What is one task you finally delegated, and wish you did sooner?

We have just recently acquired a stone and tile installation business.  I used an on online payroll service and hired a bookkeeping team (for at least the first year) as I knew it was going to be too much to handle without it.  I can't stress enough that I would have fallen on my face if I didn't have these two things in place from the beginning.  With my payroll service, I can run payroll from anywhere and I have added my admin as a collaborator who can onboard employees for me now.  I intend to extend some payroll responsibilities to her soon as well (mostly as a backup solution), but I can also run payroll in a fully automated auto-pay mode when I feel I have a full confidence around the process.  

Hi Julie! I have been in the cleaning business for 9 years. My first step was rolling up my sleeves to perform the cleans & learn all aspects while on the job. During that first year, I hired 2 experienced cleaning professionals so I could begin to work ‘on’ my business instead of ‘in’ my business.

Then, after 2 years, I started to build my admin team. It put things into perspective when I made a list of every daily, weekly, monthly and yearly responsibility of my company. Then, I added 3 columns: hourly pay to serve that role, is it my strength, or is it my weakness. As an owner, I valued my time at $60/hour and learned my strengths were in customer service, onboarding, company culture, sales & marketing. My weaknesses were financial management, daily repetitive tasks, insurance audits, payroll, and being too leniant with employees & their personal circumstances.

This exercise lead me to find someone to help with my weaknesses and any income producing activities. So first hire was a virtual assistant to help with answering phones, assisting with sales, daily repetitive tasks, charging credit cards and preparing payroll for my review. Once I hired my husband as CFO, the company scaled and became a more stable force to keep hiring more cleaning professionals.

I am so glad I finally delegated payroll. 3 years ago I was taking the month off to get married and that was the last task I had given to someone else.

I think we are all control freaks to some degree, and we also treat our businesses like they’re our babies. After burning out and not being able to get off couch for 3 months, I knew something had to change or I’d be closing down shop! 

Honestly, managing my crews. Life is already very busy, so when I finally made the decision to get an assistant manager in place, our structure changed drastically, and I didn't have to get as emotionally involved in all of my employees' lives. I am very empathetic, which made it very hard to make the tough decisions. Now we have protocols in place and are guaranteed to satisfy. It only took me three years to get there... I worked up some SOPs and started training her. Less than a year later, she's like half of my brain! 

For me it came down to time. Time is the one thing you can never get back. You can make more money and hire more people, but you can’t create more time.

Early on I did everything myself, like most entrepreneurs. But eventually I realized the business could only grow as fast as my personal capacity. That’s when I started delegating and building a leadership team.

Hiring a COO-type role was one of the best decisions I’ve made. It allows someone to focus on operations while I focus on vision, relationships, and growth.

My email - I'm working on this now but having someone that quarterbacks your email inbox would be soooo helpful. Think about how distracting it is, how much time you spend looking at it. 

You have to ask yourself, what is the thing I'm least excited to do? Then that's what you need to figure out how to delegate. For most of us, it's something administrative. You can EASILY find someone to do it for $7-$9/ hr, and they are stoked on it. There's also firms that help you recruit these people for a little more than that.