Understanding What to do Yourself and What to Delegate

If you own a business, chances are that you’re the backbone of what the business is. Whatever the industry, you started the thing, and your energy is put into every aspect of it.

Now, generally speaking – we all want to scale our businesses, so inevitably we’re faced with the massive issue of limited time – in one way or another.

There are a certain number of tasks that need to be delegated, but there are also some that should only be done by you. They need your thumbprint on them. These are your high value tasks.

Understanding what to do yourself and what to delegate can be a challenging process, but if you allow yourself to look within – to be patient and honest with yourself – then I’m sure you’ll find your answers.

For me, there are certain instances where I’m able to delegate to Jon or another subcontractor, and then there’s certain others where I simply have to do it myself.  

Let’s start with these blogs. Since everything starts with writing, the blogs have to come from me. These are thoughts that I as the business owner have, and then they get formed into talking points.

From there, these blogs inform the direction of our marketing, our daily operations and even the overall intentions behind the business itself.

Now, you may be thinking “but, aren’t blogs for SEO? Can’t you just have Chat GPT write them for you?”  Absolutely. If that’s how 2 dimensionally you want to think – then go for it.

But if you’re able to open your mind to something, let me elaborate on the value of writing them yourself.

These blogs, for me – they began as a marketing strategy. I thought I would write them for a while to boost our SEO, and to show potential clients what we’re capable of. The original intention was also to make these into videos.

Now, while they have served to help with our SEO, and they’ve done everything I’ve intended them to do – they also began to serve another very powerful purpose.

They began to inform me of exactly what my business is. By excavating my mind every morning for something to write about, it’s reiterating that I’m a knowledgeable, professional and respectable individual in my industry.

If you were to write blogs for your own business, I can guarantee you it would have the same effect.

Now, let’s look at some other things that can and can’t be delegated. Again, for myself – I can’t have Jon write for our construction clients. Why? Because he knows nothing about it. My top priority for my clients is quality and integrity.

For this reason, I do the writing – because I was in the industry for nearly a decade before becoming a filmmaker.

Something else I won’t pass on is my social writing and posting for our own accounts – this, again – due to the honesty in what my business is, requires my thumb print on it.

Some things that I can pass on to Jon include dealing with brochure printing logistics, initiating email conversations, posting the construction client’s posts, editing and writing for a cabin rental company (because he’s naturally gifted at it), and shooting and filming for the construction client.

All of these tasks, and the decision to do them myself or delegate, have come through a number of experiments. And I urge you to approach your delegation in the same manner.

If you’ve tried over and over again to get employees to do something correctly for you – and they can’t, well I’m sorry but it’s then something that you have to do.

So, instead of getting frustrated – simply go at it yourself. And accept that sometimes you need to be the one to take control of the situation you’re trying to pass off. Afterall, it is your business, not theirs.

But, all we can do is try. If you gut is telling you to give a certain responsibility to someone, just try it out and see what happens. If it doesn’t work out, then take control of the task yourself again until you find another opportunity to attempt to delegate.

With the construction company, for an example outside of my own business, the owner still does the estimates and in home consultations.

Now, does he want to pass this off at some point? Of course he does. But up until this time, he hasn’t found an individual who can give it the same time and effort that he does – so it remains one of his high value tasks.

Now, is he still on site swinging a hammer? No – no he is not. Because that’s something that other talented individuals can handle.

Treat your business in the same way. Grow calmly and slowly – and delegate as you need to. But understand that there are some things you’ll almost always need to handle yourself.

If you’d like to chat about any of this and how you can delegate better, shoot me an email. I’m always happy to chat.

To Your Success,

Jay Ashcroft

Ashcroft Media Co.