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A lot of people have a favourite meal that they like to cook. Because you’ve made it so many times before, when you’re standing in front of the stove stirring the saucepan your mind switches on to autopilot.

But if someone was to ask you how to actually go about making this meal, it might take a little while for you to put into words exactly how to serve up the dish.

The same probably applies to your business. While you know what it takes to operate your business, explaining this to someone else can take some effort.

Many small business owners make the decision to outsource, which is great, but then don’t know where to go from there. Finding the right people to outsource to can be one of those things that can quickly fall into the ‘important but not urgent’ category. It’s so easy to keep putting it off, especially when you’re on lots of short term, pending deadlines. You tell yourself that next week, next month, next year you’ll get around to doing it. It’s just easier to say, “It’s quicker for me to get on with it myself, because it would take me longer to find someone, train them and explain how my business works.”

And actually, I completely agree. It’s very labour-intensive to find and train someone the first time you do it. You need to set up a system, make sure that someone knows how to operate the system and how to complete a task the way that you want it done. It definitely takes time.

One of the challenges for me in starting to find people and outsource work was that there was so much that I just did automatically. It was frustrating even for me to start to put that into a process, to explain all the steps to another person. In my mind, I knew how to do things but it was a different matter trying to articulate this to someone outside the business.

And each business does things their own way, so no matter how experienced your assistant is, they won’t ever have worked for a business like yours before.

To assist with getting external help, what you should be doing is starting to document your processes from day one. This way, when you hire external help you can easily refer them to this document.

And you’ll be surprised when you do this. The first time I did this, I developed a process map for how I sent out a newsletter broadcast, I got such a shock when I realised how many separate activities there were that led to the successful outcome of sending a newsletter, and it helped me identify how much time I was spending on this activity.

I’d like you to think about the systems that you’ve currently got in place in your business. Chances are you don’t have any systems. But don’t worry, that’s okay. You don’t have to have all your systems in place. That’s part of why you’re asking for help. In fact, you might be looking for someone who can help you set up those systems.

One of my team members spent several months working on an operations manual for my business. This means that if something should happen and she couldn’t work for me tomorrow, I now have a manual that documents all the systems in place in my business. I could find someone else and slot them right in where she was. I can also give this manual to new virtual assistants, and they’ll be able to understand how my business operates without needing me to explain it to them. It wouldn’t take hours of my time to train someone else, and I wouldn’t have to be physically doing the work myself while training them.

It can take time and it can take a lot of effort. But once you put that effort in, the benefits are amazing. Your business will grow in ways that you had never anticipated.

Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com

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