The Real Reason You’re Not Delegating

Speaker A00:00:32

Running a business isn't easy. It's long hours, tough calls and relentless pressure. No shortcuts, no handouts. Just grit, grind and the will to keep going when most would quit.Welcome to Grit and Growth Business. The show for entrepreneurs who know success is built the hard way.Hosted by Ralph Estep Jr. A seasoned business coach, accountant and fellow fighter in the trenches, each episode brings you real talk, proven strategies and the unfiltered truth about what it really takes to build something that lasts. Because if you've got persistence, perseverance and determination, this is the place for you. This is Grit and Growth business.

Speaker B00:01:19

Hey, friends, Ralph Estep Jr. Here. Welcome to Grit and Growth Business Live. This is the show built for real business owners who are building it the hard way.Tonight we're going to talk about real stories, real grit, but also real growth. And if you're tuning in live, can you do me a favor and drop a live in the chat so I know you're here with me tonight?And if you're catching the replay, here's what I encourage you to do. You can put replay in the comments because I always go back and read every single one of those.And tonight we're getting into something that hits every small business owner, whether you've been in business for 20 minutes or for 20 years. And that's delegation. It's a big scary word, that word we want to say.But time actually handing something off, our chest tightens, our brain starts racing and we quietly whisper the deadliest sentence in small business. It's faster if I just do it myself. How many times have you said that? But friends, that sentence right there, it's the silent killer of growth.It's the reason so many owners are exhausted, it's the reason so many owners are overwhelmed. And it's the reason that so many owners are stuck where they are. And tonight we're going to talk all about the real reasons you're not delegating.We're not going to talk about those surface excuses, not the fake reasons you tell your spouse, not the I'm just too busy story that you lie to yourself about. We're going after the real reason, the emotional reason, the psychological reason, that identity level reason.But don't worry about this, it's not all mindset tonight I'm also going to give you some practical and some tactical steps to start delegating like a CEO, not just a technician trapped in your own business. But before jump in, let me remind you we've got a brand new action sheet this week@gritngrowthbusiness.com Join now.These sheets will walk you step by step through the delegation process. Everything we're going to talk about tonight, and they're free for members of the community.And if you're not a member yet, you're going to want to go join after tonight's conversation because you'll see that delegation isn't a luxury at all. It's something big businesses do. It's something that smart business owners do.Owners who want freedom, owners who want growth, owners who want their time back and owners who want to stop being the bottleneck of their own businesses. So it's time to get comfortable. Grab a drink if you want one. Turn off those notifications and let's talk about what's really holding you back.Let me ask you a question and answer honestly. If you've joined us live tonight, have you ever finished a 10 hour day, looked back and realized you did everything yourself once again?Maybe you hired somebody, maybe you've got a helper. Hey, that's great. Maybe you've got a whole team behind you, but somehow you're still the one who always steps in.You're still the one who always fixes things. You're still the one who always takes that final 20% and that final 20%. And you know this, it always becomes the whole job.If that's ever happened to you, just say yes. Take that in the chat. If you're with us tonight, let me see how many of us are living that life right now.Because tonight's theme hits home because every business owner says they want to grow. I've never met a business owner yet that doesn't. I don't want to grow, Ralph. But almost none want to let go of the things keeping them small.So tonight we're going to talk about a few things. We're going to start with the pressing issue of the week.And that's why small business owners avoid delegation altogether and what it's really costing them because it's costing you money. Then we're going to talk about why do it yourself is not efficient. It's fear disguised as productivity.And then I'm going to share with you three hidden emotional blocks that stop owners from delegating. And later, listen to this one.I've got five powerful listener questions right from our grit and growth business community questions that you submitted right on our website.That's@gritandgrowthbusiness.com if you've ever felt like your business is running you instead of the other way around, tonight is going to Help you take back control. Because the real reason you're not delegating, it's not about skill. It's not about money, it's not about employees. It's about your identity.It's about trust, it's about fear, and it's about control. And if we don't address those things, you're going to stay busy, but you're never going to be free.You're going to stay overwhelmed, but you're never going to grow. You will