Anything You Want

Delegate or die: The self-employed trap

Most self-employed people get caught in the delegation trap.

You're so busy, doing everything yourself. You know you need help, but to find

and train someone would take more time than you have. So you keep working

harder, until you break.

Here's my little tale of how I broke into the delegation mindset:

In  2001,  CD  Baby  was  three  years  old.  I  had  eight  employees,  but  I  was  stil

doing “everything else” myself, working 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week.

Everything stil went through me.

Every five minutes, my employees had a question for me:

“Derek, some guy wants to change the album art after it's already live on the site.

What do I tel him?”

“Derek, can we accept wire transfer as a form of payment?”

“Derek,  someone  placed  two  orders  today,  and  wants  to  know  if  we  can  ship

them together as one, but refund him the shipping cost savings?”

It was hard to get anything done while answering questions al day.

I felt like I might as wel just show up to work and sit on a chair in the hal way,

just answering employees' questions, ful -time.

I  hit  my  breaking  point.  I  stopped  going  to  the  office  and  shut  off  my  phone.

Then I realized I was running from my problems instead of solving them. I had

to fix this, or I'd be ruined.

After  a  long  night  of  thinking  and  writing,  I  got  myself  into  the  delegation

mindset.

I had to make myself unnecessary to the running of my company.

The next day, as soon as I walked in the door, someone said, “Derek, someone

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whose CDs we received yesterday has now changed his mind and wants his CDs

shipped back. We've already done the work, but he's asking if we can refund his

setup fee since he was never live on the site.”

This time, instead of just answering the question, I cal ed everyone together for a

minute.

I repeated the situation and the question for everyone.

I answered the question, but more important, I explained the thought process and

philosophy behind my answer.

“Yes, refund his money in ful . We'l take a little loss. It's important to always do

whatever would make the customer happiest, as long as it's not outrageous. A

little gesture like this goes a long way toward him tel ing his friends we're a great

company.  Everyone  always  remember  that  helping  musicians  is  our  first  goal,

and profit is second. You have my ful permission to use that guideline to make

these  decisions  yourself  in  the  future.  Do  what  makes  the  musicians  happiest.

Make sure everyone who deals with us leaves with a smile.”

I asked around to make sure everyone understood the answer.

I asked one person to start a manual, write down the answer to this one situation,

and write down the philosophy behind it.

Then everyone went back to work.

Ten minutes later, new question. Same process:

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