Let me tell you a story…
Back when we first set up Great Work Online, David and I were doing everything ourselves. When I say everything, I do mean everything – registering the business, filing paperwork, setting up bank accounts, researching servers… No task was too small, no detail too little. You name it, we did it. Luckily, there were two of us, and each of us had our own specialty. His was accounting and finance, while mine was project management and digital marketing. We were able to divide and conquer the work, and, in the process, get the business off the ground in half the time.
However, neither of us knew (still don’t) how to create or design logos. I reached out to a friend of mine who I worked with in a previous company, and asked him for his design rate, since that’s his specialty. We were just starting out then and had not even booked our first client yet, and I was worried we couldn’t afford it. He was gracious enough to gift the logo design to us, and it’s the logo we still use to this day.
Can you imagine if I had attempted to create the logo myself, similar to the way I created our first website for our business? (It was unbalanced, the copy was all wrong, and the landing pages looked terrible.)
As a new business doing our best to attract clients, the first impression (like everything else) counts for a lot. How can we book clients if we don’t project professionalism in everything we do? This should cover everything — from our logo and our website to our proposals, and not just the services we offer.
What I learned from those first few months? If it’s not your strength, don’t insist on doing it. You can make attempts, sure, but if it doesn’t look right to you, if the end result is not what you’re envisioning in your head? Stop, and delegate it to someone else.
This is the key to success.
If you want to scale your business… if you want to grow from a small-time company to a big one with greater influence and wider reach — delegate.
When you first have an idea for a business, you’re passionate, you’re on fire, you’re driven for it to succeed. And why not? Your business is your passion, and you nurture it like a baby since it’s born of your blood, sweat and sacrifice. But all this comes at a cost, and soon, you realize you’re burning the candle at both ends.
Similar to a planted tree, your business starts off in a single-minded direction; as do you, when you do everything you can to get it started. After that, it breaks off into branches, which in turn, break off into branches of their own. Time comes when you no longer have the energy, the capability, and especially, the time to handle all the details the way they need to be handled. Time is finite and it waits for no one.
With a new business that’s trying to make its mark and establish its reputation, sacrificing some areas and elements that can turn out to be crucial in the future is something you can’t afford.
Delegation
Of course, as someone starting a business based on your idea, you want to take control of every aspect… you want to front your business and remain its face to your potential clients. It’s your right to do so; after all, you have the expertise, the experience, and the passion to sway people into committing to your product or service.
Every business has the potential for growth, but not all businesses can be great. What makes the difference? It’s your ability to accept that you can’t do this alone. Being a solopreneur is all well and good, but when your business becomes too big to handle for one person, it’s time to share the burden and delegate.
A lot of our clients come to us struggling and overwhelmed. They want to grow their businesses and take on more clients but are already feeling quite stretched and stressed. Time isn’t enough, effort isn’t enough, and they feel that if they want to preserve the quality of their service and product, they can’t take on anymore.
It’s not just new entrepreneurs who are struggling, established businessmen are, too. If you want to succeed, you know you need to continue educating yourself with new updates from your industry, you need to innovate, and you need to be available for your clients’ needs.
It can be hard to let go of control and hand off aspects of your business to someone else. But our advice is, don’t wait until you reach the situation above to ask for help. Start by asking yourself, what are my weaknesses? Make a list of these, in addition to responsibilities that don’t need your personal attention, and those that you absolutely detest doing. Look at the list and it will help guide you on the skills you need to hire out.
Nowadays, we are very fortunate to live in a world where it’s easy to tap into significant skills from all around the globe. You’re no longer limited to hiring someone in the vicinity just because you need their help. With how connected the world is now, hiring people from different geographical locations and even different time zones are no longer the disadvantages they once were.
Of course, as a startup, you can’t afford to hire so many key players at once. You don’t need to. The budget may not even allow it.
Start with one.
It can be a project manager, an administrative assistant… or even a tech specialist.
When you start your own business, it’s the perfect time to set up a strong and solid foundation. Though you may be feeling your way through the systems you want to put in place, and not all of them are perfect from the start, hiring a project manager can mean extra help in setting them up, collaborating with clients, and even brainstorming on apps to which you will rely on a lot as your business grows.
Once you’ve hired that first person, your life will be much easier. You will have more free time, not only for yourself, but also for your clients.
We have a client in the fitness and wellness industry, who is now able to focus on creating content, which is what she’s passionate about. After signing on to work with us, she is now able to focus her strengths on the programs she’s offering, take photos and videos, and then just hand those over to the project manager assigned to her. He will then be in charge of the details. She has freed up so much time having us take care of the back end. She’s been able to spend time with her family, connect with her audience, and just grow.
Delegating to someone else won’t entail you changing everything you’ve been doing so far – after all, it’s what got you here. But there could be some changes and tweaks that need to be implemented so you can get unstuck and scale.
Even after many years in this business, we still find ourselves trying to control and do everything. It’s easy to get caught up in the superhero syndrome – where you think that no one else can do the job as well as you can. It takes constant reminders that there are people who can do the job better, faster, and more efficiently, and they’re just a click away.
Ironically, it takes delegating to move on to the next level. You step back in order to move forward. And that’s the secret to growth and success.