stay in motion, but never move forward. All right, let's dive in. Let's get right to our pressing issue of the week.The real reason you're not delegating. Right now, more than ever, small business owners are drowning. Not from lack of work, from lack of opportunity, but from over functioning.We're living in a time where the business owner has become the bookkeeper. You're the marketer, you're the HR department. You're the salesperson.You're the operations manager, you're the customer service rep. You're the tech support guy. And you're the janitor. You got all those hats. You weren't meant to wear 12 hats. But here we are.The average small business owner works 52 to 65 hours a week. But listen to this. Spends less than 7 of those hours on actual CEO level activities. I'm talking about the things that actually grow your business.Why? Because we're stuck in technician mode. We're stuck doing, we're stuck fixing. We're stuck touching everything. We're approving everything.We're looking over shoulders, jumping into the last minute, redoing work, finishing tasks ourselves. And you know why? Well, just to speed things up, Ralph. But here's the truth.Your business can't, and your business won't grow faster than your ability to delegate, period. That's just the way it is. So my first point tonight, you were trained to be good at the work, not at letting go of it.That's something we have to embrace right away. Because most business owners started as technicians. We're the doers, we're the fixers, we're the producers.We built a business with our very own hands. So our brain learned if it's going to be done right, I've got to do it myself. But CEO work, that's different. CEO work requires trust.It requires systems, it requires process, it requires patience, it requires coaching. It requires letting things be good enough instead of perfect. And listen. For most business owners, that feels impossible.For many of us, it feels wrong. It feels like we're Lowering the bar. But it isn't that. It's leadership. My second point, delegation triggers identity fear.This is the part nobody talks about. Nobody wants to talk about this. In these. These gurus of business acumen, delegation feels threatening because it forces you to release control.And when you release control, you face some scary questions. What if they mess it up? What if the client gets mad? What if I'm not as needed as I thought I was? What if they don't do it like me?What if my value comes from doing, not from leading?And see, delegation forces owners to step into a new identity, and that CEO identity instead of the Chief Everything Officer, because so many of us are the Chief Everything Officer. And that shift right there, that's emotional. It can feel like you're losing a piece of yourself.It can feel like giving up your superpower, but your real superpower isn't doing the work. It's building the machine that does the work. My third point tonight, delegation fails when there are no systems. Let me be blunt.Let me be over the top blunt. You can't delegate chaos. You can't hand someone a job that only exists in your own head. You can't delegate a process you've never documented.Owners say, ralph, I tried delegating. It didn't work. No, what you tried was dumping.You tried dumping tasks, you tried dumping responsibilities, you tried dumping expectations, you tried dumping pressure. But delegation is different. Delegation is structured. It's clear, it's documented, it's measured, it's systemized, it's supported.And yes, it takes time. But that time is an investment, not a cost. So let me ask you this, and I want you to answer this honestly.Which of these three hits home the most for you? Number one, I'm good at the work, and I don't know how to let go. Or is this one delegation threatens my identity and my sense of control?Or for so many people, it's this one. I don't have systems, Ralph, so delegating feels impossible.That's the question you got to ask yourself, because this is where the transformation starts. Well, let's get into our listener questions. Today. We're going to go right to our first question.This one comes to us from Sarah from Dayton, Ohio, and she says this. She says, ralph, every time I give a task to my assistant, I end up taking it back because it's slower. When she does it, how do I stop stepping in?I get it, Sarah. You're frustrated. You feel like you're babysitting all the time. You feel guilty for micromanaging that person.But you're anxious when you don't because you want to grow your business. But every time you try, your stomach tightens and your brain says, well, Ralph, I'll just do it myself. How do you break out of that cycle, Sarah?Here's what you do. Train once fully. Do the training. Build the system instead of correcting indefinitely. Because one great training session beats 30 halfway corrections.It starts there. Train once fully. Second thing, set a clear standard of this is what good looks like, because you have to accept something. Most employees aren't slow.They're confused. You never gave them the rules, you never gave them the system of what you want them to do. Then you expect them to do it 100%, 100% of the time.It's not going to happen. You got to set a clear standard. You've also got to expect a learning curve. They're not going to do it the same way you did