3 Steps to Remove Yourself as the Bottleneck

Remember in the previous blog "Are you addicted to struggle?" I talked about Sandra (not her real name) and how she overcame being addicted to struggle?

Well, today I'm going to talk to you about another client, let's call her Vanessa (again, not her real name) who was able to free up her time, and free up cashflow, by removing herself as the bottleneck in her business. 

Being addicted to struggle, and being the bottleneck in your business, are often closely related issues. They both come down to a bookkeeper mindset vs a business owner mindset.

In Vanessa's case, the issue boiled down to 3 things:

👉 "letting go"

This is where this issue is closely related to struggle. In order to move from bookkeeper to business owner you have to let go;

• let go of the idea that it has to be you doing the work
• let go of the workload and delegate it to your team
• let go of the fear of what could go wrong, and instead put systems in place to mitigate the risk

👉 too much work

After Vanessa reviewed her capacity and that of her team it was blindingly obvious that there was simply more work than hours in the day and there was no way that they could get it all done without working long hours. It was time to bring on another team member.

The root cause of this is usually a lack of planning and a lack of systems around workflow planning. I'll get to systems next, but I often liken this type of situation to a virtual stack of manila folders on our desk, or maybe you even have an actual pile of manila folders on your desk.

Now that we've gone all digital we can't always see the load but we sure can feel it. Without proper planning, you don't really know how much work is in those virtual folders or how long things are going to take, so it feels chaotic and out of control.  

👉 better systems  

Here's what made a difference for Vanessa, and allowed her to get on top of the first 2 issues.

I helped Vanessa to implement Xero Practice Manager. She was getting it for free anyway as a Xero Partner and was using it for time tracking but that was about it. It really wasn't being used to its full potential.

Making better use of XPM allowed Vanessa to see just how much work there was, and to better plan and delegate that workload, and having that information gave her the confidence to hire a new team member to help with the workload.

In this example the solution was XPM but it doesn't matter what you use - I have clients using a variety of things like Click-Up, Asana, Pixie, MS Planner, and Quickbooks Workflows - so long as you use something that helps you to:

• plan the work
• get a good overview of capacity
• be able to see where you and your team are at compared to estimates
• give you job templates with checklists so nothing gets missed   

Do you want to grow your bookkeeping business but you're not sure what to do next?  

Stephanie 

PS: Interested in working with me as your bookkeeping business coach? Send me an email  or Message me to start the conversation.