When you’re just starting your business, you’ll most likely handle the responsibility of taking everything on yourself–and playing every role within the company–until you can’t anymore.
It’s no secret that letting go and delegating tasks to other people can be hard, though.
What if they don’t do the job as well as I do? What if I can’t actually afford to pay someone else right now? What if it doesn’t work out?
There are alway a million thoughts that run through our head when it comes time to hire someone, but passing off work will be one of the best decisions you can make for yourself.
When you’re a business owner, especially a soloentrepreneur, you’re automatically putting a ceiling on how many clients or customers you can serve and therefore how much money you can make because you have to do all of the work by yourself and don’t have enough time in the world to do it all.
So how do you know when you’re at the point that you need to delegate? You’ll start noticing these three signs.
You Don’t Have Enough Time in the Day
Doesn’t everybody wish we had more than 24 hours each day? You may already feel that, but you’ll really feel that when you start to grow. You’ll find yourself working all day and all night as well as weekends simply because you need all of the spare time you can get–and that isn’t good. I know you love what you do, but having a work schedule like that prevents you from doing fun activities or even relaxing–and will quickly lead to burnout.
If you find yourself working all hours of the day because you just have so much to do, this is a big sign that you need to start passing work off to someone else so that you can actually enjoy your off-hours. I used to be like this–working nonstop without any time for myself. I wrote it off because I enjoy what I do, but I eventually realized that I can enjoy what I do without having to work all the time.
You’re Spending More Time Doing Administrative Work Than Working
Are you spending more time on administrative work or simple tasks and not enough time on what you’re really good at or what you really enjoy, that’s directly bringing you money? That is a big reason for you to delegate.
If you’re dedicating too many hours to handling work that other people could easily do, that takes away from the time you could have for making the company grow. The same thing happened to me. I realized that there was one task that I was doing–which someone else could easily do–that was taking me 30 hours per month. 30 hours per month! I thought to myself, “Imagine what I could do with an additional 30 hours per month…”
And that’s what pushed me to hire my assistant to start handling tasks like that for me.
You Genuinely Dread Doing the Task
Who said you could only delegate a task if you didn’t have time for it? You can also delegate a task if you simply don’t like it! It’s so much more important to focus your time on the deliverables that you’re good at, that you enjoy, and that bring you money or grow the business than focus your time on tasks that you dread.
A few things I delegated in my marketing firm that I was ecstatic to do so:
- Instagram engagement
- Partial content writing
- Report creation
- Group interaction
And these are just a few. You don’t want to spend your time doing the things that don’t light you up because that won’t motivate you or inspire you… and being good at your job comes from doing something you LOVE! Focus on what excites you and delegate the rest.
There may be more signs that reveal that you need to bring someone else onto your team, but these are the three main ones that I experienced. And I noticed that the more work that I delegated, the more clients I brought on and therefore the more money I made… because I had more time to devote to other things!
Have any questions about what you can delegate in your business? Let us know in the comments below.
