If you have dreams of building a wildly successful business that brings in millions of dollars per year, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to do it alone. You can only grow so much by yourself, and no, it’s not because you’re not capable. It’s because there simply aren’t enough hours in the day.
Work-life balance is hard enough (if not impossible) for entrepreneurs to achieve without trying to do it all without any help!
While it’s true that you’ll never work as many hours per week as you do when you’re an entrepreneur, it’s also true that you have to sleep, and you have to have some time to do non-business-related things each day.
Something has to give, and for most entrepreneurs, that “give” has to come by giving up some control. In other words, to achieve maximum success as an entrepreneur, you need to learn how to delegate.
Delegate is Not a Bad Word
While many entrepreneurs understand the importance of delegating, they still can’t do it. In fact, some people actually face psychological barriers that keep them from delegating and reaching their full potential for success.
Delegate can be a really hard word for many business owners to embrace. But guess what? For some entrepreneurs, that’s okay. If you’re happy with the level of business growth you can achieve while doing everything yourself, then by all means, stick to what’s working for you.
What matters the most is that you’re happy. It doesn’t matter what anyone else tells you to do.
However, if you have big dreams to grow beyond what you can handle alone, you need to delegate. There is simply no way around it.
If you’re not a natural delegator, if delegating is very uncomfortable for you, or if delegating increases your anxiety level to such a height that you can’t think straight, you have to consider the opportunity loss if you don’t pass some tasks on to other people.
5 Critical Things You Need to Understand about Delegation to be a Successful Entrepreneur
Before you start passing off responsibilities to other people, you need to understand five critical things about delegation in order to achieve maximum success as an entrepreneur:
1. You Need More Time to Innovate
Don’t be the cog in your own wheel. If you’re constantly busy doing operational tasks and busy work, you’ll never be able to come up with the next big idea that will bring in the big bucks and make your big dreams come true. Delegation is a requirement.
2. You Need Committed Help
You don’t just need a body (or bodies) to help you. Instead, you need committed support from people who either know how to do their jobs (and can be trusted to do them well) or who can be trained. Don’t just hire. Hire well.
3. You Need a Diverse Team
A diverse team is a strong team. Diversity brings complementary skills, varied opinions and ideas, and better overall performance than homogeneous teams. A team of “yes men” and “yes women” won’t help you become as successful as possible.
4. You Need to Reduce Your Desire for Control
It’s not healthy to be overly stressed. Your Type A personality, which makes it difficult to relinquish control, must be reigned in,or your success will be limited (and your health will be compromised). What’s the sense of growing your business if you’re too stressed and unhealthy to enjoy it or reap the rewards?
5. You Need to Be a Leader, Not Just a Doer
You can only grow so far if you’re doing all the work. At some point, you need to stop being the only doer. You need to hire doers and become a leader. These truly are two different things because you can’t steer the ship and swab the decks at the same time. You need to understand the difference, and you need to captain the ship.
Key Takeaways about Delegation for Entrepreneurs
There is no better time than the present to evaluate your business goals and whether or not you’re on the right course to reach those goals. Are you delegating enough so you have the time needed to guide the business to success?
Of course, success looks different for each business owner. You may not need a team of people to reach your goals, but if you have big growth dreams, you’ll need to learn how to delegate.
Originally published 8/22/16. Updated 3/29/23.
Susan Gunelius
Susan Gunelius is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Women on Business. She is a 30-year veteran of the marketing field and has authored a dozen books about marketing, branding, and social media, including the highly popular Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing, 30-Minute Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing for Dummies, Blogging All-in-One for Dummies and Kick-ass Copywriting in 10 Easy Steps. Susan’s marketing-related content can be found on Entrepreneur.com, Forbes.com, MSNBC.com, BusinessWeek.com, and more. Susan is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company. She has worked in corporate marketing roles and through client relationships with AT&T, HSBC, Citibank, Intuit, The New York Times, Cox Communications, and many more large and small companies around the world. Susan also speaks about marketing, branding and social media at events around the world and is frequently interviewed by television, online, radio, and print media organizations about these topics. She holds an MBA in Management and Strategy and a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing and is a Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC).
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