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Are You a "Control Freak?" Be Careful! It Can Derail Your Success

Written by: Stephanie Calahan

Article Overview: Do you want to be successful with your business? Do you delegate? No? Why not? If you are a "control freak" you could be costing your business its success. That is the theme of Melanie Benson Strick's latest article "How Control-Freak-It Is Can Derail Your Success". (http://tinyurl.com/ctrlFreak) Melanie raises some awesome points about how you cannot do it all yourself and do it well. As the picture to the right shows, this juggling lady is already losing some balance because that food is about to spill all over the baby on the floor! Keep reading for ideas on how you can do more in less time and be more successful!

Are You a "Control Freak?" Be Careful! It Can Derail Your Success

Do you want to be successful with your business? Do you delegate? No? Why not? If you are a "control freak" you could be costing your business its success. That is the theme of Melanie Benson Strick's latest article "How Control-Freak-It Is Can Derail Your Success". (http://tinyurl.com/ctrlFreak)

Melanie raises some awesome points about how you cannot do it all yourself and do it well. As the picture to the right shows, this juggling lady is already losing some balance because that food is about to spill all over the baby on the floor!

Keep reading for ideas on how you can do more in less time and be more successful!

I frequently have people ask me how I can get it all done and that I must never sleep. Now, admittedly, my sleeping patterns are a bit odd because I am a stay-up-late kind of gal, but that is not how I manage to grow my business and get a lot done in the community I live in.

Delegation is the Key!

Every quarter or so, I look at my personal and work life and make sure that I am focusing my time on the priority areas in my life. Am I getting the "most bang for my buck" so to speak. After all, my company pays me a salary, so I should be doing activities that represent the salary I am being paid! If I find that I've been spending time on things that are not my true personal or business focus, I either ditch them or delegate them.

Delegate to People With the Right Skills

Many self employed individuals and executives choose not to delegate because it seems as if they could do it better, or it would take too long to explain how to do something. Yes, there is a bit of an investment upfront to teach someone, but if you are delegating the right things to the right people, it is not as bad as it might seem. Let me give you an example:

* My 7-year-old son has been putting stickers on my brochures and completing some of my filing (thanks to Paper Tiger - ) since he was 5-years-old!

* My neighbor boy mows the lawn

* A college student does errand running and some marketing

* My virtual assistant creates training manuals for my contractors

* My business development person sets my appointments

Notice that I don't have the same employee (or any employee!) doing the work. I look at each task that needs to be completed and determine what skills are required to get the task done. Then, I ask a person with those skills to complete the task with an associated deadline and let them do their stuff.

Spend the Money!

So many of us say that we don't have the income to do the delegation. However, everyone (and I mean everyone) that I have met that has implemented delegation into their businesses with the right systems in place have earned more than they have spent! The great thing about virtual help is that you only pay for the work that gets completed. Oftentimes you pay on a per-project basis. With that type of payment schedule, you can control what you get done and when.

Since I have begun delegating, my overall life is much better. In fact, I had time to cuddle with my son last night and just read to him for two hours. If I did not delegate, I never would have had that great time together with him. At the same time, my new site was being developed and others were working on their tasks.

Do you delegate? Share one of your success stories with me. I'd love to hear about it.

Related Articles
  DELEGATION FOR BEGINNERS
  Are You A Marketing Control Freak?
  The Control Freaks Approach to HomeBased Business
  Are You a Control Freak?
  The Heroes Control Their Business

Article Tags: benson, brochures, control freak, delegation, ditch, melanie, neighbor boy, paper tiger, priority areas, salary, sleep, spending time, stickers, strick, tiger



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