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
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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