Guest post by Juliana Marulanda.
Being an entrepreneur means being your own boss. Unfortunately, it can also mean being your own salesperson, marketer, human resources manager, and accountant all at once. Out of necessity, most small businesses start out this way after all.
As your client base starts to grow, however, so should your team. While it’s tempting to think that you can continue handling every business operation by yourself because (1) it saves money since since you’re not hiring and paying for extra hands, and (2) training staff is time-consuming, consider these statistics:
- 20% of small business fail in the first year.
- Businesses earn 33% more revenue when CEOs delegate.
Indeed, managing everything by yourself might just be counterproductive. When you’re running a small business, there is no shame in admitting that you can’t do it alone. Rome was not built in a day, nor was it built by one person.
This applies not only for business owners but for anyone managing a team. Attempting to perform administrative tasks on top of making critical business decisions is a VIP ticket to a burn-out. Inevitably, decision fatigue will start to creep in.
Decision fatigue is a brick wall waiting right around the corner for any entrepreneur or manager who insists on hogging all the work. When you hit that wall, making rational and prudent decisions become more challenging, and you begin to compromise the quality of your work–not to mention that you’re putting your physical and mental health at risk.
Building a competent team and delegating is key to a successful and sustainable business. To learn more on the importance of delegation, check out this infographic.
Juliana Marulanda is a business operations expert, speaker, and the founder of ScaleTime. With over 13 years of experience across Wall Street, the non-profit sector, technology startups, and family-owned businesses, she now helps service-based businesses.