“Always Leveraging” Means “Always Learning” – 3 Tips to Scale Your Business

I had an interesting realization about two of these core values that I wanted to share with those of you who want to grow and scale your business. One great thing about being an independent sales partner is that you have the freedom to use technology and even hire people to increase your effectiveness, but many individual sales people struggle with how to scale their businesses. They want to “Leverage” and get more done in less time and with less resources but they just can’t figure out how to get that started. Allow me to explain…

If you want to get more done in less time and with less resources (“Always Leveraging”) it starts with learning new things and training yourself and your people (“Always Learning”).  Many people want their business to grow, or they want to see greater success and effectiveness in their life but they don’t want to learn anything new. You cannot separate leverage from learning, they go hand in hand. If you are thinking, “How can I get my business to the next level?” let me give you a few concrete action steps you can take.

#1 – Replace the radio with audio books and podcast episodes that discuss business, sales and organization.  I love audible.com and I am constantly listening to audio books. If you really want to grow your business, you must have an insatiable desire for learning new things. Business in today’s economy is not easy. Change is happening faster than ever and if you want to stay ahead of the curve, you must make a commitment to invest every possible moment into training and learning new things. Pick a few things you need to learn and then find the best audio books and audio programs. Make a personal commitment to learn at least one new thing each week that can have a positive impact on your business.

#2 – Organize your work.  Think about what you do and start to do it intentionally. How many hours per day do you prospect? Which hours and why? How many new businesses do you walk into each day and what are your expectations? How much time does it take for you to complete paperwork and how could you reduce that time investment? Basically, take everything you do and put it into a system so that it can be easily taught to someone else.

#3 – Delegate Procedures through Training. One of the biggest misconceptions in business and work is that delegation will help you get organized. Nothing will test the limits of your organizational system like delegation. Delegation can help you get more done but it CANNOT help you get more organized. In other words, if you delegate a mess to someone without training them, you will get a much, much bigger mess in return. If you want someone to do your paperwork for you, expect to pay that person for training time and let them watch you enter 5 deals, then you invest time watching them enter their first 5 deals before you let them do one on their own. You must have a system in place and then you have to train someone on how that system works if you want to delegate. If you want to hire sub-agents to help you sell, you can’t just be a good sales person, you have to be an intentional sales person. If you want to hire someone to do your installations, you need a list of procedures on how you want them to complete the installation and interact with the client. I hope these three tips will help you scale your business so that you can reach your goals! Start thinking right now about how you are going to eventually rent your own office space and hire an admin assistant and someone to call and schedule leads for you, etc. Grow your business the right way by learning and training yourself and then others so that you can leverage your time and resources!

Have a great day in the field!
James Shepherd