it.They're not going to do it the, the way that you did it. And the first 3, 4, 5 attempts are always going to be slower for them. But hear me on this. Let them be slow. You're training them.You're building that confidence in that person. I was just working with a client the other day, and they were telling me about they wanted to grow their business, they want to grow their.Their key people. I said, okay, what are you doing to do that? They said, ralph, I haven't really thought about that.I said, well, they're not going to do it on their own. You've got to give them a system. You got to hold them accountable. You got to show them how to do it.I want to encourage you to do something like this. Use what I call the 1080, 10 rule. You start the first 10% of the job, they handle the middle 10%, and then you review the final 10%.It's really that simple. But in order to do that, you've got to be engaged in that. You've got to be with them and show them.And not one time, not two times, maybe not even three times. It could be four times, five times. Hey, it could be 10 times. But think in your head what you're building towards, what you're getting to in the end.And finally, Sarah, here's another thing I'm going to recommend you do. Give feedback in batches, not in real time. Because, listen, here's the problem. A lot of people want to micromanage.That constant interruption is going to kill their confidence. Sit back, let them do 80% of the job. And then say, okay, come in afterwards and say, here. Here's what we did. Okay, let's talk through this.What did you do? What were the decisions you made? Coach them, inspire them, encourage them. Listen, you never want to set somebody up for delegation.If you are setting them up to fail, that's a terrible thing to do. So give them feedback.So, Sarah, and everyone else tuning in today, ask yourself, have you ever hired help and then felt like you were doing two jobs instead of one? I've had so many business clients tell me that, they're like, I hired somebody. Now I'm doing their job and my job well. I can guarantee one thing.You didn't set a system correctly. That's what the problem is. So, Sarah, I hope this helped you. Yes, it's going to be slower at first. It's going to take time.It's going to be an investment in you investing in this person. But you've got to see the light at the end of the tunnel.You've got to see at some point their situation is going to be good to where they're going to be able to accomplish the task. Now listen, they might not get it 100%. They might not get it 90%. They might get it at 80%, but 80% is better than the 0% you're doing now.All right, let's move on to our second question. And our second question comes to us from Lewis from Phoenix, Arizona.And he says this, Ralph, I want to delegate sales calls, but I'm terrified someone else won't close like I do. Man, I've heard this one a million times. I get it, Louis, you're scared. Sales is your baby. You've built this.Your identity is wrapped up in being the rainmaker. I totally get that one. And the idea of letting someone else talk to clients, it feels like letting a stranger hold your newborn.I remember when my youngest son was born. My wife will laugh if she's listening. Tonight, I let anybody touch this kid. He was mine. You know, you want to touch him. You know, put the.Put the, the stuff on your fingers. Make sure you don't have nasty fingers. I can't think of what it's called, lotions or whatever you call it. But that was my baby.And, Louis, you're feeling the same way. Sales is your baby. You don't want to just let it go. So, Louis, here's what I'm encourage you to do. Document your sales script.Even if it's messy, you might say, ralph, how do I document what? I just know how to do. A lot of salespeople just know how to do it. And. And I say to them, okay, well, then do some role playing.Because you can't delegate what lives only in your memory. You've got to lay it out. Do some training. Do some role playing. Here's another great idea. Record yourself. Closing.Let your team hear your tone of voice. Let them hear your pacing. Let them hear handling objections. If you want to grow your team, you've got to coach them, you've got to invest in them.You got to show them, here's how you do it. And that might be videotapes. That might be role playing. That may be overcoming objections. Yes, it's hard work. Yes, it takes time.And underneath of that, Louis, hear me on this. You gotta transfer to beliefs, not just the script. See, they've gotta understand why you believe in your offer.See, a lot of salespeople go into it with, well, I'm gonna sell this product. But they're not true believers. And, Louis, my suspicion is if you're a really good salespeople or salesperson, you're a true believer.You believe in the why of what you're offering. You've got to get your salespeople to think the same way. Because when you believe in it, you can sell it.If you don't believe in it, you're not going to sell it. Have you ever listened to commercials or you hear somebody just yap, yap, yap, you know they're not using this product.You can hear it in their voice. You can see it in their face.Well, if you're going to effectively delegate sales, you better hope that your people understand the why you believe in this offer, why you believe in this