TES 043 - Knowing What to Delegate

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Hey there. I'm Mel Abraham, the author of the number one best selling book the Entrepreneur's Solution and the founder of Business Breakthrough Academy where we teach you how to design a business and create a life, a life of financial freedom and peace of mind. And welcome back to this episode of the Entrepreneur Solution show. In this episode, I'm going to answer a question that came in online and it's a question from a good friend of mine that is asking about delegation. What to delegate, what shouldn't I delegate? What is it that I need to consider? And so I'm going to give you a framework of the things that you don't ever want to delegate or that you want to make sure that you have control over. And we're going to kind of divide some things up and I'm going to give you a framework when we come back after this brief introduction. And just like every other episode, this episode comes with a downloadable tool. This happens to be the core Priorities worksheet and you can download it by going to melabraham.com session 043. And if you happen to not be at your computer, go ahead and just text me, text me mylegacy one word at 238470. We'll make sure that I get you the download link and I'll see you back here right after this brief introduction. Cheers. See you soon. Bye.

Welcome to the Entrepreneur Solution, where highly successful entrepreneur Mel Abraham becomes your entrepreneurial mentor. Here, Mel reveals his business building strategies and even gets a chance to answer your questions. Mel Abraham, a CPA by education, but an entrepreneur by exhilaration and a true believer in the entrepreneurial way of life. It's through entrepreneurship that we create community, support society and live our dreams.

It's where possibility meets reality again and you can have the life and lifestyle you want. One of freedom and peace of mind. Welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur's Solution where it's time for you to be bold, dream big and live life Your way.

Hey there and welcome back. I'm Mel Abraham, the author of the number one best selling book the Entrepreneur's Solution. And welcome back to this episode of the Entrepreneur's Solution show. Looking forward to answering a question that came from a friend of mine, which is a cool question to deal with. And it made me kind of rethink some things as I'm preparing, I'm preparing for in another week or so, I'm doing my with my high level clients, Titan's Think Tank and Thoughtpreneur Academy. And we'll talk a little bit about this there go into it much deeper. But so let's just talk about the question. So a friend, Ron Reardon asks this question. He says, Mel, he says there's a long laundry list of to do's for an entrepreneur who is starting from scratch. And you know, the interesting thing is that whether you're starting from scratch or not, that list is always long. He says, which do you consider essential for the entrepreneur to consider doing personally versus being delegated? Hand it off to contractors, either immediately or as quickly as possible, understanding that just because they're not done personally, the entrepreneur continues to monitor them. Thanks. What an incredible question. And this is a question that comes up often. At what point do you delegate and what things do you delegate? And I'll tell you that entrepreneurs in general.

They'Re creatives and problem solvers. They're also control freaks. I mean, they're absolute control freaks. And letting go of control.

Is a problem for them. It's a challenge for many of them. And yet if we want to grow, if we want to scale, if we want to to build something that's meaningful, that doesn't suck the life out of us, at some point we're going to have to delegate certain things. And I went through this myself. I had the same challenges myself. I still do questioning what do I delegate? But I realized that my fallback position has to be lifestyle driven, growth driven. Because at some point there's a concept called choke point. And that choke point is in a sense a point of failure. It's a point where it stems the flow of the business growth. And at some point the entrepreneur can become the choke point in their business. And they wonder why is the business not growing? Why am I working more hours and more hours and more hours than I did before? Why is my life feeling stressed and aggravated and anxiety ridden and I'm not seeing my family, I'm not getting a chance to do the things that I used to do. I don't have my hobbies anymore. I mean, some of you might be relating to this and going, yeah, that's me. It's because you've become a choke point. It's because you believe that the only one can do the work is you. And. And I'm. I hate to break it to you, but you're wrong. I was wrong. I was wrong. You know, I thought that I was the only one that could do certain aspects of my business. And I probably tell you that the majority of it, other than maybe content creation, can be done by others. Should it be done by others? Different story. But some things should be done by others. Otherwise you become the choke point. And not only the choke point for your business, it chokes the life out of you. In the process. You start losing relationships, you start losing friends, you start losing hobbies, you start losing free time, you start losing the enjoyment of being an entrepreneur and doing things your way. So what do we need to do? What are the things that we need to consider? What are the things that we're going to delegate and what are the things that I'm going to hold on to? And I call these things the cores of my business. So I'm going to make sure that I don't let go of the cores of my business. It's another acronym I know that I said I don't usually use acronyms. In this case, again, it fits. So here we go again. So the first thing is that it is critical to my business. It's critical to the operations of my business and what drives profit. So, for instance, in my case, my content creation is absolutely critical. I'm not going to delegate my content creation. I can't delegate my content creation. Can I delegate some of the massaging of the content? Certainly. You know, I don't do the transcription of these videos or any of my audios. I don't do the editing of them. I'll go back through it. But the bottom line is that it's on my shoulders to create content. If I'm not there creating content, I'm not connecting with you. I'm not connecting with the audience. I'm not providing you value. And if I'm not providing you value, you'll find the value elsewhere. And I feel that my purpose here is to support you. My purpose here is to give you the tools, the skills, the strategies so you can turn around and build the entrepreneurial life that you want to build the business that you want to have. The bless that I feel like I've been blessed to have, and I Feel like, because I've been blessed with that, it's a responsibility to continue to do those critical functions. I've also heard many people say, well, I don't like sales, I don't like marketing. So I'm just going to delegate that. And.

