Canadian Small Business Women

Connection, Synergy, Community

  • Home
  • Shop
  • Media
    • Advertise with Us
    • Inside Conversations
  • Partners
  • Events
    • Amplify Your Voice Conference
    • Choosing the Right Community
    • 2023 Startup Pitch Conference
    • Strategy Brunch – August
    • Accelerator Program
  • Resources
    • Market Research
    • Community Hubs & Co-working Spaces
    • Tech Resources
    • Human Resources
    • Financial Resources
    • Courses
  • Innovation
    • Clean Technology
    • Green Technology
    • Medical Technology
  • Blog

Oct 16 2018

Get Creative: Who can you lean on?

I often say that as women we are pulled in a million different directions based on whatever is screaming the loudest. More times than I’d like to admit, it has left me running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Between my business, my two special needs children, my marriage and general household duties, some days there is a lot vying for my attention.

I learned a long time ago, the hard way, that I was going to need to lean on people in order to get it all done. Not someone who finds it easy to ask for help, over the years I’ve gotten pretty good about finding creative ways to manage everything I need to get done in the limited amount of time I have.

My biggest tip for those looking to do the same is: You need to outsource.

 

A creative way to manage your time and To-Do List

In order to have profitable businesses, we should be spending most of our time each day doing what we are great. The tasks and skill set that makes up our Zone of Excellence is what our clients pay us for, after all. But what about all of the other things that need to be done as part of running our business?

It can be hard to strike the right balance between working IN your business (completing the job your clients hire you for) and working ON your business (think administration, marketing and business development) – especially when it’s just you wearing all of the hats. Not yet quite ready to hire an employee, in years past, business owners had to tough it out in this land of limbo until budget caught up with work load.

However, that’s not the norm anymore. With the rise of remote working, more business owners are opting to run their business out of their homes and outsource the overflow work wherever possible; freeing up more time to work in their Zone of Excellence and saving on overhead costs.

 

If you’re just outsourcing business tasks, you’re not doing it right

When we think of outsourcing, our minds generally go straight to business tasks. During a discussion with anyone of my busy boss-mom clients, they can list off a number of business tasks they feel they should be sending to someone else to complete. I get it. As a mompreneur, who is homeschooling her children while running a business, my kitchen table often doubles as my office, and I have some remote contractors and virtual assistants helping me as I go.

But to stop at business tasks is to do yourself a disservice. In my business, I can’t outsource much; I’m the business strategist. I am the business. So I had to begin to think outside of my business tasks and start taking a closer look at the tasks in my personal life that could be handled by others.

The usual ones came up (i.e. housekeeping), but I pushed myself to dig deeper.

 

Here are a few others that I found:

  1. Shop for groceries online and utilize ‘in the parking lot’ pick-up options now

offered by stores like Zehrs.

  1. Make the local play place your office for the morning so you can work while you children are entertained
  2. List of chores that can be done by your children with some training (i.e. my daughter has been putting her own laundry away since she was three)
  3. Kid friendly meetings where mompreneurs can network and collaborate while our children play
  4. Laundry services that will take your laundry, wash it and bring it back dry and folded
  5. Because I am a night owl, I outsourced bedtime routine to Dad so that I could work uninterrupted from shortly after dinner until my bedtime.


Samantha King is a busy mompreneur and homeschooler with two young children and a couple of businesses at home. When Samantha’s daughter was diagnosed with autism, she had to learn how to keep her priorities aligned within her family, while operating her business at the same time. She is excited to share her knowledge to empower entrepreneurs by giving them the tools they need to do something they love while building sustainable, profitable businesses.  

Contact Samantha:

Tel: 416-885-6841

Email: samantha@fempirebuilders.com

Facebook: @FempireBuilders

Twitter: @FempireBuilders

Instagram: @Fempire_Builders

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Email

Written by Dwania Peele · Categorized: Samantha King · Tagged: business, Time Management, to do list

Oct 15 2016

Planning for success

sandra

We’re already at the half-way mark of the month of October! The last quarter of the year always seems to go much faster than the first three for some reason. Sometimes I wonder if it’s just me because I always feel the need to end the year with a bang 😉

One of the things on my current to-do list is to complete my plan for 2017. In the last 5 years or so, I have dedicated time in the fall to reflecting on the present year as well as putting together the plan for the upcoming year. I’m sure we’ve all heard it said that a goal without a plan is just a dream. I know that I personally haven’t been able to accomplish anything of real significance without a plan to make it happen.

Whether everything went according to that plan is a completely different story! If there’s anything I’ve learned in planning my goals and helping clients with their own, it’s that things rarely go exactly as planned. The reason for this is that we make the plan with a limited understanding of what’s possible, no matter how open minded we are. As we take action on our goals, receive guidance from others and test the waters, we learn new things that often alter the course, but never the final destination.

An important part of the plan for me is taking the time to celebrate our accomplishments to-date. We can sometimes downplay the progress we’ve made because we’ve set such high expectations of ourselves. I know from personal experience that it’s when we take the time to acknowledge the small wins that we can focus our energy on attracting even bigger ones.

Planning before the start of the year helps us set the tone for 2017. With an established plan now, we know exactly what to do when the New Year starts! It also gives us the opportunity to share our plan with people we know will support you and hold you accountable. It’s about really setting ourselves up for success, not only with the creation of the plan, but making sure that we have everything and everyone we need in place to support us in achieving our goals.

Take the time to start planning your New Year. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did! This doesn’t have to be a chore; you can have fun with it. Plan a girls’ night in and make vision boards. Do a family exercise where everyone shares one thing they want to achieve for the year and everyone brainstorms (in a positive supportive way) different options to make those goals a reality! Planning for 2017 is about creating your future, what can be more exciting than that?

If you want some support in creating your plan for the New Year, join me the weekend of November 11-13 for the Jump Start Your Year Retreat in Blue Mountain! Visit http://bit.ly/jumpstartyouryear for more information.

Sandra Dawes is a certified life coach specializing in helping women who feel unfulfilled with their 9-5 follow their dreams and pursue their passions. She holds an Honours BA, an MBA as well as a certificate in Dispute Resolution. She has completed her first book,Embrace Your Destiny: 12 Steps to Living the Life You Deserve!

Connect:

www.embraceyourdestiny.ca

www.facebook.com/embraceyourdestiny

www.facebook.com/embraceyourdestinythebook

www.twitter.com/sandradawes

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Email

Written by Dwania Peele · Categorized: Sandra Dawes · Tagged: brainstorm, Embrace Your Destiny, October, plan for 2017, planning for success, Sandra Dawes, to do list

Stay Social with Canadian Small Business Women:

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Login

© Copyright 2012 Canadian Small Business Women · All Rights Reserved