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4 Myths Stopping You From Hiring An Assistant

I confess I stalled on hiring an assistant and there were four main reasons. They have turned out to be completely unfounded, and I share them with you here so that you can bust these myths and hire the help you so badly need to help grow your business.
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I made a decision recently that absolutely rocked my world as a solopreneur -- I hired my very first assistant. I hired someone who I had initially made contact with last summer, and as I mentioned in a recent blog, it's important to decide who you'll to hire before you actually need them. That way, you're not scrambling to find the right person and placing yourself and your business at risk by selecting the wrong candidate due to lack of time.

All of that aside, I confess I stalled on hiring an assistant and there were four main reasons. They have turned out to be completely unfounded, and I share them with you here so that you can bust these myths and hire the help you so badly need to help grow your business.

Myth #1 - I don't have enough work

You'll be surprised by the amount of work you have for hired help once you look for it. Take your to do list for example -- which tasks could you delegate? Or to look at it another way, what are the items that only you can do? In my business, only I can see clients one-on-one, only I can do my Periscopes, only I can write these articles. As for scheduling emails and setting up pages on the back-end of my website, I can hire someone to do that. Additionally, consider what you're good at and what you love. For anything you hate doing and/or you're terrible at, don't hesitate to farm it off to some kind soul who is ready and willing take it off your hands.

Myth #2 - It's too early in my business / I'm not ready

It's not too early. In reality, your business won't grow without hiring help. If we try to do everything ourselves, we don't have time to look at the strategic direction of our business as a whole and instead we get bogged down in the day-to-day administration of our products and services. Simply put, if we're too busy working in our business, we can't work on our business. You can't do it all. Plus, hiring someone means you give yourself not only an extra pair of hands, but an extra brain. It offers you a person who you can bounce ideas off and who can offer a fresh perspective and help you see things in a new light. The advantage? You find a solution to that tricky problem much faster than if you allowed it to run riot in your own mind.

Myth #3 - I can't afford it

I know what it's like when you're starting out in business and your spreadsheet of expenses makes your eyes water. You have to pay for your website domain name and web developer fees, swallow the monthly outgoings of your email provider despite your email marketing not generating revenue yet, and you still haven't settled the tuition from that fancy professional institution. But here's the thing. You can't afford not to hire someone. As we talked about above, doing every single thing yourself greatly stilts the growth of your business. Think about it this way -- what is your time worth per hour? Multiply that by the small, menial tasks that take up your time and then do the math. Without hiring someone to take these admin-based jobs off your plate, your revenue is going to be capped at a specific amount and it isn't going to grow until you make that decision to hire an assistant.

Myth #4 - It will take longer to explain it. I may as well do it myself.

This used to be my misguided mantra when I worked in the corporate world. Often, I had so much on my plate that I didn't have time to explain my tasks to a junior associate. This resulted in me being swamped, overloaded and totally stressed out. I would love to say I learned this lesson right away when I started my business. I didn't. But now, I've learned the importance of hiring help and, specifically, finding an assistant who is a good fit so that task download is easy. I'm fortunate to have found an assistant who "gets" me and knows exactly what I need and what I mean. It's an absolute joy and it's enabled me to move very quickly on some of my most important projects that have otherwise been clogging up my ever-growing 'I'll get to that when I have time' list.

In short, by taking these steps you free up your time to place your expertise where it's best used. There are some things only you can do -- and for the other things, hire help.

Trust me on this one.

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