There comes a time in every business owner’s journey when you realize you’re spread too thin.
Everyone’s wake-up call is different. Maybe it’s answering emails during your kid’s baseball game. Or not making it to the game at all.
The signs can be physical, mental, or manifest in your mood or relationships – but the message is always the same, “You can’t do this all by yourself.”
As driven, hard-working people, the logic that gets business owners into this mess is solid. Power through this rough patch and things will get better soon.
The reality? It won’t get better until you admit you need help.
No business owner is an island
In professional service industries such as accounting, the process of loosening the reins is especially challenging. Most of us start out small, and during the early days it’s commonplace to work directly with every single client.
This creates a situation where offloading work isn’t just a case of delegating tasks but trusting employees with relationships.
But until we learned to let go of control, our growth was capped. The only path to sustainable scaling is the one where owners become leaders and team members are given the autonomy to thrive.
Our mindset shift
Transitioning from “I must do it” to “Who does it best?” didn’t happen with the flip of a switch. It was an intentional process of identifying our employees’ strengths and trusting them to deliver.
Finding the right seat for team members made it easier to let go, because we knew we were adding responsibilities to the plates of people who actively wanted to take them on.
And as we’ve grown, this philosophy has been instrumental in allowing our ownership team to focus on strategic initiatives and save our energy for the work only we can do.
Helping clients make this same leap
Having gone through this transformation ourselves uniquely positions Accountability Services to guide owners to make the same transition at their businesses.
“Work on your business, not in it” is more than just a catchphrase. It’s the fundamental difference between building a sellable business and being self-employed. A business that doesn’t exist without your labor isn’t a business at all.
And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that life, if that’s what you want. But if your dream is to create an organization you can one day exit from, you must learn to slowly exit from the day-to-day operations.
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Accountability Services’ Behind the Puzzle series shares honest thoughts and stories from our own business journey. Like you, we have a vision for our company that goes beyond turning a profit – and like yours, our path to success has been lined with obstacles and triumphs, frustration and joy, problems and solutions. As our team works to solve our own business puzzle, we hope this candid look behind the scenes provides useful insights to help you solve yours.