service, why you believe in this product. And at the same time, Louis, set an expectation. They're not going to land 100% like you did. Maybe for you, 80% of my close rate is success.Maybe your close rate is 1 or 3 out of 10. And you're like, rob, okay, what does that mean? They're going to get two out of ten? Yeah, maybe. Or maybe one out of ten.But if you go into it with perfection, you're never going to be a delegate. You're going to stay in that role. You're going to stay in that sales role. You're not going to grow to be the CEO. You got to see this as progress.Now, one of the other things you mentioned, you're worried about how that's going to interact with your clients. So here's one thing I'll tell you to do right now. Start with low stakes calls first.Do those warm leads, those follows up, those qualification calls, the one that's, hey, maybe you weren't going to get this job anyway. Send them out. Maybe they'll surprise you.Let me ask you right now, are you still doing a hundred percent of your own sales because you're scared no one can do it like you? You're never going to grow your business if you think like that. It's just not going to work. All right, Louis, I hope that answered your question.Let's move on to question number three. And this one comes to us from Amanda from Charleston, South Carolina. She says this, Ralph, every time I delegate bookkeeping tasks, mistakes happen.Should I give up and keep doing it myself? Man, I have heard that, and I felt this myself many times. My accounting practice, I feel this a lot of times.And Amanda, you feel burned because you've tried delegation and it cost you. You probably feel a little embarrassed. You feel disappointed for sure. And now you're afraid to try it again. Kind of like striking out.I remember when I used to play baseball, get up to the plate, you strike out. The next time you go up there, you're like, man, I'm probably going to strike out again.And Amanda, I bet you're feeling the same way, but you can break out of that. Let me tell you how to break out of that. Create a simple checklist for every recurring task. You're like, ralph, what do I mean?I need to write a list of everything? Yes, because here's the thing. Mistakes come from missing steps, not incompetence. I really don't believe most people are incompetent.I think they just don't know how to tie all the pieces together. So make it simple for them. Lay it out piece by piece, item by item. In my accounting practice, we use a product called Zendesk.In Zendesk, we set up tickets. Inside of those tickets, whenever we have a particular type of job, we have a task list that goes along with that.When we process payroll, we have a task list. When we do bank reconciliations and financial statements, we have a task list. Listen, I use those task lists myself.I've been doing this for over 30 years. Those task lists remind me so I don't forget something because you're not doing it every day.And if you're delegating to somebody, give them a task list. It's not thinking they're incompetent. That's giving them a way to be successful. Here's another thing you can consider using.Use what I call the pair perform review method. Pair things together, let them perform and then review that together. Because here's the thing, a lot of people don't get this.If you just stand over top of them and, and watch every minute, they're never going to learn, they're never going to grow. You've got to let them make mistakes. Work with them, let them perform the task, but then come back and review it together.And then you can pick it apart for lack of a better way of saying it, but do it in an encouraging way. Because if you do it in a discouraging way, guess what? They're not going to do it.They're going to give up and they're going to say, this person doesn't want to delegate. I don't know how many people I've talked to in small businesses who have said, oh yeah, such and such, hire me, Ralph.But they don't let me do anything. I have no ability to accomplish anything because every time I do something I made a mistake and they say, well, I'll just do it myself.My dad was so much like this. I used to work in his accounting firm. He was so much like, well, I'll just do it myself. And he would get mad at everybody, throw stuff.I mean, he was a piece of work, let me just tell you that right now. Because he didn't understand how to delegate. He thought everybody was stupid. He thought no one else was competent enough to do it themselves.Because he never took the time to let people make a mistake, let people fail. If you want to effectively delegate, guess what's going to happen.People are going to fail, they're going to make mistakes, they're going to lose customers for you, they're going to cost you money. But if you're doing it well and you're doing it with the long term idea in mind, it will grow your business.Another thing I'm going to encourage you to do is do some standardization things like naming conventions and folder systems. Because here's a lot of times what I find. A lot of small business people have their own filing methodology now we're getting into weeds.But I'm telling you, this is something I see constantly. You just assume that people are going to think like you. Great example of this.I've had people that have worked with me before and