Delegate or Drown
Mar 14, 2024
- Hire or Die: The Cold, Hard Rule of Entrepreneurship
- Delegate or Drown
- Learning the Ropes or Hanging Yourself?
On day one, you have an idea, you have a vision, you're going after it, right? You need to learn it all. And this is why I do what I do because it's pretty damn difficult to learn it all. It's pretty damn difficult to be it all, to do it all. It's hard, but in the beginning, you got to do it ALL. Whatever your business, as you’re starting you may not know how to hire, you may not know how to do sales and marketing, you may not know how to do finance but you need to figure it out. You have to get your toes wet in all these key areas of your business.
In the sport of business, we keep score. The way we keep score is with numbers and numbers as it relates to business, there's a variety of different numbers from analytics to marketing and sales numbers. And ultimately, it's our responsibility to understand the fundamentals. You don't have to know how to dig through every single line item of your balance sheet or income statement but you sure as heck better have somebody that knows how to do it. You don't have to be the best at cash flowing and understanding the financials and understanding receivables and payables and all, but you better have somebody who understands this.
Oftentimes, we might not be good at marketing, for example. You tell yourself,
“I'm going to try and figure it out.”
“I'm going to slug it out.”
“I'm going to fight through it.”
When you could hire someone that can help you with your marketing.
We all go through this phase in growing companies, which is when I get to a certain point, when do I hire to my weaknesses? When do I outsource? What do I outsource? You know, all that's going to be expensive, but if you don't outsource that and spend the money on that, then you’re never going to be able to get to the next level. So we have to get to the point where we are hiring or outsourcing our weaknesses. This is a tough self-reflection and you have to dig deep.
As your business grows, you get more employees. More team members can help you with your vision, help you with your strategic plan, and help you with what you want to do to grow your business. We have to realize that we've got certain skills. You know, there are some skills I know for a fact that I'm not good at. I'm not that great at marketing, I hire people to help me with marketing. I understand it fundamentally, but I'm not good at it. So look deep inside yourself, do some self-reflection, and say,
“What are the things that I'm good at?”
“What are the things that I love?”
“What are the most important things?”
And hire or outsource your weaknesses. You don't want a whole bunch of people who can do the same thing as you do, hiring or outsourcing your weaknesses.
