You’re a business leader. That means you’re supposed to be Superman, right? You’re supposed to be able to do everything, and not have to rely on anyone else. Guess what? You don’t have to be Superman. In my personal journey, one of the things I’ve struggled with is the fact that I do need help. I can’t do everything alone. It’s hard. I was raised in a family that encouraged self-sufficiency. We always did a lot of things at home that other people wouldn’t do. We worked on our own cars, we did a lot of repairs and maintenance to our home. We were a very self-sufficient family. I brought this lesson into business, and I try to be self-sufficient. Learn a little bit here, learn a little bit there. Get the taxes done, get the filings done. Get the administrative stuff done, and somehow practice law and build a speaking business later.
Guess what? It didn’t lead to specialization. We talked earlier in a blog about focus and specialization. Insert link. I was not focused. I was not specialized. The market needed some of my services, and it was a very, very highly value service added they would pay highly for, but they would only pay for my core services. They didn’t want to pay for the ancillary, the administrative, anything that didn’t add as much value to the marketplace. That made things difficult. I was doing low value tasks. They were tying me up from the high value tasks. Of course, you’ll hear a lot of people say, “Get rid of those tasks because then you’ll get the high value.” The problem is you have to have faith. You have to know the marketplace will react, and there will be more opportunities.
A lot of times I see owners in the trap of doing a lot administrative chores. And because they don’t have free time they don’t have time to go out and talk to people. They can’t market their business, so they keep doing the administrative tasks, and they end up in a trap. They spend all their time administering their business, servicing the occasional client. They can’t expand because they’ve got their time allocated to the wrong thing. You need to focus. You need to specialize. We’ve talked about it in other contexts, but that means you need to be vulnerable, and you need to admit that you can benefit from help, and that some people can take some things off of your plate so that you can do the things you need to do.
Have you struggled with delegation? Have you struggled with letting go of tasks? Let us know in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you and what your experience has been.
This posting is intended to be a tool to familiarize readers with some of the issues discussed herein. This is not meant to be a comprehensive discussion and additional details should be discussed with your attorneys, accountants, consultants, bankers and other business planners who can provide advice for your circumstances. This article should not be treated as legal advice to any person or entity. FreeImages.com/Kaliyoda.
About the Author
R. Shawn McBride — R. Shawn McBride is the Managing Member of The R. Shawn McBride Law Firm, PLLC. Shawn works successful, private business owners in their growth and missions to make a company that stands the test of time. You can reach R. Shawn McBride at [email protected] or 407-517-0064.
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