Why Female Entrepreneurs Must Learn to Tolerate Team Member Mistakes | Ep #74

Hey, I'm Chris Plackey, host of the Lead you'd Team podcast. Running a million dollar business is not easy. And whether you're just getting started with building your team or you've been at this for a while, I'm going to bring you honest, specific and clear practices you can use right now, today to improve how well you lead your team. Let's go ahead and get.

Foreign.

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. How are you today? Here we are in July. Holy moly.

So a couple quick announcements before I get too deep into the podcast. I have about two weeks left here by the time this releases to accept new clients into the Founders Lab. We have some appointments. My team is meeting with folks who are ready to get started. So if you're a female entrepreneur and you really want to take this time to get your arms around the management and leadership of your team, maybe you have some team members and you're not quite sure what to do with them, they're not performing the way you want. Maybe you feel really frustrated all the time because people aren't delivering to your expectations, or maybe you really have a great team, but you're not quite sure if you're maximizing their performance. You don't know what you could be doing better. Are you even doing a good job? You know, do you need an org chart? Do you need to start, like formalizing your business? So all the things and more, that's what I do with my clients. And I would love to extend the invitation and welcome you to work with us. So go to chrisplacky.com appointment schedule an appointment. Let's talk about what the Founders Lab is for you and if it makes sense. If this is a good time for you to work with me in the Founders Lab, I certainly would love to meet with you. So the other thing is that it's midway through summer and life is still crazy in the world. And so I want to talk with you about a challenge that isn't maybe necessarily relevant to the times that we're in, but very relevant to your life as an entrepreneur and a woman who has a team that you have cultivated. And I want to. I've been talking with my clients about this a little bit on the heels of last week's podcast about expectations, guilt, which if you didn't listen to, I highly recommend that you do. What we're talking about this week is how your ability to scale and frankly, your ability to make more money, your business depends on your willingness to allow other people to fail. It depends on your Willingness to tolerate other people's mistakes.

Your growth, your success, your increase in money in your pocket depends on it. There is no way for you to go where you are. And I don't care where you are. If you're at a million in revenue, if you're at 200,000 in revenue, if you're at 36,000 in revenue or 36 million in revenue, that next level is your ability to release control of a thing and hire people, team members to do the thing and then to actively watch them fail at it.

And lose your mind while they do it.

I don't know that that's encouraging for you, but I want you to hear me, that you can't avoid it. You can't just hire people and not have mistakes in your business. It's not reasonable. Now, what you do with the mistakes, we're going to talk about here in a second, but can we just agree that if you're at seven figures right now and you want to get to eight, the only way you're going to get to that is when you release something you're holding on to. What are you holding on to? I did this with one of my founders lab calls yesterday, right? There are people. I have a client who's making multiple millions of dollars and she still does payroll. Of course she does. So many of my clients do. But that's not really what her. She's not a payroll person. That's not her thing. That's not her jam. Hi to you. I know you know who you are. I'm winking at you, right? I have other clients who run multiple million dollar businesses and they still do all the scheduling, they still do all their marketing. Now here's the thing. You get to pick and keep whatever you want in your business. So don't misunderstand me. If you're the marketing guru of your business, which I have a lot of clients, that is true. And that's what you love. Like that's your superpower. I don't think it's bad that you keep it. I'm saying to you that I know there are things in your business that you're not really good at and you're still doing them. So we need to cut that out because that's what's limiting your growth. And I know the reason you haven't hired somebody yet to do that work is because you don't think they'll do it as well as you. You know that they're going to make mistakes. You can't tolerate the idea of failure in this space.

So you keep it. And then you say things like, well, it's not a big deal. It doesn't take that much time. It's not a problem. I know what I'm doing. It's just easier for me to do it. Am I right? Am I onto you?

I know I am. So what do we do? First? We tell the truth. What are you super good at?

Where are you the best asset for your business? I'm guessing it's not in making PowerPoints or whatever it is that you do. Right?

