One Idea Exponentially Increases a Contractors Chance of Success

It’s NOT based on working longer or harder!

In a home improvement business, as an owner or manager, you have a full day of work every day.  And yet, there is always more to do.

The challenge seems to call for working longer and harder.

Should you work longer?

Consider this. If you are one of three people, and you work twice as long, then you can add an additional 33% more output to your workforce. But if you are one of 10 people, and work twice as long, you can only add 10% more output to your business.

The strategy of working longer as the size of your business grows, becomes less of a factor. Actually, working twice as long will most likely burn you out. Over time, working longer hours will become a negative factor.

Should you work harder?

You’re probably working as hard as you can already. What more can you do? Working harder is not a winning strategy either.

There is a solution. The solution is not working longer and it’s not working harder. The solution is simply doing different things when you work.

There’s one business idea that the most successful contractors know. This idea is to shrink their job. To take as many parts of the leader’s job and delegate it to others.

Shrink your job through hiring the right people and delegating to them.

The Case for Shrinking Your Job

If you don’t shrink your job, what will the rest of your life look like?  You’ll continue to be:

• Overworked
• Pulled in too many directions
• Burdened with too many responsibilities
• Not making (much) money
• Dealing with problems of all kinds
• Struggling to pay the bills
• Spending less time than you want to at home
• Frustrated you aren’t making progress

Most contractors have challenges and problems. And these problems continue until they quit or close their business.

But if you, as leader, can shrink your job to just the things that would help your company grow and prosper, your life would look different.

How to Shrink Your Job to Grow Your Business

The goal is to shrink your job and put yourself into the position where you can focus on the most important things. To do this, you need to:

• Take things away – strip out the unnecessary tasks you do every day.
• Substitute - taking one thing out in order to add something else.
• Make the things you do have to do shorter and simpler.

Where to start. Create a list of everything you do and then split that list into High Value Activities (HVAs) and Low Value Activities (LVAs).

LVAs are things like answering the phone, opening the mail, and anything that you do that is repetitive should be delegated. Even talking to customers – at some point – should be delegated.

HVAs are the things you want to focus on. Things like:

• Setting Strategy
• Setting Goals
• Envisioning What Your Business Needs to Look Like 
• Building that Team that Does the Work

To get a list of 12 HVAs that Larry Janesky focuses on, start on this earlier post. And sign up for the email newsletter at the top of the page.

Hyper-focus on these few things and your chance for business success increases exponentially.

In this video Larry discusses the power of making your job obsolete. Delegate anything you are doing now for higher value work. This video is excerpted from Larry's Illumination video series.

The most successful contractors know that shrinking their jobs to just the most important things is the key to success.

 

Much of the Shrinking Your Job message comes from “The Editor-In-Chief” exercise in The School of Entrepreneurship. Get this great exercise and many more to propel your business to its first or next million dollars. Start today with a Free Trial.

When asked “How Did You Hear About Us,” type in “BLOG” to receive a special discount if you choose to continue after the Free Trial.

Currently, no credit card is required to start the Free Trial. Hurry while this special version of the Free Trial lasts!