From Solopreneur to Hiring Support: How to Grow Your Business by Expanding Your Team
You began your business because you loved what you do, or you knew you were really good at it. It was fun, people were buying what you had to offer. Everything had been going well. Until, one day you woke up and thought “there are too many things for me to keep up with” Ok, truth, you started dropping balls, and saying things like “I’m sorry…” way too many times. And it’s finally hit you, you can no longer do it all by yourself.
Let’s take a closer look at how to go from solopreneur to hiring support and how to grow your business by expanding your team.
Being a solopreneur can be incredibly rewarding. You’ve built your business from the ground up, taken charge of every decision, and have a deep understanding of every aspect of your business. However, as your business grows, it’s easy to find yourself stretched thin, struggling to maintain the same level of quality and attention in all areas. Hence the “I’m sorry” syndrome.
I work with a lot of women business owners who are solopreneurs. They are responsible for all of it, “all the things”! Usually when they hire me it’s because they think they need more productivity, efficiencies, processes and know-how. While that certainly can be true, what is really happening is that they are at the point to scale their business. And the time has come when they need to make an important shift: from solopreneur to hiring support.
And it’s s-c-a-r-y! They don’t know what they don’t know and they certainly don’t know how to hire anyone. Sometimes they have hired but it didn’t go well, so “not going to do that again”. While it’s understandable, it’s not the way to maintain and grow a business. It’s actually the way to the death of a business. You did not work this hard to let it all die.
Why You Shouldn’t Do It All
Hiring your first team member or outsourcing a specific task may feel daunting. After all, you’re used to being in complete control, and you might wonder if delegating will impact the quality of your work. However, stepping out of the “do-it-all” mentality is critical for long-term growth. And making this shift can benefit your business and you can learn how to do it effectively.
It’s natural for you to want to be involved in every aspect of your business. But, over time, handling everything yourself can become overwhelming and unsustainable. It leads to burnout, reduced creativity, and stagnation – limiting your ability to grow. Not to mention it’s also a health hazard. The word I’ve heard from some of my clients is daunting. They feel their workload is daunting.
You do not need me to tell you that that isn’t a great place to be when it comes to being in business and it certainly isn’t a great place to be in life.
By hiring support, you create more time to focus on your high-impact activities—those tasks that require your unique skills, creativity, and vision. Delegating smaller tasks enables you to dedicate more energy to areas that drive growth, such as building client relationships, expanding your services, and being in what I like to call your “brilliance zone”. Doing only what you can do. I’m hoping you are beginning to see how beautiful it is to be able to have help in your business.
The Power of Delegation
Delegation is key to moving from a solopreneur to a successful business leader. Learning how (and you certainly can learn this skill) to delegate allows you to leverage the talents and expertise of others while freeing up time for you to operate at your highest level and in your brilliance zone. It also creates a ripple effect within your business. With the right support in place, you can deliver better services to your clients, scale more efficiently, and pursue new opportunities.
Scaling Beyond Yourself
Moving from solopreneur to hiring support allows your business to expand in ways you never could alone. As you step into your role as a leader, you’ll have the ability to focus on scaling, innovating, and strategizing while your team handles the day-to-day tasks. Additionally, having a team fosters creativity and collaboration, helping your business thrive in new ways.
Growth Through Support
It’s important to remember that hiring support isn’t a sign of weakness or loss of control; it’s a sign that you have grown, are growing into a business leader, the CEO if you will of your business. By learning to delegate, hiring the right people, and focusing on the bigger picture, you’ll take your business to new heights and create more opportunities for success. And what’s more exciting than that?
Building your own dream team is absolutely possible. True, you need to define what that means for you and what you want from your team. If you aren’t clear on that, let’s change that for you. By knowing what you want you are more apt to get it. So let’s get that clarity, shall we, you know you want to.
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