I beg to differ. I think that when you start to. Especially, especially if it's brand you, right now, it's brand me. If you're trying to sell yourself, the best person to sell yourself is you. And if you delegate that, if you outsource that out, they're not going to be as effective, at least not initially. It may take a long time for them to ever get as effective as you. And so if we have some challenges with saying, I don't like selling, I don't like marketing, those are separate issues that we need to deal with on another episode. So to get that through, and we'll talk about convincing selling or conviction selling and that whole process in a separate episode. But what are critical to your operations? What are the critical elements.

That will drive your profit? Here's what I would ask you to do in this whole process in using this. What I do with this is I'll take a piece of paper and I'll fold it in half lengthwise.

And then I'll draw a line down the center. And on the left side, I write cores. Those are the things that I can't let go of. And on the right side, I write non cores. Those are the things that I can look for. Possible outsourcing partners, joint venture partners, delegation partners, team members that can take that off my shoulders. Now, let me clarify. When I say delegate, when I say outsource, that means that you're actually delegating and outsourcing the task, the activity, the productivity of it. You're not delegating the responsibility to monitor it. I always have to monitor my business. I always have to make sure that I keep the fingers on the pulse if I delegate. And I did this back years ago in my personal life from an investment standpoint. I hired an investment advisor, I delegated, I outsourced, if you will. I gave them the responsibility for my portfolio. And it went horribly wrong. Horribly wrong. And it was not because they didn't do their job well, maybe it was, but it was also because I didn't monitor the pulse, I didn't check the pulse on the patient. And so now my wealth strategist that I work with, one of the things that we do, we. We will talk typically monthly. We meet quarterly, and we have a lengthy annual meeting so I'm constantly monitoring everything that is going on in the portfolio. I'm not making all the choice choices, I'm not doing all the management, I'm not doing all the tracking. But I am not closing my eyes and using a park and pray strategy, which a lot of people do, especially in the investments. We're going to talk about that in another session from an investment money standpoint. But parking and praying is not a good strategy. Hope is not a good strategy. Have a system in place that's going to drive things and that you're monitoring things on an ongoing basis to make sure that things are going in direction. So when we talk about delegation and outsourcing, we're outsourcing an activity, a task, a productivity piece, but we're not necessarily relinquishing complete responsibility for it. Okay, so the next piece is original. If the element that you're dealing with is your differentiating point, that key characteristic that sets you apart in the marketplace.

You need to keep in contact and control of it. It could be the image, it could be your culture, it could be the branding. All of those things become critical because they're your market differentiator. If you look at Tony Hsieh and Zappos, he is driving the culture at Zappos and he has not relinquished that complete. I mean, he's got people that work with him as part of the team and they all work together, but he's the driving force. He's the one that set the bar. Steve Jobs did the same thing. Gary Erickson at Clif Bar has done the same thing. It's the differentiating point. If it's your differentiation point in the marketplace, you got to keep your tabs on that tremendous at a great level.

Otherwise you start to find that's when brands dissipate. That's where brands shift. You look at compact computer and what's happened with that company, look at HP and what's happened with that company. And there's a whole list of companies where they lost their differentiation because they did not care. Take it in the way that it should have been. Next is if it's driving your revenues. And I kind of talked about this in the critical part of it. If it's driving your revenues, you need to stay on top of it because your revenues are the source of ultimately the cash flow. And the cash flow is the. It's the oxygen for the business. If you're not generating cash flow, business can't survive, you can't survive. You can't pay bills without cash flow. We've got to do that.

In every day. And what it starts with is, is managing the top line, managing the revenues, which means that we need to manage the client relationships, the client contact points and those elements as we move forward. The next is, it's expansive. It's expansive in what we do.