we used to have paper files. I don't do any paper files now, but at times we had them and I would say to them, I need to go find some.I go up and open up the file drawer, look in there. And I'm thinking, okay, what would they put this under? Well, if it's a T, I'll put under T. No, it's under a Z.Like, how in the world did you come up with that one? There was no standardization, so they don't understand how they're going to find it. You got to be standardized in this. Yes. Maybe you dumb it down.I know that's not a nice thing to say, but maybe that's what you've got to do. Make it standardized. Because that consistency is going to eliminate confusion. Because that's most of the time what you're dealing with.You're not dealing with incompetence, you're dealing with confusion. Another thing, and I think this one is critical. And so many small business people lose sight of this one. Delegate outcomes, not the tasks.See, it's one thing that gives them. And I'm kind of contradicting myself a little bit, but hear me on this one.If you just give somebody a task, so you do, do, do, do, do, but you don't tell them what the outcome is, how are they going to know what the. What the results are? You can say something like this. This report must be accurate by Friday. Not. Please enter the receipts.Paint them a picture of what you want the end to be. What is the desired outcome that you want? See, we can get in a whole discussion. I don't have time for it tonight.We could talk about job descriptions versus results descriptions, because that's what we're really talking about here. What are the results that you want from your employees? If you just want them to perform tasks, you might as well go hire an AI robot.But if you want them to have outcomes, you want that report done by Friday. You want an accurate report done by Friday. It takes more than just entering receipts. But now here's where it gets. It gets complicated.You've got to go double check. You've got to audit weekly, then bi weekly, then monthly. You still got to check because a lot of people lose sight of this one.They do the delegation for a couple weeks. And I've been double checking, I've been double checking. And all of a sudden they say, well, you know, that person's good. I'm not worried about it.You can. You can reduce that oversight gradually, but you don't want to let go of it ever. I'll give you a great example of that.Used to run a credit union, we had loan officers there that we paid a commission based on the loans that they Wrote. And I remember the auditors were going crazy. The examiners, like, you can't do this. They're going to put bad loans on the books.I fought them tooth and nail on this. But what it took was every month, I picked out a certain number of each of their loans. I went and audited them. I went and looked at them.I made sure that what they were doing wasn't just throwing junk onto the books. But guess what that took. That took effort on my part. It took oversight. It took coaching.Again, if I saw something I didn't like, I can't just say, oh, you made a mistake on this. I had to go show them why I felt that they didn't do this one correctly or why I was concerned about that one. That's a commitment.But think about what you've committed to. Instead of doing that routine work day in and day out, you're taking a step back. Maybe weekly, bi weekly, maybe even monthly.You just taken a couple hours or a couple minutes and. And reviewing the work. So many of us have been burned badly by bad delegation. I get it. But most of the time, it's your fault.It's not the person you delegated's fault. I know that's not a popular thing to say, but it's true.If you don't have a system, if you don't have a procedure, if you don't have a process, if you don't share with them the outcomes, the delegation is not going to work. And you're going to push it right back to you. So, Amanda, I hope that really answers your question. Let's move on to question number four.And question number four comes to us from Jamal, from Detroit, Michigan. And Jamal writes this. He says, ralph, I feel guilty delegating because my team already works hard. I don't want to overload them.Now, I'm going to tell some right now. Abby, my va, has joined us in the chat here tonight. She helps me with my recording every day.And I honestly feel like this sometimes when I work with Abby because I. I've been throwing a ton of stuff at her. She's a hardworking person. She's doing a great job.A lot of the stuff that you see on this show, a lot of the videos and all that, Abby is the person that's doing it. But I felt the same way that you have, Jamal.I do feel guilty sometimes because I know she's got a lot of work on her plate, and I don't want to overload them, and that's emotional. But that's not emotional for her. That's emotional for me.Because I'm the one that's feeling responsible for everyone's workload, and I don't want to be seen as that bad leader.But I also can't let that guilt control my delegation, because, honestly, if the person doesn't want the job, they're going to tell you that you're giving me too much. And see, here's the thing you got to understand, Jamal, and I've had to embrace this myself. Your job is to design the workload, not absorb it.You've got to build the house, you've got to build the