Posted: 9th January 2017
For most of us who are self-employed it’s hard to stop ‘doing’ and find quiet time to reflect and evaluate our personal & businesses successes as well as areas that need more work or research.
I’ve been lucky to start January with an enforced break due to our Cafe Kitchen having a much needed (and wished for!) refurbishment.
Although this brings its own additional workload it has also provided much welcome space from my usual routine and meant I can focus on some aspects of my business that I never seem to find enough time to resolve.
Last year I benefitted from some encouraging & timely mentoring from Emily Whitehead at Simply Staffs – we discussed ideas and ways forward to improve my use of social media & I started to get to grips with some of this.
Inevitably however the initial momentum was hard to sustain due to a busy work year & my family commitments. On a plus, I was able to look at my website with fresh eyes and that has now been beautifully redesigned but I still felt that I had failed with regular blog updates and a professional enough look to social media platforms.
I realise now that, although I would love to have the time to put aside to be hands on with this aspect of marketing, it’s actually much more efficient to delegate it to someone you trust and who ‘gets’ you & your business.
So an email sent today (to my fab web-designer) has resulted in an outline plan for diarised blog & social media updates going forward. She is also self-employed, knows my business as she was a customer first, and I feel relieved that I won’t be missing deadlines for seasonal marketing.
At best this will mean I will more effectively promote my business over the coming year and grow my customer base. At the very least though it takes away that feeling of failure when a task is never completed. I think that peace of mind will be a huge bonus. It’s good to delegate – it doesn’t mean you have relaxed your high standards – it just means you have found colleagues who share them.
And that all feels just a wee bit more manageable.
