Top Time Tip #128
How To Find Help When You Can't Afford It!
14th October 2009
It's been a very busy few weeks. Probably the most exciting events have been organising the first couple of monthly interviews for our new Membership programme - the GettingAGrip Inner Circle www.gettingagrip.com/products/membership.asp. It's a great chance to interview people I also want to learn from!
The first guest (Silver members, watch for your CD in the mailbox early next week; both Bronze and Silver, the download from the Member-Only site is there already), is Michael Tipper from the UK, one of the top mind mapping experts in the world. He gave us just over an hour of pure gold on 'Mind Mapping Secrets and Other Crazy Ways To Boost Your Productivity And Eliminate Information Overload'. I learnt a heap!
And for my November interview I'm super excited to be sharing one of my heroes (or do we still say heroines?) Glenna Salsbury CSP, CPAE, Past President of the National Speakers Association, USA.  (For my non-speaker readers, those credentials equal a seriously great speaker!) http://www.glennasalsbury.com If you've ever attended one of my speeches or workshops there's a good chance you've heard me recommend 'Glenna's Goal Book' in 'Chicken Soup for the Soul'. This is that Glenna! I had the great good fortune to meet her a few years ago - she's one of the wisest and most gracious people I've ever had the good fortune to call a friend. She'll be sharing with you too on how to 'Achieve The Desires Of Your Heart'.
And if you're not a member yet and wondering how you too can access these brilliant people, check out www.gettingagrip.com/products/membership.asp - you can trial it all for only $1 for the first month - a minimum of $320 of great resources for only $1! (Yes, you read it right!)
Cheers,
Lead Article: How To Find Help When You Can't Afford It!
[Today's article is especially for the people running their own businesses. However, you could apply the same thinking to many large corporations as well.]
One piece of advice I always give to small business owners (and over 90% of businesses in most countries have less than 10 staff, so that may well include you) is:
As quickly as you can afford it, delegate.
Your business won't grow until you do.
You might be thinking: "It's all very well to say 'delegate' but how can you when there's nobody to delegate to and no money to pay them?"
 In the very early days of my training and speaking business, more than 15 years ago, I realised one day that I was heading towards burnout again. Considering that my business was morphing into helping others with their goals as well as time management, that didn't seem to be a very congruent state of affairs!
I said to my husband: 'I need an assistant.'
Quick as a flash, his reply: 'You can't afford one'. And he was right. I was lurching along from bill to bill, just keeping my head above water and wondering how I was ever going to get a business established.
However, when someone says 'You can't do . . . ' the stubborn side of me kicks in. So, Mike's quite pragmatic comment fired up a 'We'll see about that' kind of silent response.
And then I realised I didn't exactly know where all my time was going.
What I discovered, and how I handled it, has been one of the major reasons that my business has not only survived but grown pretty well since those early days.
Here's the process in case you'd like to evaluate your own time usage.
- Turn an A4 sheet of paper sideways and draw up three columns. The first column is the widest. In it make a list of all the regular tasks you do in a week .Anything you do less frequently, add that too.
- In the second column estimate the amount of time you're currently spending on each activity per week. If something's done less frequently, roughly calculate the minutes per week it divides out to.
- In the third column record the number of minutes (for each task) that someone else could do for you, if you had a 'someone else' with reasonable competency.
The results of my review shocked me! The first column was very full - no surprises there. The second column gave me a bit of a scare - 80 hours per week. No wonder I was getting close to burnout again. But the third colum was the clincher. 40 hours of those 80 hours were quite low level tasks and could be done by someone else with only a small amount of training!
No wonder I was exhausted - and no wonder I felt as though I was never getting ahead. Whilst I continued fluffing around doing low-level work that someone else at a lower pay rate (than what I wanted to pay myself ) could do, I was effectively paying myself that low rate.
Every start-up business goes through this soul-searching. The need almost always comes before we have the money to pay for help, but if we don't take that step we'll never have the money to pay anyone, including ourselves!
Of course I was still left with the issue of how to afford it. Within a few weeks of this awakening, a dear friend shared how she was stuck in the same situation. Between us we discovered that the Government had a subsidised scheme for employers who gave jobs to unemployed people. We shared a lovely young lass - it was the perfect solution. With a half-time person at a quarter wage, six months was all it took to turn things around.
 If you live elsewhere than New Zealand you may not have such a system at present. However, New Zealand has recently re-instituted something similar. At present the Ministry of Social Development will pay employers $5,000 towards the cost of employing a young person for six months, with no obligation to employ them after the six months is completed. Check with your local office.
For NZ Readers: A Winter Holiday Retreat With A Difference
At this time of year many of us are looking for a short break away - a  chance to recharge at the end of the winter and before the madness that accompanies our pre-Christmas build-up. I've persuaded my good mate (since our school days) Jackie Cooper, who runs a very well-managed motor camp (with cabins and some motel units as well) at Whananaki, mid-Northland, to offer my readers a special weekend package with a
40% discount, but only until 30th November.
In this peaceful and unspoilt spot, less than an hour from Whangarei, you'll find beautiful beaches, great bush and beach walks, good fishing, diving, kayaking, surfing and horse riding.
Bookings are essential, it's subject to availability and it excludes Labour Weekend. (When you call, tell Jackie you heard it from me.)
Website: http://www.whananakiholiday.co.nz/
Phone: 09 433 8896
Email: whananaki@igrin.co.nz
Time To Order Your Diary Refills for 2010
Its time to order all your diary, refills and storage binder requirements for 2010.
See the selection of products available at
http://www.gettingagrip.com/products/books/Day-Timer.asp
Thought Of The Day
Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.
Earl Nightingale
© All Rights Reserved to Robyn Pearce , GettingAGrip.com.
Admin Office: PO Box 29 586, Fendalton, Christchurch 8540, New Zealand
Ph. + 64 3 351 2140 + 64 3 351 2140 http://www.gettingagrip.com
|