There's going to be strategies that you put in place that are strategies that keep the business going. Then there's going to be strategic elements, strategic growth strategies. They're going to allow you to expand, they're going to allow you to grow the business. And I believe, especially in smaller organizations, that you need to spearhead those strategies, you need to take that, the reins of those strategies and make sure that you've got the proper people in place for the implementation and execution of it. But it's the expansive piece of your business. And then the last part of this that I think that we need to think about is that which is strategic.

Most entrepreneurs are the strategic thinkers of the business. Most entrepreneurs are the visionaries of the business. Some entrepreneurs can be the visionary and the implementer. Many entrepreneurs can only be the visionary and not the implementer. And they get that wrong. And they are unwilling to bring someone in to say, I need you to go execute. Think about Richard Branson. Richard Branson isn't the implementer. He's the grand visionary. He's the one that sees the vision, sees the opportunity and sees it with his eyes and then seizes it with his hands. And he brings in the team. He understands where his strengths lie. Is to be that strategic person, to say, this fits and allows us to grow. This fits. And now I need to bring the team in to help me execute. And now put a system in place, a feedback system that allows me to check the patient's pulse on a regular basis. So that's the course. Critical, original revenues, expansive and strategic. If the function that you're considering outsourcing, if the function that you're considering delegating has some of these characteristics, has the more of these characteristics they have, the more important it is for you to hold onto, the more important it is and instrumental it is to your success, to your ability to grow, to your ability to create cash flow, to continue in business. And therefore I would not necessarily delegate it or I would not outsource it. And even if we do outsource things, remember it's a delegation and outsourcing of tasks, action plans, productivity. It's not a relinquishing of the responsibility. If you're the top, if you're at the Top of the organization. Ultimately that responsibility will flow up to you. You may have some people here in the mid tier management or upper management that are watching these things, but create a reporting process that allows you to keep the fingers on the pulse. And if you're in a small organization or a solopreneur and it's just you.

Then it's just you. And you need to be careful about what you delegate. You need to make sure that you have something in place so you can measure it if it's your financial structure of your business. And I get it, many entrepreneurs and creatives don't really want to care about the accounting. Now I'm an accountant, so that's near and dear to my heart. But I also know whether I'm an accountant or not, I also know by managing the numbers, by, by watching the numbers. And you don't need to watch a lot of numbers, just watch what we call what I teach in business Breakthrough Academy, your prime indicators, those things that are the drivers in your business. Figure out your prime indicators and just watch those. So you are watching three or four numbers that will drive everything in your business. Make sure that you keep control of the cores of your business. It will serve you to give you peace of mind. It will serve you, to give you growth in your business. It will serve you to allow you to know what you can relinquish. Not relinquish, delegate, outsource. And do that without.

Giving away the important elements of the business that are going to drive you. And I'm going to invite you to look at things that maybe you want to delegate because they're not enjoyable for you or that you don't feel that you're good at and therefore you're going to delegate it, like marketing or sales, possibly. And I'm going to invite you not to do it if it's critical, if it's part of your distinction, if it's going to drive your revenues. And I'd invite you to build the skill set to be more effective in that process as you move forward. So keep control of the cores, make sure that you're managing them, make sure that you're monitoring them. Those things that get managed get monetized.

That will allow us. So let's make sure that we do that. I hope that this serves you. I hope you found this of value to you, that you use the CORS process to make sure that you figure out what is cores, what is non cores. And as always, you can download the tool for this session@melabraham.com session043 and if you're not at your computer, go ahead and just send me a text mylegacy one word to 38470 and would you do me a favor? Do me a favor and share this with a friend. Share it with a couple of friends. Let's get this information out there. I'd love to be that entrepreneurial mentor for many people out there that are struggling and looking for a different way, a different paradigm than the old industrial age paradigm. How do they find and bring their dreams alive again using entrepreneurship? How do they reduce the risks of entrepreneurship and get themselves in the game using proven strategies, proven gain, proven skills and tools that work? So share this with a friend and if you haven't done so already, make sure you subscribe so we can make sure that we stay on this journey together. And if you have a question for me, a challenge that you're trying to deal with in your business, in success or in wealth or anything like that, just go to askmelnow.com that's askmelnow.com leave me a message. I'll make sure we get to it on one of the upcoming episodes. And until we get a chance to see each other again, may your vision be grand, your journey epic, and your legacy significant. See you soon. Stay in touch. I want to hear from you. Cheers. Bye.

We hope you enjoyed this episode. Make sure you subscribe so you get access to all of Mel's business and success tips. And if you like this episode, share it with a friend. If you have a specific business or success question, you can ask it at www.askmelnow.com. remember, it's all about being bold, dreaming big, and living life your way because the world needs you. Until the next episode, may your vision be grand, your journey, and your legacy significant.

And that's it for this episode of Building your Money Machine where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people. Because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright and I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.