We’ve all heard of the 80/20 rule in business – 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts.
I was listening to a fabulous podcast today about this exact subject, prompting me to write this post as it really resonates with me.
There’s another way of looking at the 80/20 rule. This might help you realise how must time you as a business owner, are wasting on tasks which yield very little in the way of growth and ultimately, profitability.
The takeaway from the podcast for me was – 80% of your time should be on business building task like networking, sales and marketing. If you’re spending more than 20% of your time doing the admin etc, you need to consider outsourcing those tasks.
I was working with an amazing business coach last year, who asked me to do a time audit for a couple of weeks. As you would when working for a boss, I had to write down EVERYTHING I did in a day and the time it took for each task. The short version is, I was blown away at how much time I spent on tasks which don’t generate any income or create growth for my business – like admin and bookkeeping (my own books, that is!) It’s very easy to be BUSY in your business but it’s very different to being PRODUCTIVE!
Yes, the admin tasks are important for your business, however if a business owner is spending more than 20% of their time on those, it’s time to re-evaluate the business and see where time could be better spent if the business owner wants to see growth and profitability.
I dare you to take the challenge and do a time audit for a couple of weeks! I certainly thought I had a good handle on my time but nothing could have been further from the truth!
It’s about switching your mind to what REALLY drives growth in your business. We can all say we’re flat out in our business – we’re all BUSY, but are we actually being productive?
Food for thought, that’s for sure. If you’d like to discuss outsourcing your ATO compliance and other related tasks like cash flow forecasting, budgeting and bookkeeping, I’d be happy to have a chat to see how you can work BETTER in YOUR business.
Supporting you in your business success
Karen Whitely
Educating & empowering small business for long term profitability
61 482 080 430