structure. But if you don't manage the load, guess what's gonna happen? You're gonna burn out. I'm doing a lot of stuff with content creation.We have four shows now, getting ready to launch our fourth show on December 9th. There's a lot of stuff that goes on. This is a daily thing. I got to a point where I couldn't do it all myself. And if I kept doing it.All I'd be doing is burning out. So that's the first thing. Your job is to design the workload, not absorb it. Second thing, ask your team directly. And I hope Abby would agree with me.Do you feel overwhelmed, or do you want some more responsibility? You got to do that, because you might be surprised what they say.Just today, we're releasing music videos for one of our other channels, and Abby came to me. She says, ralph, I would really like to do a video for this. I said, well, you've got a ton of other things to do.She goes, no, no, I'm really excited by this. I want to do it.I was surprised by that, but I was encouraged by that, because now I gave her the option, do you feel overwhelmed, or do you want more responsibility? And she said, ralph, I want more responsibility. This is what I want to do, because I see something here. People like to grow.People don't want to be stuck in the same place people want because delegation creates advancement opportunities. Your employees, your staff members, your team members are going to see this as a way to advance.You see, if you don't delegate them, you just keep them stuck in their roles, and they're going to get burned out. Not only are you going to get burned out, they're going to get burned out because people like to grow. People don't want to stay stuck. Now, you.I will be honest with you. You will meet some people in the world that are content with being where they are right now. I Honestly think they're toxic cancers for your business.I know that's a harsh thing to say, but I truly believe that you want people working for you that are dynamic, that want to grow, that want to learn new things. Because those are the people that are going to take your business to the next level. Because guess what?As a small business owner, you've got to be reinventing your business every single day, every single week. Because if you don't, your competitors are. And you need to have a staff member, you have to have team members do the same thing.So if you don't have people that like to grow, it's time to start looking for new people. Which leads me to this. And, Jamal, you've got to do this. You've got to clarify their roles and their bandwidth in writing.Understand what they can handle. Put it in writing.One of the things that Abby and I did when we first started a relationship a couple months ago, I said, abby, what I want you to do is I want both of us to write down expectations. Here's my expectations, here's yours. We did that not because I'm trying to micromanage, because I want her to understand the role.I want her to understand the bandwidth. Because, see, if not, it becomes this guilty situation. She's not sure what she needs to do. I'm not sure what she should be doing.But if we put it in writing, if we're clear about it, we don't have that problem. But, Jamal, one more thing I'm going to throw in here. You got to delegate the right tasks, not just the urgent one.See, it's real simple to say, well, I'm going to delegate the things I don't want to do, or I'm going to delegate the things that are urgent. Right now, that's not the things you should be delegating. Because those urgent tasks, they create stress.And you don't want to put stress on somebody that's still learning how to do something. But strategic tasks, they can create growth. And that's really the difference there. Jamal, I hope you get that.If you're just throwing urgent stuff, because I got. I can't get to this. I got to send this to this person. That's not a good plan because you're going to burn that person out.They're going to get stressed and they're going to make mistakes. Those are the things that you got to handle. Listen, it's like at the ER when you go to the emergency room. You want the top docs working on you.You don't want somebody that's learning. That's not a good plan. Right.If you're having a heart attack or you're having a stroke or you have something like that, you want the person that's on top of their game because that's a stressful situation. Now, if you're up on one of the floors after you've been out of the er, you're starting to get better.That's where you put the doctors that are being trained. That's where you're thinking strategically, okay, let me start to train people.Because this person can be built into the person that can handle working in the er but you don't want that person to ER the front end. That's a disaster. So let me ask you this. Do you struggle with that guilt when asking your team to take more on?If you do revisit what we just talked about again, these will all be in our action sheet for the show. You can get that@gritngrowthbusiness.com join. I'll talk about that a little bit. And again. But understand that you want your people to grow.Let's move on to our fifth and final question for tonight. And this one comes to us from Renee from Portland, Maine. And Renee writes this.Ralph, I'm stuck doing everything because I don't have time to train someone. How