How to Scale Your Business without Burning Out and Dying
On today’s episode of Just the Tips, Dean and I sit down to discuss a very important topic, how to not burn out and throw everything into the river. Many entrepreneurs are very good at the one thing they do, or have a great idea and suddenly find themselves growing faster than they thought possible. But then, what do you do? How do you expand? Whom do you hire to help you expand? Today, we dive deep into the topic, because it’s an important one for a lot of business owners who are just getting started.
Dean owes everything to James
When Dean’s business was first starting to grow, he did what a lot of new entrepreneurs do, he hired his friends. But that’s not actually the best HR policy. And as Dean says, it was after we met at an event that we got to talking about how Dean needed to systematize the way he hires. And if you want to be a solopreneur, that’s totally fine, but remember that having people on your team frees up your time massively. And so many people go into business for themselves because they want that freedom, but then they devote all their time to their business, giving away all the freedom they had.
How to begin looking for help
I told Dean a story about how at one point, I was so desperate to hire someone, that I actually recruited a cashier at Bed, Bath & Beyond, because she seemed very professional. But before you get into the dire straits, you need to ask yourself what you’re doing. You need to identify what you don’t want to do, and what role you need to fill. If you can be crystal clear about everything you’re doing, then you can be crystal clear about what you need someone to do.
Identify your big five
Once you’ve identified what you need to do, and what you’re best at, that doesn’t mean you have to suddenly stop doing everything else. What I recommend to clients is to identify your “big five”: The top five things that you should be doing in order for your business to succeed and continue to grow. Then, below the big five, you write down everything you do in addition to those five things. And once you’ve done that, you look for the low-hanging fruit, what tasks you can peel off and give to someone else easily without much disruption.
Time is your most precious commodity
One thing you have to be most cognizant of as a CEO is time. Your time is incredibly valuable, and so is the time of the people who work for you. And so you can’t look at short-term gains in terms of money made. If you spend 10 hours chasing $100, that’s still money you could have lost in the grand scheme of things. This is just the first part of this topic that we’re going to dive into, and the big five is just the beginning of the framework that Dean and I are going to lay out for you in future episodes of Just the Tips.
Outline of This Episode
- [3:05] James and Dean are the best of frenemies
- [6:00] Realizing you need help
- [7:35] How to get started
- [13:54] Success creates the problem
- [16:15] You can’t just flip a switch
- [20:04] Time is your most critical resource
- [27:05] This is just the beginning
Music for “Just The Tips” is titled, “Happy Happy Game Show” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
