Delegation is a critical skill you must develop. The process involves working with an employee to establish specific goals and giving them the necessary authority and responsibility to accomplish them. You continue to keep the overall responsibility and stay in charge.

People often find delegation a big challenge. They fear handing over certain tasks for various reasons. Some believe no one can do it better, some do not have enough confidence in someone else’s abilities.

But as your business grows, it is inevitable that you hire people to handle various tasks. There’s no reason for you to work crazy hours all seven days a week. It is easy to delegate, once you find good people and train them. Unless you delegate certain tasks you cannot succeed or achieve your goals. Delegation helps you achieve things you would have never managed to achieve alone. So lets look at the practical aspects of delegation:

• What can you delegate?
  Rather than work hard, you need to work smart. Focus on what you do best and delegate everything else. Delegate jobs you don’t enjoy doing.
• What if you have a problem letting go?
  Remember we said NO micromanagement? Don’t turn into a control freak. Trust others, save time, conserve your energy to plan, grow and enjoy your life.
• It is easy to find good help
  There are several trustworthy websites online through which you can hire help. You can also talk to people you trust or request referrals.

Now lets look at specific jobs you can easily delegate:

• Email management - you can delegate checking email and responding to it.
• Managing the phone - you can get someone to receive, respond to and redirect phone calls
• You can delegate routine customer rather than talk to each customer yourself.
• Scheduling and confirming your business appointments and travel management
• Direct mailing to customers
• Bookkeeping and accounting
• Data entry
• Managing bills receivable and payable
• Web design and monitoring
• Search engine optimization
• Link management - link exchange, one-way link generation
• Affiliate program management

The above is not a comprehensive list, but you can see the potential of delegating tasks to people qualified to handle them. Now look at what you must remember when you delegate:

• Be clear about the task to be delegated
• Delegate it to the appropriate individual
• Set a time frame for each task
• Get progress reports from time to time
• Make sure you provide the necessary authority with the delegated task
• Praise a job well done
• Avoid being a perfectionist

What if you are a one-man operation, though? There are many Internet entrepreneurs who run a home based business and make a fortune. But as the business grows, you too need to share or outsource your routine work. That’s what I’ll discuss in an upcoming article.

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