I do not easily delegate. There – I said it. I seek to control, reluctantly requesting help and consider everything must be 100% correct. I am a perfectionist. 2021 is the year I let go.
Now I’ve completed my self-confession, it is time to look at what this might mean from a business perspective as in some ways it is not all as negative as it sounds. When growing a new business it can sometimes be a necessary requirement and indeed inevitable.
To begin with there may well be no opportunity to delegate to the ‘right person’. After all, you may be starting a completely new venture, the redundancy payout pot may be running dry, keeping a roof over your head. Delegating more often than not will cost.
Therefore to begin with you will be the only person for every task. Product and service creation, logo design, name finding and of course marketing will all have your name beside them. I have written in an earlier article about how useful your circle of friends and family can be but at some point you will need or want to formally delegate some of these functions. Yet let’s be realistic, until that point when it becomes necessary and financially viable, they all belong to you.
It will all be done your way (thanks Frank!) Whilst it is likely to involve long hours this enables you to develop a clear idea of what your business is about. I talk a lot about ethos and I think it is important to be really clear on what that is for you and your business. This is more than any USP (I don’t generally use this term and I am not a marketing expert by any means). This is about what do you stand for? What are you trying to change, produce, provide as part of your product or service? Spotless is about a cleaning service that aims to marry the needs and desires of both cleaner and client. This sounds obvious but traditionally has not always been the case in the industry. Our cleaners have regular clients. They are fully trained, looked after, supported. Our clients form a relationship with their cleaner that means their service is tailored to their own needs.
Whilst time spent doing everything is hard, you formulate your business in this time. You will experience what works and what doesn’t, not just from someone else giving you their ideas and experiences. This will help you to decide who that right person is when you come to employ someone or to outsource. Having the right people working on your dream is so important. You need to be sure they understand your ethos, your plans and what matters most, to be able to be effective to your business. This is the same whether you are outsourcing the accounts, recruitment, website management or marketing. Share. Let them in on your expectations and share your experiences from the time you have spent doing everything. They will then be best placed to meet your high expectations.
Employing people in house, to take some of the load, presents more opportunity to mold and delegate those specific tasks you need to let go of. You can individualise job roles, working with their areas of interest and expertise. It is your business, you make each role match the business needs and work with all that each member of staff brings. No standard job description is required. Tasks can be split. If, like me, you are struggling to delegate, passing across tasks and individual responsibilities, on a gradual basis, can make the transition a little easier.
Now I say all this but I am yet to fully commit to it. As a business we have surrounded ourselves with some invaluable people, especially over the last year or two. We have our go-to’s now for HR support, accounting, training and now management-promoting from within. Have I let go? Not quite. Will I? I hope so. And intend to. I need to. I am developing other business ideas that require some of my time and we have people very capable of stepping in to my shoes (in part at least). I just need to take them off.
(BTW I am very aware of showing my age by way of this title……………)
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