I hate to break the news to you, but your need to control is actually doing you a disservice in your life, your business, and your productivity.
How do I know?
Because I have yet to meet a person who is a happy control-freak.
Yes, I said it.
Look, control is just an illusion. You really aren’t in ‘control’ of anything.
I know, I know… I’m ruffling some feathers already.
And as a big thinking entrepreneur, you probably think you’ve got it all figured out. After all, you almost certainly started your business doing it all yourself. And it’s hard to let go of your baby.
I get it. I really do.
But you’re not going to scale and grow your business if you keep hanging on to your illusion of control and you’re most certainly not going to grow your business if you have a hard time trusting a team to build it out.
Admit it, if you feel you aren’t the most efficient or effective with your time, then there are probably some things on your to-do list that you’d like to release. And, if you’re honest, you keep holding on to these roles because you:
a) don’t have anyone to delegate to
b) don’t have the time to train someone properly, or
c) think you can do it better yourself (or you simply don’t trust anyone to do the job better than you) – this is terrible for business, by the way.
It goes without saying, if you are overloaded, overwhelmed, over-tasked and over-stretched then you can’t possibly be doing the best possible service to your clients, to your business, to your family and friends, or to yourself.
(Okay, you might be a true rock star, but there’s no way you can be an expert in all things. I can almost guarantee you there is someone out there who would love to work for you and who could probably do an even better job with some of the tasks on your list than you can. When you get humble enough to see and really accept that, your business has nowhere to go but up.)
If your business has grown to a significant enough level where your client roster is full and your company is busy and revenue-generating, but you are still working around the clock, then it’s time to release your fear and need to control, and get some help.
How do you determine what to delegate?
- Identify all of your business roles and responsibilities
- Highlight the tasks you LOVE to do and are EXCEPTIONAL at doing
- Determine which tasks would be better handled by an expert in their field (sales, marketing, branding, training, operations, HR, finance, etc.)
- Assess which roles would generate the greatest ROI in your business if you were to hire them out (sometimes it’s hiring a marketing expert, as an example. Other times it’s hiring an admin assistant to free up your time to do what you do best.)
- If your business development skills are strong, figure out which tasks have you working at your lowest hourly rate and delegate those jobs to people who LOVE to do them so that you’re all working in your genius zones
Outsourcing tasks is critical if you want your business to grow. But it’s not an easy thing to do. This exercise will help you to identify the things you love to do, but that doesn’t mean you’ll do these things 100% of the time. Everyone does things they don’t love some of the time. (You can’t eat cake all day, it’s not good for you. But when you eat cake, enjoy it. And let a cake-master make it for you. It’ll taste better and you’ll enjoy it more. That kind of thing. 🙂
It’s time to free up your energy. You’re not doing yourself, or your company, any favours by holding on to every little thing. And once you attract your team, lead them well, or make sure you find someone who loves to lead, so that you can keep doing what you do best.
If you identify with this post then your need to control is killing your productivity. Ask yourself, “Is it time to let go?” And if yes, “When will I do it?”
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