One of the biggest problems of being self employed is that you wear all the hats – CEO, CFO, Office Manager, HR, etc, etc. So how do you balance all that and still manage to sell your product or service and do all the work? I’ve learned a few tips along the way that I try to implement myself as much as possible, let me share a few of my favourites with you.
#1 – Network. Pretty simple, you don’t meet new people, you won’t expand your client base. This isn’t saying that you’re going out there to meet all your new clients, but network with other business people and build relationships and that’s how you make great referral partners. Think of it as a “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” idea – build relationships, send them referrals and it will come back to you. Check out some of our other posts on networking for more information, particularly the one “The Importance of Networking”.
#2 – Pick 2 of the Three of Price, Service and Quality. One thing that I was told growing up is to think of a triangle when you offer a product or service. In each corner there’s one of either price, service or quality and you can only pick one side of the triangle to focus on. So if you want to offer your clients great service and exceptional quality you can’t compete on price or you’re business is going to fail. Offering high quality and service can cost you more so it should also cost your clients more. Thoughts like that apply to either of the other two pairs as well. Pick two, stick with them, and the third will land where it needs to.
#3 – Time Track. How many times have you reached the end of your day baffled as to how it ended but you didn’t get anything accomplished, yet you felt busy all day? Think of it like budgeting, if you don’t track your money you don’t know where you spent it and you can’t figure out where you went wrong – it’s the same with time. If you don’t track your time you don’t see where your wasting it, also, if you track your time you track the time you’re wasting and you’re less likely to waste as much! We’ve started using a free service called Toggl – I’d highly recommend it!
(Edit May 11, 2018) Want a great outline of what Toggl is all about? Here’s a great article online about it: https://thefreelanceeffect.com/toggl-review/
#4 – Outsource. You can’t add hours to a day – but if you take away some of the things that you’re working on that someone else could do for you and for less money, it’s a no brainer. It could range from hiring a house/office cleaner so you can work instead of cleaning the floors to hiring a bookkeeper – it doesn’t have to be hiring staff. Traditional outsourcing (be that local or international) may work as well, but simply hiring someone to take some of your administrative tasks off your plate can free up a ton of time. If you’ve started #3 already and keeping track of your time you should also be able to see the areas that are taking up too much time and good candidates to send off to someone else.
So if you’re feeling like your profitability is a bit lacking lately give a couple or all of these points a shot and see how it helps! Good luck!
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