Once you embrace the philosophy of leveraging whenever it suits you, you will find that your company runs more smoothly, the work being done is completed more efficiently and to a higher standard, and that you can spend more time concentrating on the tasks that bring you in the most money.
You may even find that – shock! Horror! – you have more spare time to do the things you enjoy.
You are not just another worker struggling to get by.
You are someone seeking true financial success.
Because you are a disruptive entrepreneur.
If you would like to learn more about doing less but getting more done, as well as how to outsource everything you do not want to do, you can find my bestselling book Life Leverage here
Knowing when to let go and trust others to do the job as well (or better) than you
Every successful person that I have met goes through the painful transition of trying to handover the work they’ve always done, and not being happy at the results that others get for them.
After all, no one does your thing as well as you, right?
Have you ever wondered why Bill Gates or Rupert Murdoch can make multi-billions? Do they have more hours in a day? Do they have some accelerated learning technique you don’t know of or a super-human brain? No, the answer is they have around 50,000 employees each who work for them, and they are getting up to 50,000 times more bang for the buck and actual work rate per hour, than most people.
If they had stuck to doing everything themselves they would still be kneading the bread or cooking the food or stacking the shelves.
After all, they have gotten where they are by working hard, right?
Well yes, but if they want to achieve more, don’t they need to do something different? Something they’ve not done before?
Has what they’ve done and achieved already blocked all other opportunities?
In conclusion
Outsource before you are ready. Whatever you can pay for to save yourself time, do it. Focusing on small economies is the fastest way to poverty. It might cost to outsource it, it could cost way more to do it yourself.
If it feels painful to leverage, all the more reason to do it. I’m constantly telling people that I wish I’d leveraged and outsourced more, sooner, faster. I was constantly getting in my own way. Get used to getting other people to do things for you.
I have found that many entrepreneurs, including myself when I was just starting out, tend to hire people who they can relate to and who they might even see mirroring their own traits. This might seem logical – if you know that you are a great worker, why wouldn’t you want similar people? – but it is a flawed approach.
