Introducing the Ladder of Success (and how it can help with the challenges you face)
The Ladder of Success is a fantastic tool for determined people such as yourself to identify where you are on your journey. You can use it to understand what stage you’re currently at and then identify what more you can do to grow your business and become more successful. Everyone starts on the ladder as a Student and then an Employee before some decide to start their own business (becoming Self-Employed).
A common challenge faced by those progressing up the ladder
To be Self-Employed, you will have discovered an opportunity to sell your product/service to an audience. Perhaps since your business launched, it has grown, and you’re now swamped with work and exhausted, or perhaps you’ve spotted the opportunity to expand. Many Self-Employed people find recruiting (to grow their business) extremely difficult.
Bill has spoken to many business owners trying to grow their businesses who have found it challenging to hire the first person into their business. Firstly, you might struggle to identify what you need a new team member to support you with. Secondly, many Managers of People then struggle to manage another person alongside their day-to-day tasks. In some cases, they’ve reverted to being Self-Employed as having a team member on board was too much hassle.
Taking on a team member is no easy feat, you need to have the time and resources to train them alongside completing your own tasks and on top of all that, you must now act as an HR department for your business.
That’s assuming that you’ve found the right person to take on – many Self-Employed people struggle to progress up the ladder as they have difficulties recruiting. They find they can’t get past the first hurdle of finding good, qualified, enthusiastic candidates. Either because they have no idea where to start when recruiting, or they cannot compete with big businesses that have established processes for taking on new team members.
How to climb the Ladder of Success
If you’re currently Self-Employed…
And struggling to get started with recruitment, you need to consider the different areas of your business and where you might need help, as you’ll currently be doing everything yourself. We can split this up into five key functions as follows:
Focus on what you’re best at, ask yourself – “which areas do I excel at?”. Also, what does the business currently need you to be doing to make it grow?
If you’re particularly good at operations and enjoy it, perhaps you should consider getting help with finance and analysis through a bookkeeper or virtual assistant. Or maybe you enjoy sales and would like to outsource your operations to a new team member, i.e., hire someone else to do the day-to-day delivery. Once you’ve identified your focus area and what will be the best use of your time, you must delegate the other tasks. With that being said, you must keep it in balance. You can’t suddenly hire a sales and marketing representative, virtual assistant, and all the support you would like, as you’ve only got the revenue you can create yourself. You must prioritise and plan to ensure you can grow whilst still maintaining a healthy cash flow.
If you’re a Manager of People…
You could now be struggling to juggle your own tasks alongside managing your new team member(s) (all whilst trying not to get burnt out). You will often find that you will be ‘pulled back to work in the business’ preventing you from moving up the ladder to Business Owner.
To make the next step up the ladder you must ensure that you have given your team clear direction and ensure they understand how you will measure their progress.
We understand your struggles and have many time management techniques to help you thrive in your new situation – if you would like some support to make the step from Manager of People to Business Owner, be sure to book a call!
If you’re a Business Owner…
Your team members will take clear ownership of their department/roles and be responsible for their area, leaving you to spend time working on your business, not just working in it.
For you to progress even higher up the ladder, you must decide… Are you going to become an Investor and have the business managed for you whilst you reap the financial rewards of your hard work? Or will you buy another company, build that to become successful and self-sufficient, becoming an Entrepreneur?
How Bill can help you overcome challenges
Understanding what rung of the Ladder of Success you’re on is an excellent first step towards overcoming the challenges you face (whether that be identifying where you need help, recruitment support or managing new team members). Together, we can then plan what you must do to climb higher up the ladder. Bill can support you by acting as an honest friend and drawing on years of experience to help you become more successful.
To chat with Bill, get in touch.
