Google ‘small business challenges’ and you’ll get over a million hits; 1.3 million (I checked).
Click on a few of them and you’ll start seeing a pattern:
Finding Customers
Lack of financial planning
Lead generation
Lack of proper marketing
Burnout
Fatigue
Lack of direction
What I didn’t see were procrastination, time management issues, and back office inefficiencies.
This really surprised me. Small business owners often find themselves wearing many hats because when they’re starting out, they have the time but not the money. But before too long, those resources are reversed; the money is there, but the time is limited. But still, they try and do everything themselves. It’s kind of like muscle memory. They’re so used to just doing it themselves, they kind of forget that there are options.
It's funny, I can tell within five minutes if a 1:1 coffee chat might need some assistance. They hear that I help solopreneurs with efficiency in the back office and I’m promptly given a list a mile long of all the things they’re doing that are keeping them out of their genius zone.
If your back office isn’t running efficiently, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
If your goal is to grow your business and make more money, hanging out in your back office is not going to get you there. If the activity is not moving you toward your goals (growth and income), you have to find a way to spend more time in your genius zone.
The way I see it, you have a couple of options:
Keep doing what you're doing. Your hamster wheel will keep your business going, but not growing.
There's nothing wrong with doing things this way, but the chance of burnout is great.
Outsource those activities that are not MMA (money-making activities).
This looks different for every business; social media activities are only money making if you're a social media manager for someone else; they are not generating income if you're doing it for yourself.
Automate the activities that happen the same way each time you do them.
This can be anything from creating rules in your bookkeeping platform (so categorizing your transactions is a button push) to automating the onboarding flow of a new client.
Running a small business is a challenge, but there are ways to make those challenges more manageable. Spend as much time as possible doing what you do best, and let others do the rest for you.
Check in next month for more on what outsourcing looks like when you work with Moxie. And if you just can't wait, you can click here to set up a strategy session.
You've got this.
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