Business Owners: This BIG MISTAKE in delegating will hurt your bottom line
If you’re making this BIG MISTAKE when it comes to delegating, be prepared for failure.
You’ll not only overwhelm your employees, but you will also hurt your business.
I’ve seen it many times, and here’s how it unfolds:
Business owners wanting to clone themselves in their zeal to scale up.
They train one employee to wear ALL the hats — just like the business owner themselves.
Unfortunately, this approach is a recipe for disaster.
Here’s my story and a valuable lesson…
As someone who runs a marketing firm, we are primarily engaged in helping our clients with their organic monetization funnels.
A while ago, I made an error in judgement when I trained my best copywriter to do everything I did in the business.
To give you a clearer picture…
I tried to turn him into me:
A person juggling multiple roles, namely, the project manager, the client success manager, AND content creator, amongst others.
To cut a long story short, this experiment FAILED catastrophically.
Here’s how the disaster unfolded:
This experiment FAILED catastrophically. And here’s how…
1. My employee got overwhelmed.
He found himself drowning in tasks and responsibilities, becoming faint from exhaustion, increasingly frustrated, and stretched way too thin.
I had FAILED him.
The failure?
Mine to own.
And so, I apologized to him. We quickly reverted to the old arrangement, returning to his original role as a copywriter.
2. Clients fired me.
Performance slipped.
Deadlines stretched.
My clients? They noticed.
And they left.
Suddenly, I found myself in a scramble to keep my remaining clients happy, all because I had tried to make one employee wear ALL the hats.
It was a significant setback.
I took a HUGE hit.
I lost over $10,000 in recurring revenue.
Yikes!
The Lesson: Don’t build a carbon copy of YOU.
Why?
It’s simply too much for ONE employee.
Remember, they are not you. And this doesn’t mean that you are better than them. It just signifies that they are not the owner of the business. Therefore, you can’t burden your employees by making them do everything that you do in your business.
My golden advice to you is this…
One employee, ONE role.
Keep it simple and focused:
- Copywriter → Only writes copy.
- Graphic Designer → Only creates graphics.
- Writer → Only writes.
- Accountant → Only does accounting.
By doing this, you can avoid employee overwhelm.
And more importantly…
Don’t expect one person to handle everything just because it’s YOUR business.
So, to wrap this all up, here’s a recap of the points we discussed:
- Cloning yourself is a path to disaster.
- Overwhelmed employees and lost clients will hurt your biz.
- Assign each employee a specific role & responsibility. Keep it simple!
If you follow this advice, you’ll see the benefits:
- Happier, more efficient employees
- Satisfied, loyal clients
- A thriving business
This is the way.
