Strategic Delegation for Small Business Owners: How to Decide What Tasks to Delegate
GUEST AUTHOR: Jessica Jurgenson, founder of Business Casual
One of the many perks of being a small business owner is that YOU get to decide how you spend your working hours.
However, this freedom can also be a costly trap if you do not promptly promote yourself from everyday tasks.
90% of the time, small business owners are overdue to give themselves a promotion.
With a long to-do list and responsibility for ALL departments, unlimited work can be done. Most small business owners find themselves overdue in stepping up to strategic roles.
So, how do we decide what to keep and what to delegate?
In this guest post, Jessica Jurgenson, founder of Business Casual—a modern recruitment firm—shares her insights. She'll explore critical questions to ask yourself to determine what tasks to keep and what to delegate.
Reality Check: Time is Your #1 Currency
As the owner of a recruiting company, I recently had a meeting where the client debated leveraging our support for a full-cycle recruitment search.
During this meeting, the prospective client asked me, “What recruiting tricks do you have that I don’t?”
My answer: time.
Almost everyone in a management capacity has recruited candidates before, so they feel adequately comfortable performing the tasks that come with it.
We can all write job ads, purchase LinkedIn subscriptions, send out messages, and host interviews, of course, with varying strategies and styles. The same goes for administrative tasks like calendaring, filing, answering phones, managing CRMS, etc.
But does that mean it’s what we should be focusing on?
Likely not.
How to Decide What to Spend Time on as a Business Owner
Many business owners we work with think they should focus on the tasks they’re most familiar with. They think they should hire talent for the things that “they are not good at.”
Other business owners (usually the more successful ones) look at it strategically with a return on investment (ROI) in mind.
The Cost of Not Delegating
On average, business owners spend about 15 hours a week on tasks that could be delegated.
To decide what these hours are worth, ask yourself, “How much revenue are you leaving on the table by missing out on higher-leverage opportunities?”
In other words, by not delegating these tasks, how much is it COSTING your business to have you perform them to try to “save money?”
Questions to Ask Yourself to Know What to Delegate
Here are the questions I ask myself when deciding what to keep and what to outsource:
Do I enjoy this activity?
Is this task critical or sensitive, and does it require my attention?
Is this a strength of mine, or could someone else do it better?
What's the opportunity cost of doing this task myself versus delegating?
If most answers are “no,” it’s time to give yourself a promotion through delegation!
Ready for a Promotion Through Delegation?
If you're considering delegating more to focus on strategic growth, The Boutique COO and Business Casual offer various resources and services to support your journey. From operational support to recruitment, we can help you promote yourself to a role that suits your skills and business vision better.
Explore The Boutique COO’s services or reach out directly to Jess for a deeper conversation about strategically delegating tasks and enhancing your business operations.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jess Jurgenson is the founder of Business Casual, a modern recruitment firm that specializes in supporting small-mid sized businesses with designing and implementing creative recruiting strategies. With over a decade in operations, general management and recruiting, Jess has recognized the foundational patterns that create successful recruiting outcomes, and supports her clients with implementing those foundations, while adding their own custom flair to the process along the way for well suited results.
