I've worked with several clients to add retreats to their business and we've learned some valuable lessons in the process.

3 Quick & Dirty Exercises to Get Ops Off Your Plate

When I first start working with a new client, they often tell me that they feel overwhelmed by all the day to day necessities that go into running a business.

They thrive on serving their clients or customers and creating valuable content, but struggle to handle all the details as their business grows.

Feeling this type of overwhelm is a key indicator that you’ve crossed a threshold in your biz and now require team support.

So the question becomes, how do you all the day to day operations off of your plate (so you can put them on someone else’s)?

Here are three exercises to get you started:

The first exercise

I have clients do is to track where they are spending their time. We use the $10, $100, $1,000 task matrix to identify in a tangible way the value of their tasks. Very often, we find that they are spending way too much time in the $10 and even $100 tasks that could be outsourced with a bit of planning and preparation — things like email management, blog posts, social media posting, or scheduling appointments.

While it is critical for you to engage your audience and build relationships through social media, it isn’t necessary for you to be the one actually posting every single item to the various channels for instance. The brute force labor is a $10 task you can outsource, while the relationship building that follows could be the $1,000 task.

After this exercise, it is easier for clients to see the money leaks in how they’re spending their time and to identify specific tasks that could be outsourced to get my clients out of the day to day operations.

The next thing I do

is have them start an “I hate list”. This is usually a favorite because I encourage them to write down all the things they hate doing and would prefer to outsource.

We start with an initial brain dump of 15-20 minutes to generate whatever pops into their head. After that, I ask them to keep the list handy for at least 30 days and add to it as necessary.

Here, the goal is to identify not only time leaks but also energy leaks. There may be things that are quick and easy for you to do, but you hate doing them so you avoid them. Or, every time you do them you’re exhausted and don’t want to do anything else productive afterwards.

For me, I find bookkeeping and email sequences to be two things that are a serious energy drain. I am completely capable of reconciling transactions and assigning tax info to everything, but I hate it so much that I avoid it forever. So it makes so much more sense to hire a bookkeeper to handle that each month. It is worth every single penny to not have to do it myself and to have up to date books every month.

Similarly, I enjoy creating email sequences and writing various emails but I hate adding the copy inside the actual autoresponder. I generally can’t avoid it because it’s very deadline focused but every time I do it I end up feeling so drained I’m worthless for hours and hours.

So, take the time to identify these tasks in your business so you can build a plan to outsource them.

The third exercise

is to look for overlap between the $10 tasks you identified as a money leak and the “I hate” tasks you identified as an energy or time leak.

There is usually a few things that fall into both categories and that’s where to start!

By building systems and processes that document how you want those tasks completed, you can begin to outsource them to a team. This is the first step to removing yourself from the day to day operations that are preventing you from continuing to grow your business.