Yesterday I met one of my business-owner friends. He seemed to have a blast. So, like everyone, I too thought that he was living the life of his dream. Having a good business, earning in 8 figures, partying like there is no tomorrow, going to exotic locations for holidays. It is after we started chatting a little deeply I was quite surprised at what he had to say:
Well, my friend let me tell you that “It’s all a Lie”. I will tell you some secrets about how a Real Business owner spent their day.
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First – there is no single ritual that all Business owners follow. Yeah, you heard it right. Everybody’s perspective of how they utilize their day is different. Not everyone wakes up at 5 A.M go for a run or hit the gym and write affirmations while drinking smoothies. Some Business owners have children, whom they make ready for school, some have to go to buy milk or vegetables or do household chores, and some just open their laptops with a cup of tea and start with emails and messages. Elon Musk starts his day around 7 am with a cup of coffee and in such a rush that he skips breakfast most days. But the common thing is that it’s going to be a long day ahead of every one of them.
According to the meeting statistics by bettermeeting.expert, one survey from New York Enterprise Report found that small business owners work twice as much as regular employees. It also found that 33% of small business owners reported working more than 50 hours per week, and 25% said they work more than 60 hours a week. And Gallup found that 39% of the owners they surveyed worked around 60 hours a week.
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Second – When running a company not one day is the same and not always as glamorous as it looks from the outside. A businessman is required to wear different hats, in a day, from being an HR personnel to a sales executive and from marketing manager to dealing with clients directly. So we like to give total focus on the task at hand to perform all these activities with minimum hindrance. We also have our priority list and to-do list ready for the day.
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Third – Each day brings different types of challenges and activities to be done on the part of Business owners. One day it could be a client meeting from one end of the country to another end, the next day he could be stuck in the office conducting meetings, interviewing new recruiters, and responding to emails and calls. So we work with strategies like “day blocking” which help to perform all this work with minimum hindrance.
According to an article in Small Business Trend, a new report from the Prodoscore Research Council (PRC) shows just how radically the pandemic has fueled changes to the working environment. It shows that the number of daily meetings increased by 26% in 2020, from 3.36 meetings a day in 2019 to 4.24 meetings a day in 2020. The average time of a meeting in 2020 was 2 hours 14 minutes, equating to 24 full days a year.
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Fourth -According to a research study in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, only 2.5 % of individuals are capable of multitasking effectively over long periods — much lower than you might think. Against common myth, businessmen don’t multi-task. We focus on a single goal at a time. Since we have a lot to do in a day and multitasking hampers growth we use the technique of “compartmentalizing and batching”. We give undivided attention to one task for a particular amount of time.
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Fifth – India’s IT outsourcing industry will witness a CAGR growth of 7.25% by 2025, reaching INR 8,830 billion ($121,335,149.20). According to Outsource Accelerator and Classic Informatics
Most successful business owners outsource their work. Now every large and small business is outsourcing tasks because of reasons like Technological advancements that have led professionals to work from anywhere in the world, availability, and accessibility of extremely qualified professionals such as virtual assistants, freelance content and copywriters, graphic designers, web developers, marketing managers, bookkeepers, and the list goes on.
Outsourcing helps the business owner from freeing up from the burden of excessive tasks, paying overhead and expenses such as health insurance, compensations, and house rents, and at the same time helps to increase productivity, and customer satisfaction. Outsourcing works wonders for the core performance of the company.
The top reason for outsourcing (70%) is cost reduction. The second reason is flexibility (40%). Speed to market is important to 20% of businesses. Access to tools and processes and agility matter to 15% of the surveyed, according to Deloitte’s outsourcing statistics graphs
70% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing (Hubspot, 2020)
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Sixth – As a businessman, there are way too many tasks to be performed on a day-to-day basis, it is natural that over time they can’t keep up with the deadlines, successfully handle client requests, manage emails and websites, grow their social media presence, do the booking and update accounting. In the end, this constant lack of time leads them to hire a virtual assistant who remotely provides administrative, accounting, marketing, technical, creative, and personal support to any business. The virtual assistant keeps the business organized and frees the business owner’s time so that they can build their marketing strategies and grow their business.
As per the study conducted by Gartner in November 2021: Business owners spend anywhere between 30% to 50% of their time doing backend administrative activities which can be easily outsourced to a reliable VA.
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Seventh – Getting clients and dealing with new and existing clients is the biggest challenge because you need to be active at different places to get different groups of clients. You need to be omnipresent. You need to have qualities like being patient, showing respect, having flexibility, having empathy, thinking creatively, and most importantly having very good communication skills. Scaling our business is a huge task. Different types of clients are present at different types of places. You will find a younger audience on social media, particularly Instagram and Facebook. Experienced professionals are more likely to be found on LinkedIn.
In a study from Harvard business review, consulting firm Bain & Company found that “Increasing customer retention rates by 5% increases profits by 25% to 95%.”
As you can tell, excellent customer service is a game-changer, no matter what industry. It helps grow revenue, maintain customer loyalty, and client retention, scale up business, and improve your overall business strategies.
He shared some rules that all businessmen out there live by, although everyone has their own style of doing things. Let me quickly sum it up:
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A business owner starts his/her day with a certain goal to be achieved that day.
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We are never multi-task. They use the concept of batching and compartmentalizing to complete their tasks.
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We frame a strategy to perform their work. It’s always error and trial for us. Even if the strategy fails we work to form a new strategy keeping the end goal in mind.
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We outsource all menial work to achieve higher efficiency.
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We respect our clients and get out of our comfort zone to achieve their satisfaction.
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We pay attention to the smallest of details in all the activities we perform.
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We try to remain as organized as possible.
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We have control over their schedule and know their priorities.
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We filter out what they can and can’t control.
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We maintain a steady focus while performing our part. We always have to focus on their end goal. We perform each piece of work keeping that end goal in mind.
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We challenge ourselves mentally and physically.
Are you a Business Owner? You must be head-down busy with growing your business, so I will keep this brief – How are you ensuring that the admin tasks don’t waste your time?
Typically business owners save 20%-40% of their time when they have someone reliable to do this.
Are you open to exploring more?