Where are your superpowers? And then what are you doing that is not aligned with that? It's just something you've been doing, right? I just hired a team to help me with all of my business management. It's been amazing. And we were doing a Facebook ad, right? And I said, well, I can just go in there and get it set up. And one of the gals said, well, can't one of us do that for you? Is that really what you should be doing? And I'm like, probably not. But I forget, oh, yeah, I paid somebody now, but here's the risk, right? Like, they're gonna do it wrong. And when I say wrong, I just mean they're not gonna meet the expectation I have in my brain of how I would have done it. And what we learn when we hire people and we delegate tasks is, first of all, we first learn how terrible we are at it, that we have to slow down and be really thoughtful about the result that we want. The second thing we also learn is that there are people who know how to do the thing that you've been doing that I've been doing. Not well, but enough that know how to do it better than you and me. And that's good news. So when you are a female entrepreneur and you hire someone to take over part of the responsibilities of your business, you have to promise me that just because they mess up doesn't mean you dismiss the idea of having help. It's okay. We can look at the mistake. And like I said last week, when there's a mistake made in your business, that was a assignment you delegated, the first thing to do is look at you like, okay, was I clear? Maybe I wasn't. Maybe I thought I was. Maybe I just abdicated it and I didn't really delegate it. And there is a difference, right? And then we just have to recognize these things are going to happen. It's not the end of the world, Right? Unless you're, like, a cardiovascular surgeon.

Right? Like, we have to be really thoughtful. Like, if. If an email goes out and it's not exactly what you wanted, sure, it's disappointing, and, yeah, you might want to change it, but you can tell people, hey, can we relook at that? I'm not happy with the way that email went out. I'd like to talk through how we could do better next time, and we move on. We don't dismiss the idea entirely summarily that, like, no, I can never hire somebody to do this job because they made a mistake. Absolutely not. You absolutely can hire people to do this job, and you can absolutely get them prepared to do a really good job. But it requires a different part of you. And that's honestly why I do the work I do. I know how hard that is, and I want you to have support, and I want to teach and coach you through it. You don't have to do that part alone. But I want you to also notice what the exponential value is to your business when you get that person on board and they know what they're doing.

I just started doing this myself. I hired somebody to do all of my consultations because in order for me to help as many people as I want to help, I can't keep doing that. My business won't scale. I'm in the way. But if there was one thing I would tell you that I think I'm the best at, it's consultations. That's what I do. I triage, I talk to potential clients, and I know exactly how I'm going to help them. How can I hire somebody to do that? Well, I did. And we had our first couple calls this week, and you know what? They went really well. And two of them signed up, two out of two. And do you know what that kind of magic is in your business? When you generate revenue and you're not doing it now, some of you, I know you know that, but there's other parts of your business that you're like, I can't even imagine not doing that because I've just done it for so long. What if you didn't have to? What exponential value would that bring to your business and to you if somebody else was doing that for you? Think about it. Be honest with yourself. The investment you make in yourself to be able to learn how to hire and train and onboard and delegate and then hold people accountable exponentially pays off in your company. And I see this over and over and over again. Look, we're in the time of a massive pandemic and massive racial injustice. Sort of rectification, which I think is totally appropriate. We have so much disruption happening in the world and I can tell you that 95 plus percent of my clients are making more money now than they did when they hired me. And that's not me. I don't take credit for it. They did the work. It's because they learned how to borrow and pay for and develop the skills of others to get work done on their behalf so that then they are focusing on their superpower.

It's magic when you hire someone to do work you've always done and they do it as well or better. But it is not overnight and it is not, oh good, I hired someone and they start on Monday and everything will be better. No, it's actually worse. First they make mistakes. They do stuff that's dumb. You lose your mind, you want to rip your hair out, you want to hate them, you want to fire all of them. You want to quit your job and sell it and go live on an island.

And then it gets better. There's work in there. It's worth it if you knew. Like let's say you have a three million dollar business. I know that what's separating you from a three million dollar business and an eight million dollar business is your ability to lead that team. What if you believed me?

What if I was right? So your ability to grow and succeed at a higher level and make more money is on the other side of your tolerance.

For mistakes. I promise. Trust me and go get it. Have a great and wonderful day.

Hey there, gorgeous. Are you ready to take everything I teach you in this podcast and put it to work in your business and really learn how to master leading your team? If so, I'd love to have you as a client in the Founders Lab to learn more about how we can work together. Head over to Chrisplackie.com.

Join there. You'll see everything you need to know about the Founders Lab and how to get started. See you there.

Sam.