Recently my daughter was admitted to the hospital for a serious eye infection.
If you’re not familiar with our story last November she was diagnosed with hodgkins lymphoma, and thank the Lord she was shown to be completely free of all disease half way into her treatment.
But in the meantime she developed pnemonia, along with most recently an eye infection and was admitted into the Children’s Hospital last week. Thankfully we only had to spend 5 days there and she was able to come home.
Since December of last year I started learning how to plan better for the future and outsourcing work. And all the while during her chemotherapy treatments back and forth to the hospital I was able to purchase this blog last February and literally triple my income. I also continue to build my business in the scrapbook industry, I must admit I did have an income drop over there due to my efforts here, so I’ll need to evaluate that some more. It’s a hobby that I love, and I’d even say it’s a duty for me to record down my thoughts for my children.
If you were to ask me if I was a planner before I would have said, Yep I can plan. But now I plan 1-2 months in advance, and by the end of this year I will plan out my entire year of 2009. While in the hospital I was also able to lay the foundation for the remainder of this year. And all the while I was tending to my beautiful daughter (who turns Sweet Sixteen next month), I had my team working on every aspect of my business while I was gone.
Now there are two things I know in my gut that I am still not outsourcing here at Small Business Branding.
1) My email
2) Advertisers
These 2 things alone take up so much of my time, effort, and are a complete brain drain.
So I have a new assistant coming on board to handle these two things for me. I will be starting by getting her to handle the advertisers since it’s alot more straight forward than the email inbox.
I must admit that it’s hard to let go of the email, I do enjoy reading my email and replying back to people. At the same time, I know she’ll be able to handle things on a much quicker pace than me which will leave me to move forward with everything else that I’m doing.
I’d like to share with you some tips on outsourcing that I find help me tremendously in my business in the coming months, in the meantime I’d love to ask you….
How does your business run when you’re not there?
It’s always hard for a sole proprieretor to designate work to others, once we get over that and let go of the small stuff, we free up our time for far more valuable projects.The balance of course is not to allow someone to much responsibility, and lose hands on knowing what’s going around you. I’ve known people who haven’t taken holidays for twenty years, life is too short for that. They usually say they are building something. I agree, however that’s to high a price for me. I would not want to be that controlling. Delegate, Delegate, Delegate!
Vera, you have inspired me to get serious about planning for my business. I have so many things I want to accomplish, but they end up sitting on the back burner cause I never get around to them.
Hope you sweet daughter is well again 🙂
Vera,
Several businesses I run does go without the need of me present physically.
However, your post does remind me to take care my other businesses that drain physically and mentally. I am getting a great help from my wife as my personal assistant 😛 – but we are expecting, so I guess I need to hire a (virtual) assistant more sooner than later.
‘Hope for the best health for your daughter, Vera.
Cheers!
I run my own business as a Virtual Assistant….so kind of odd that Noobpreneur posted he might need one. Feel free to contact me:) Funny. I am currently looking for other ways to bring income in addition to my VA work to free up some time and to look away from the computer. Maybe I need a VA:) Just kidding.
its very important for your business that it is running properly even you are absent from there. All this depends upon your team works. Your should encourage and teach them every aspect so they can face the music at any stage. For information tools and lectures in the form of videos listen to Ellie Drake totally free
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I have a small business that really struggles when I am away. I have talked with several small business owners in my social circles and they say the same thing. It has been something that has bothered me for a few years now and I am open to any and all advice on how to get more out of my very good employees when the “boss is gone”.