Having a good assistant can be the difference between being successful in business and failing. I have seen so many business owners struggle to find time in the day to do their high value tasks and once they took the leap to hire an assistant everything changed for the better. But I would be lying if I said that everyone I spoke with was instantly drawn to the idea of hiring an assistant. In fact, many times I am met with a myriad of excuses why an assistant wouldn’t be a good idea for them. So today I wanted to share with you the top three biggest fears business owners have about hiring an assistant, and discuss why those fears are most often invalidated.
I can’t afford it.
I hear this one a lot as a business coach, and it really is an all-purpose excuse. Want an assistant? I can’t afford it. Want to get a new piece of equipment that will increase your production? I can’t afford it. Want to hire that rock star sales manager? I can’t afford it. You get the idea. But the truth of the matter is that you are already paying for it. At this moment you are already doing all the various things on your to-do list. And by doing every little thing on your list, you aren’t freeing up your time to work on your next big idea. If you could free up five to fifteen hours a week, how much could you generate in revenue by being able to really focus on your business? In most cases, the amount would far exceed that of the salary of your new assistant.
I am too busy.
“I don’t have time. I need an assistant to help me find and train and hire an assistant.” I hear it all the time. And it’s pretty ironic if you think about it. As soon as you say it, you instantly know that there is something inherently wrong with that train of thought. My best advice is even if you are busy, it’s okay to hire and onboard your new assistant slowly. There’s nothing wrong with you telling them: I’ve only got a limited amount, so we’re going to do your onboard over the course of the first 60 days. Early on you’re going to have some empty time. I might arrange for you to shadow some other people in the company. I might arrange for you to do some more rote types of things that I have that have backlogged. And there may be some downtime where I don’t have anything for you to do. But I am willing to pay for that downtime, and by the 60 or 90-day mark, you’ll be fully up to speed on your position. You don’t need perfection, just progress.
I don’t have enough work for an assistant.
This is almost never true. What is true is that lots of business owners have trouble letting go. And so they can’t even fathom what they could possibly hand over to their assistant. But once you get a little practice, you will be amazed at all the things you do have that could be done by someone else. Now will it be exactly like you do it? Of course not. And that is ok. They may actually do it better than you would have, because they have the time to dedicate to creating the proper processes and procedures. And if you are still struggling to fill the hours, it is perfectly acceptable to hire someone on part time.
While you may have reservations about hiring an assistant, once you get good at delegating and you find someone who’s good at what they do you will wonder how in the world you ever get by without that person!
