Perhaps one of the most prevalent views about business – especially startup businesses – is that you have to be hands on. So it’s a very constrictive, busy and hands-tied endeavour.
So is it true that when you start a business and you become a person who wears many hats (accounting, legal, analyst, and yes even maintenance and janitorial), you run out of time for everything else – much less vacations?
Event Coming Up: I have a learning event with Marvin Germo this February 13, 2019 at SMX aura 1pm – 5pm. The title of the event is “Make Money, Grow Money” – we’ll be speaking about business, generating excess revenue, and finally where to invest the excess revenue to maximize your passive income’s profits. Join us by clicking this link!
Author’s Note: This entry is part 4 of the series “Business Myths” if you are curious about starting a business or have some questions to ask about starting one, please leave it in the comments section below. As I’m writing this, I’m on the way to a short vacation 🙂
While it’s true that starting up a business makes you very, very busy in the first few years of operation to ensure its survival and growth, what’s not true is that things have to keep going that way.
You see after a business has gone through the survival stage (usually 1 – 3 years) you should be on the active lookout for your replacements. These replacements are people who can take over the various departments in your operations, marketing, sales, legal, accounting – and yes, even janitorial and maintenance.
Business people who insist on keeping things going on in such a way that it keeps their hands tied to the business are people who have not envisioned a better future for themselves and for their business.
These are the business people who usually fail to retire and fail to leave a good impression about the business to their kids (the next generation) and so fail to leave a legacy because no one wants to take over the business anymore.
The goal of starting up a business should be kept at the forefront. Real entrepreneurs start businesses because we want more freedom in our time, our decisions and our finances. Yes there are exponentially more risks involved but are these things worth the shot?
Hell yeah.
After all, we only have one life to live.
Handing Off your Chains
As your business grows, you need to hand off your chains through training and proper delegation. Hire people who have good character and competence then equip them with the tools an environment they need to operate efficiently.
After this, train them through process documents and asking them to emulate you as you achieve results. They can be autonomous on how they achieve it – after all, you hired them to be able to think and improve things for your business too.
Then empower them – give them all the encouragement and oomph that they need to do the work with confidence and authority. Without this, they will always play it safe and your business will be crippled.
The worst thing that can happen – and you should avoid – is for you to fail in equipping, training and empowerment that you have no choice but to take the job you delegated back to your own shoulders.
When this happens, you have ultimately failed – at hiring, training, empowering, and/or keeping good team members.
If someone can do the job 80% as well as you could, DELEGATE!
There is no point tying your hands to your own business. There is more to life than just work and making money – so go out and fulfil the reason WHY you started a business in the first place.