do I get out of this? Yep, that is a question I get at least twice a week as I'm working with small business people. And Renee, I get it.You're exhausted. You feel trapped. You feel like training is just one more burden of thing at time you don't have to do today.But honestly, if you asked yourself, you're already caring too much. And right now, you're living in survival mode. That's why you feel the way you feel. So you might be like, okay, groff, that's. That's great.You nailed it, dude. But what is that? What. What do you want me to do? Here's the first thing I'm gonna tell you. I'm gonna give you a couple of things you can do right now.Record yourself doing the task just one time. There's a lot of technology tools. You can take your phone, you can take your computer, Do a recording of you doing the task just one time. What?I've seen dynamic organizations have great training videos. I did this with my new person I have here in my office. The other person that's worked for me. Renee's been here for six years.And when we hired somebody new, I said, here's what we're going to do, Renee, we're going to create training videos. Every single thing you do for the next week, I want you to go, we use a product called Loom.I said, I want you to do a screen recording and talk it through. And she says, ralph, this is going to be boring. This is what I do every day. No, think about it like this.You're building a training video so that when the new person starts, when they don't understand how to do something. Yeah, we're going to show it to them a couple times.We're going to coach them, we're going to come behind them, we're going to review them, but give them a library of training videos that they can go and look at. Because when you have those things. Think about this for a second. And Renee, I'm speaking directly to you.Your future self is going to save hundreds of hours because you're going to be like, okay, just go watch the video. We've done that with our new employee several times now. She loves it because she can go back and check. Oh, you know, I think I have this.Let me go watch that video one more time. Let me watch how it's done on the screen. Because most people learn that way. Different people learn different ways.But so many people learn by watching and doing, watching and doing, watching and doing. And the training videos allow you to do that. One of the big things I think you should do. Second thing, and this is going to run against your grain.Most small business owners are perfectionists. Abby and I had this very discussion this morning. Most of us are perfectionists.But if you're going to be effective of delegation, create a good, better and best standard. Because not everything needs to be to your level of perfect. And I'm speaking to myself right now.Maybe you got to delegate just 10% of your job each month, small controlled handoffs to build that momentum. But listen, don't expect perfection. But you've got to also build into your time, Renee. 90 minutes a week for training.You got to protect that future capacity. It's got to be non negotiable.Put that on your calendar and you don't let so many businesses fail because they don't invest the time in training, in building training materials for their employees. They just assume the employees are going to figure it out. Well, you know what happens then?The employees figure out how to leave, the employees figure out how to quit. And the employees don't do their job because you haven't given them the ability to be successful.Protect your capacity because I'm going to throw a statistic at you. And I truly believe this. Every hour spent training saves 20 hours later. Show them how to do it.Record that video, document the process, create a task list. Because what you're really building that training is building leverage. And you're going to save a ton of time in the long run. Yes.It's going to cost you more in the front end. Renee. Yes, I get it. You don't have time to train. I'm going to argue with and say you don't have time not to train.That might mean you're going to put in some extra time right now. Yes. You're going to be recording yourself. Yes. You're going to be making tasks. Yes. You're going to feel like, ralph, I don't have time for this.Would you have time to burn out? Do you have time to continue on the conveyor belt you're on right now? Because right now you're in a survival mode.And if you don't get out of that survival mode, you're not going to survive and your business is going to fail. That's tough love. But you need to hear that. Let me ask you this. Do you feel like you don't even have time to breathe, let alone train someone?I get it. Because we're all so busy, right?But we've got to take that time and leverage that training if we want to grow people, if you want to grow our business, we want to get out of that technician mentality. I was just talking to another client today. We're talking about this very situation. He said, ralph, I feel like I'm still living as a technician.I said, you are. I said, you want to break out of that? He says, yeah, I want to do that, Ralph. What do I need to do? I said, you need to start building your staff.Well, how do I do that? I said, you've got to invest in them. You've got to have training. He goes, I never thought about that. I just