Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I`d like to hear from the small biz owners who are doing it all themselves (and coming to the realization that they can`t and shouldn`t do everything themselves in their business). I want to know what keeps you from hiring assistance, such as administrative support.

Is is not having enough money?

Not knowing how to find the right person?

Had a bad experience before?

I`d be very grateful for any and all input. Thanks!

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Danielle Keister, The Relief Virtual Assistance
Administrative Support Services for Business Consultants and PR Professionals | Founder, Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce

What`d be cool would be having this as a poll...! I`ll bet the biggest category would be no money. I dunno...just a guess, but SuN makes it easy to poll the questions.

In our case, it is money. We`re posting our labor costs to the production side of things, taking it out of the final sale. Doing it all ourselves, we can postpone the payment for labor until after the sale. But to hire someone would mean paying the labor before the sale, and we just can`t do it.

Yes, having a startup budget with capital to pay for labor would be wonderful. But that`s not the situation. So we`re bootstrapping. Our hope is that if we can sell enough items to develop a backorder situation, we can maybe do a very short-term borrow against sales to pay for piecework help.

Thanks, Craig. In order to create the poll, I need feedback first about what thinking or obstacles keep business owners from getting the help they need. I can guess some of the reasons, but there may be others that I would like to know about as well, which is the reason for the open-ended question.

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Danielle Keister, The Relief Virtual Assistance
Administrative Support Services for Business Consultants and PR Professionals | Founder, Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce

Makes sense.

Lack of money,
Inability to delegate,
Wanting complete control, (not the same as delegation problems)
Lack of organization,
No defined job descriptions (yet),
Distrust of others,
Concerns about HR and employment benefits/taxes,
Worries about insurance and/or liabilities,
Payroll mechanisms and accounting.

Those would be some of my worries before figuring out when and how to hire someone. :-)

Great input! Thank you!

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Danielle Keister, The Relief Virtual Assistance
Administrative Support Services for Business Consultants and PR Professionals | Founder, Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce

Danielle,

I like Craig`s list (no pun intended).  I would add one that I wager won`t get a single vote but may be one big reason people don`t hire help:

Short-term blinding greed (sometimes also know as "I`m the only employee I need or can afford").

I just got off the phone an hour ago with a friend in another state who owns a franchise and just got back from his national franchise meeting.   Over the three days he got the same predictable comments he got in past years from franchise owners in other states - "Oh, you`re the guy who`s got too many people and is paying them way too much and making us look bad.  Why don`t you at least pay less and take some pressure off of us?" They then launch into complaints about turnover. 

This guy has little turnover, and what he explains to each of them is that because he hired early in his business cycle and pays well, he has the lowest turnover in the business, has the largest franchise in the world (and started long after many of them), and makes the most personal profit of the business owners in the company.

He is always astonished that they hear all this and then can`t make the correlation between his huge success and hiring good people early in the cycle, then paying them well.

He feels the key was that he hired others as soon as possible and took the pay-cut himself up front so that he could work ON his business while others worked IN his business.  That allowed him to focus on growing instead of surviving.  He made MUCH less up front and is making much more now because he doesn`t suffer from short-term blinding greed.

If you put it in the survey, maybe you could list it as "I don`t want to grow and have a lot of money", or "I`m unwilling to work ON my business, only IN it."  Probably the best  - "I like being the only employee of me because I get all the attention."  Many small business folks just don`t like acting like owners, they preferred to continue to be employees of themselves just like they were when they worked for somebody else.

Small business people think they experience running out of money, but what they really run out of is time.   Buy yourself some time - Hire people to work IN your business as early as you can, so you can work ON it - then watch it grow.  The less you work in it and the more you work on it, the faster it will grow.



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Team Nimbus facilitates peer teams who advise each other from their collective business experience to raise profits in less time, so they can focus on the passion that brought them into business in the first place. We help move their business from survival, through profitable success, to significance.

"Short-term blinding greed (sometimes also know as "I`m the only employee I need or can afford")."

Excellent point! And not that I`m an advocate for avarice, LOL, but that is definitely a very valid aspect.

I guess with people looking at it from that perspective, the argument could be made that they could make even more money for themselves if they had even just a little bit of extra help than they would trying to do everything themselves.

I love the story about your friend! It`s so true, and you don`t even have to look at it from the touchy-feely angle--it`s really just simple logic and knowing human nature and how to best put that nature to work. Paying well, empowering employees to be your best advocates and representatives...all of that figures into increased profit and smooth operation as your friend well knows.

And you took the words right out of my mouth! LOL. You sure know how to make a VA luv ya!

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Danielle Keister, The Relief Virtual Assistance
Administrative Support Services for Business Consultants and PR Professionals | Founder, Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce

Danielle,

VA`s are a great way for small business owners to solve the problem without taking a big risk on permanent employees right away.    I think as small business owners get familiar with the concept and see it work, you`re going to have your hands full! 

Good luck!

Chuck


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Team Nimbus facilitates peer teams who advise each other from their collective business experience to raise profits in less time, so they can focus on the passion that brought them into business in the first place. We help move their business from survival, through profitable success, to significance.

Oh, you know it! And outsourcing is something any business owner can use, whether they have or intend to have actual employees. VAs can`t do everything an employee can do, but their services certainly offer cost-savings and can be used in a strategic way.

Chuck, where did you get such a fantastic understanding of Virtual Assistance? Do you have a Virtual Assistant?

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Danielle Keister, The Relief Virtual Assistance
Administrative Support Services for Business Consultants and PR Professionals | Founder, Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce

I`m cheating - my wife likes doing the "IN" the business stuff.  But I have a couple acquaintances in my business in Virginia and NC who just got VAs in the last few months and wish they had done it much sooner - having a great experience.

You should check out your local Business Networking International (BNI) group.  This is the only networking group I`ve ever found that really truly works.  And it`s filled with small business people who need you badly (and who will refer their friends to you as well).

http://www.bni.com/



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Team Nimbus facilitates peer teams who advise each other from their collective business experience to raise profits in less time, so they can focus on the passion that brought them into business in the first place. We help move their business from survival, through profitable success, to significance.