Starting out in the survival stage of your business meant you spent most days dreaming, doing, and making sure that everything is being held together.
Growth slowly (sometimes not so slowly) begins to creep in and before you know it you are maxed out not knowing how to get it all done in a 24 hour day.
Jason has spent years on this hamster wheel and his health and family are starting to really pay the price. Sure, he has some access to cash and resources but absolutely no time to enjoy any of it.
Part of the reason he started his business is to create margin to spend more time with his family and more time giving to the passions that he and his wife share. Instead, Jason is spending the majority of his time with other families making sure their home is maintained...neglecting his own maintenance.
How do you jump off the hamster wheel and start to grab and enjoy the margin that is so widely promoted to entrepreneurs (aka, “you can be your own boss...set your own hours…”)?
There is a high likelihood that as a business owner you have a driven personality...you’re a dreamer, a pioneer; an “out there” thinker. You take risks and often fire before ever really aiming.
Aiming is important...but you don’t have to be the one doing it all of the time.
How do you find someone to complement your skills and your responsibility as an owner?
How do you work with that person in a way that doesn’t drive them or you crazy?
For goodness sake...how do you afford them?
First, let’s just step back a minute and take a deep breath...although it may feel like your world is imploding let’s just remember that the world is not. The sun still comes up and goes down...the tide comes in and goes out...the rain comes and goes.
In most businesses that operate with great purpose there is a Visionary and another person who acts as an Implementer or what Dan Sullivan would call a Project Manager (not the same as a Construction Project Manager).
In most cases you are the Visionary which means in most cases you are on the hunt for an Implementer.
But where are they and who are they?
The role of the visionary is pretty straightforward; dream, pioneer, see, push and try your best to describe what you’ve concocted in words that the Implementer can understand.
The Implementer then takes that jumbled, fast, and often confusing collection of words, ideas, and concepts back to their workstation and goes to work in three major areas.
First, the Implementer translates all of your dreams and visions into an articulate form so others can understand it.
Next, the Implementer begins the hard work of distilling all of that vision down into a collection of systems, processes, and easy-to-digest implementables. Essentially that are “packaging” the vision into a brand that the Doers can understand and go to work IN.
Third, the Implementer embeds this new vision “package” into the rhythm of the Doer-team via team meetings, 12 week plans, dashboards, and reporting so progress can begin on the destination (aka - the vision).
Finally, the Implementer updates both the Visionary and the Doers of the progress towards the vision while the Implementer heads back out to pioneer the open country to see what other visions await in an effort to constantly exercise their mission.
So how do you afford an Implementer? You begin saving up NOW. Setup a separate bank account and title it “New Hire Account” (literally, have your bank title that account) and begin adding the salary you think you’ll have to pay an Implementer into that account every month.
If you don’t have enough each month, then you know you're not ready. But as you accrue it will help provide the confidence you need. In the meantime, be on the hunt for your Implementer.
They will be the ones dressed in the variegated colors of vision, the muted colors of process, and the pleasant colors of collaboration.
Scott Beebe is the founder of Business On Purpose, author of Let Your Business Burn: Stop Putting Out Fires, Discover Purpose, And Build A Business That Matters. Scott also hosts The Business On Purpose Podcast and can be found at mybusinessonpurpose.com.