I posted this piece to my own blog back in June and never had one comment on it! I was disappointed cause I thought it was a pretty good little post. I would like to share it here because I believe it’s a great analogy.
Enjoy!
Let’s, for a moment, imagine that your business is a beehive and you’re the Queen Bee. After all, the Queen’s the most important person in the hive – her sole job is to lay eggs. Without eggs, there are no bees so nothing else can happen. You are also the most important person in your business – goes without saying if you’re a ‘solo-preneur’. You’re responsible for getting new clients and ensuring all daily operations run smoothly.
Each beehive is a whole world in itself. Each bee has a role to play, it’s a very well-organized society. The Queen’s job is to lay the eggs, but there are worker bees who make the honey, there are guard bees who make sure no robber bees get in, there are scout bees who go around finding the best flowers, there are nurse bees who make sure the babies are cared for, there are bees who tend to the Queen – fanning her and caressing her, there are even bees whose lot in life is to remove the dead bees from the hive.
If it were the Queen’s responsibility to make honey, guard the hive, scout for nectar and remove dead bees, how many eggs would get laid?
As a business owner, every second you spend typing up letters, writing newsletters, blogging, entering contacts in your database and researching stuff on the Internet is eating up your egg laying time. Rather:the time you should be spending on meeting with clients, finding new ones and just doing what you want to be doing.
Honeybees have a lot to teach us, don’t they? What sort of chaos would a hive be in if the Queen were running around trying to do everything herself? She’s smarter than that. If a Queen bee could give you some advice, she’d probably tell you to go get yourself a Virtual Assistant so you can focus on what’s important. The future of your company depends on it just as the future of the Queen’s hive depends on her focus on egg laying.
Honeybees invented the art of delegating as far as I’m concerned!
What a wonderful post Jaime! You really explain the concept of being in charge of a successful business well, with this comparison to a beehive. Take care!
Jaime,
This is a great post! I am going to even print it and reread it later.
I’ve also written blog posts for my blog, which don’t always receive feedback. Everyone is just so busy, but as you saw when you brought this timely post back it did get response THIS time around. Timing IS everything.
As small business owners, all we have is our time to bill and earn a living. While I do believe in blogs and newsletters–gotta get mine done today–sometimes it is the face-to-face that makes the marketing happen.
Despite the Internet and technology, all of us earn for relationships and trust in our client building.
You articulate several good points. Keep up the good–no, excellent–writing.
Leisa
Oops! I meant to say, “All of us yearn for, not earn for.” See what I said about all of us are so busy. π
Leisa
What a great analogy Jaime and thanks for sharing again! Hopefully this motivates every solo-entrepreneur to further research into partnering with a Virtual Assistant so they can do what they are meant to do in their business like make money π
Interesting! How about comparing a business owner to a DNA and VAs to enzymes and the entire working relationship to a beautiful (hopefully, if all is done properly) live cell? π
I think that the natural way of accomplishing complicated multi-step actions is through delegation and specialization. So VAs fit right into the natural order of things π
I was intrigued with Jaime’s ideas. Business leaders can become successful business ROYALTY (Queen or King) when they have the courage to delegate some of their tasks to a virtual assistant.
I feel so strongly about it that I wrote about Jaime’s thought at my blog: http://barjdcommunications.wordpress.com/2008/10/22/considering-delegation/
Woow excelent analogy. I need to learn a little more about the bees to be more successful in my business. Thank you for posting.
Lyn Leon