Strategies Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners Can Use to Delegate and Kill Their Inner Control Freak

“If you want something done right, do it yourself.”  That was the lie I use to believe that kept me from getting out of my own way to grow my business.  Because I was an official card-carrying member of this graduating class, my business building ability really suffered.  Since the country is filled with 22 million solo-prenuers (non-employer business as classified by the US Small Business Administration)  I’d venture to guess that there’s a lot of people in my graduating class.  But before you cue the graduation music, let me stop you because that is NOT a good thing.

You see, that’s one of the big differences between CEOs and Entrepreneurs.  CEOs know that they can’t do it alone.  They don’t buy into the fallacy of “self-made” businesses.  The truth is there is no one who ever made it far in business all by themselves.  Entrepreneurs try and try to “get er done” by themselves but what tends to happen is they aren’t spending their time on the things that will advance their businesses.

And, that, Incredible One, is where the need for delegation comes in.  You see, having someone who works on your behalf is ideal if you truly want to make an impact. And when you think like a CEO, you know from the onset of your business that you need people on your team to extend the life of your business and brand.

That’s why Susan’s question, got me a little excited.  I mean now that I’ve dropped out of the “do it yourself” school, I’m all about delegation:

“Hi Darnyelle. You’d be so proud of me, I have begun building my team to expand my brand and to increase my operational capacity.  But now that I have these team members I am struggling with actually relinquishing tasks to them.  I need your help.  How do you delegate?”

Watch my response to Susan’s question here:

As I shared in this week’s episode of Incredible Factor TV, I really struggled with delegation for reasons I’ve already shared with you.  When I finally got out from under that fallacy, my business began to grow.  The fact is, if you have to be the one who does it but it’s not tied directly to revenue, you limit your cash production time… which means your business will be stuck, and stagnate.

If you truly want to drive revenue for your business, it’s simple. Delegate.  

In a business, the way I see it, you’ve got two types of activities – revenue generating and profit producing.  Now, at first glance you might think they are the same but that’s not true.  I believe that a profit producing activity is an activity, usually administrative in nature, that when systematized can help your company to become profitable over time.  These are activities like writing blogs, calendar management, client management, customer service, etc.  Whereas, revenue-generating activities are those that when done lead to revenue for your company right away or, in a shortened window of time (depending on your average sales cycles).  Those of activities include cold or warm calls, discovery sessions or initial consultations, networking, speaking engagements in front of your ideal clients, etc.

See the difference? This is the key to what to delegate.  You can delegate any profit producing activity but you better be the one performing the revenue generating tasks.

Got it?

Now, I also want to quickly share the activity I recommend in this week’s episode:

1. Take a piece of paper and draw two lines to create three columns.
2. In the first column, list everything that must be done operationally to run your business – I mean EVERYTHING.
3. In the second column, list only those things from the first column that you enjoy that also directly lead to revenue.  These are the tasks you must perform daily in your organization.
4. In the third column, list everything that is left in column one after you’ve populated column two.  These are your delegate-able tasks.  You will need to use this list to create job descriptions and identify the skills of your team members to best determine who should be doing what.
5. Create a sign for your office that says ONLY PERFORM TASKS THAT ARE DIRECTLY RELATED TO DRIVING REVENUE.

If you follow the steps listed above you’ll be one step closer to dropping out of the “if you want something done right, do it yourself” school.  Congratulations!

Now I want to hear from you, what’s your two cents?:  How do you delegate?  What should you share that will help others in the community get a handle on how to leverage their team so that they grow their companies?

©2014 by Darnyelle A. Jervey. All Rights Reserved. Darnyelle A. Jervey, MBA, The Incredible Factor Speaker, Business Coach and Marketing Mentor, is the founder of Incredible One Enterprises.com, Incredible Factor University® and the Leverage Your Incredible Factor System®, a proven step-by-step program for more clients, more income and more leverage in your business. For more information and a FREE audio CD “7 Critical Mistakes Entrepreneurs Must Avoid When Unleashing Your Incredible Factor So You Attract More Clients, Make More Money and Gain More Leverage” just fill out the form below.