figured they'd figure it out.They're not going to figure it out. They need your help. They need your coaching. They need you to be there to show them the ropes. They need you to be there to review with them.They need to be. They need you to be there to encourage them. Don't criticize them when they make a mistake.Don't criticize them when they take 10 times longer than you take. I hear so many small business owners say, I can't believe it took them 10 times what it would take me to do it. But they got it done, didn't they?So the next time it might only take them eight times and maybe six times. You get the idea. You got to invest in your people and that's why delegation fails so many times.People don't invest, they don't have systems, they don't have a plan in place and then they look back, oh, delegation doesn't work. Ralph. You. Everything you talked about, Ralph, will not work in my business. You don't understand my business.I understand that you don't know how to delegate because you're probably scared to do it because you're afraid you're not going to have anything left to do yourself. And that's harsh, but it's true.All right, friends, before we wrap up tonight's show, let me speak to those of you who are ready to take this to the next level.If tonight's topic has hit home, if you've realized that delegation is that wall between where you are now and where you want to be, I want to personally invite you to join our community. We talked about this a couple times already. We just launched this private community just a couple weeks ago. It's actually a Patreon community.It's absolutely free for you to join. You can get to it by going to gritandgrowthbusiness.com join again.That's gritandgrowthbusiness.com join you just fill out some paperwork, your name and email address. Now, if you want to support the show, you can. There are some higher tier things that will give you individual coaching.With me, they'll give you some other things. But inside the community, you're going to get some great things. You're going to get. Every time we do a show, Abby and I put together an action sheet.We're going to walk you step by step through. Just like tonight, we're going to walk you step by step on how to delegate like a CEO. We did last week's show. We talked about things on that show.All of those action sheets are there for the taking. All you gotta do is sign up. And here's another great thing. You can submit your own questions right there and maybe you'll be on one of the new shows.I'd love to do some live coaching on the show. I'd love to bring somebody on. Let's talk about what's going on in your business. I've got 30 years of knowledge in this knucklehead of mine.I can help you grow your business. I've seen businesses fail and I've seen businesses prosperity. I know what to do to get there. And there's no. There's no magic to it.It's grit, it's growth.And as this community builds, we're going to have real conversations with real business owners who are building it the hard way, just like you're doing.And like I said, for those of you who want more, I'm going to also offer one on one group coaching for business owners who want to build systems, who want to grow their team, and who want to break free from that technician trap we talked about tonight. This isn't about working harder. It's about working smarter. It's about building a business that serves your life, not the other way around.So let's grow that together. All right, well, let's recap tonight's conversation. We talked with tonight's pressing issue of the week.We talked about the real reason you're not delegating. And as I said, it has nothing to do with skill. It has everything to do with your identity. That fear of letting go with those lack of systems.Then we talked about breaking down the biggest emotional blockers, those mindset traps. And I gave you some tactical steps needed to really break free of that. Then we got in some great questions from listeners just like you.We took five powerful questions from owners talking about delegating without taking things back. We talked about handing off those sales calls, preventing mistakes, leading without guilt, and finding time to train.If you think back to what we've covered tonight, those weren't surface level questions. Those were real. Those were raw, right there where many of us are living right now.And I want you to hear this, and I want you to hear this loud and clear because I want to give you a little encouragement. You're not weak for struggling with delegation. You're not broken. You're not failing. You're simply at a doorway.You're standing at a doorway right now between being that technician of your business. You've lived there for a long time and it feels comfortable. But you got to decide. You walk through that door and become the CEO of your business.That transition is emotional and it's courageous, but it's necessary. So this week, I want to encourage you. Choose just one task, just one. Pick one, delegate it. Let it be imperfect. Let someone else grow.Let go of it just a little. Because your future depends on it. And remember, you can get the action sheets and join the community@grit and growth business.com/join.God bless you and good night. You have a great night tonight. Thank you so much for joining me on tonight's show.