It’s now been about five years since I started blogging for a company. I had no intention of getting into blogging as a profession, but it started with that one company. Then I started writing for a second and third and it’s built up from there.
Early on it became at least a little obvious that demand was there. And I thought it could turn into something more than just a side freelancing gig so I started thinking about how a business would look.
Ghost Blog Writers took shape from there.
That kind of thinking was very much what entrepreneurs have to do at all times during the life of their business. But over the years I’ve fallen in and out of that type of thinking.
Yes, I do think about the high level business items just about all the time, but sometimes I find myself getting pulled more into the day-to-day tasks of the business. And that can drain the energy out of you. The saying goes that there are only so many hours in the day, but I think a better way to think about it is that you only have so much energy every day.
So from time to time I need to catch myself and get out of the rut of the day-to-day and get back to thinking like an entrepreneur or general manager.
Here is how it went recently.
Day-To-Day Tasks, Losing Energy
Ghost Blog Writers had a pretty good month recently and that kind of pulled me in on all the day-to-day tasks that go along with bringing on new clients. And with the growth coming in it also involves bringing on new writers and getting them ready for potential work.
And everything kind of increases from customer service emails to more accounting.
These are the things that people on the outside say are good problems to have. I guess they are good problems, but it’s dangerous because I don’t want to get too caught up in those items.
If I get caught up in the day-to-day too much of the business I’m limited what the business can achieve. Again, I only have so much energy and I can’t do everything.
So I found myself losing energy and not having enough to focus on the high level tasks that are important to the current and future success of the business.
High Level Tasks And Projects
Those high level tasks include looking at the GBW website, auditing it and making small changes. I like to go back and look at the site and the content from time to time (every few months) and make tweaks. Your website is never a “done” item on your checklist. It’s always evolving.
I wanted to look at the overall setup and structure of the business. I’m looking at adding new responsibilities and bringing on other team members other than writers to handle some of the growing tasks at GBW.
I also want to dedicate more energy to guest posting and being a guest on business podcasts. Those have been good investments for GBW in the past. There is value there, but I haven’t had energy to do them as much in the last few months.
Delegating, Budgeting And Growth
One of the first tasks I did this week was to look at all the tasks I do and all the tasks that others do in the business right now, which mostly revolve around writing. I’ve looked at this before, but it was time to look at it again.
From there I wanted to see how I could potentially delegate those tasks. I tried to imagine what the setup of a more mature Ghost Blog Writers would look like.
From there it’s about looking at the budget for delegating and how the numbers work out. You have to make sure that performing tasks is worthwhile for the person doing them, but also profitable for the business. And you can get a good look at that with the knowledge you have of your business.
So I looked at those and also tried to look at the growth potential for GBW. This helps me understand what the future will look like and what needs to happen to make growth a reality.
Final Thought
This was a good practice for me. It’s something I’ve done in the past and each time I’ve done it I’ve been able to take that next step forward. It’s an organizing effort and a high level task, but I can see the value and importance in doing it. I just had to take a step back from getting caught up in the day-to-day tasks to figure out what the future of the business needs to be because I know if I stayed in the day-to-day that the business wouldn’t grow and it would probably suffer because I wouldn’t have the energy to perform all the tasks well.