Entrepreneur: Assume Risk, Not Responsibility | Day 8/500

We all have something we want to do. The most successful entrepreneurs can inventory their strengths and fill in the gaps with far more gifted people in identified areas. The most successful are the ones that understand the value of their time and hand over tasks that do not justify the "expense" of their time to someone more aligned.

On the reverse, those who remain stagnant, and fight a never-ending battle with their businesses, are the ones that desperately want success but can't seem to find it. These are the ones who think they need to do everything themselves, because 1) it's cheaper, and 2) they can do it better. 

As it turns out, they're wrong. As it also turns out, their two most prominent beliefs are the two reasons they'll likely never get where they're trying to go. 

Here's a strategy that I created for myself about six years ago, and it has continued to work for me ever since.  

1. Ask yourself the question: What is the goal you want to achieve? 
2. What specific personality traits or skillsets are needed to achieve that goal? 
3. Out of those, which ones do you have, and which ones do you not have? 
4. Who do you know, or what kind of person can you hire to fill in the gap? Who can help you get where you want to go faster? 

Here's the thing. 

Entrepreneurs find themselves in a trap all too often. They tell themselves that if they do the work, then the work is free. But it's not. The value of an entrepreneur's time is high, but they think it's free. They're stuck in that bootstrapping mentality, which may have worked the first time, but it's outdated if they have more than one business. When they try to do everything themselves, it costs them more money, but it slows them down. 

When I started my first business, I had more time than I had money, so I had no choice. I call this the Currency Correlation. Imagine a teeter-totter, how it moves up or down depending on the person's weight on each side. Bootstrapping works when you have no other choice, but when you have the financial means, it makes no sense to trade your time (valuable time) for an outcome when you can get someone else to do it for you.  

It slowed me down, but at the time I thought that was my only option. Now, I know my strengths are in the ideas. My weaknesses are that I don’t have an endless amount of time. So I need to bring people onto my team to delegate tasks to, or better yet, be in charge of projects that will ultimately move me closer to reaching the specific goal I’m working to achieve.

As a consultant, I often see this with business owners who are not trained in design but still believe they should be doing their social media content and website design. Why? Because it's so dang expensive to hire a web designer. I get it, but if that website (and designer) does its job and that baby converts, your return on investment (ROI) is very good. If you spend a big chunk of your time on it, and it doesn't convert, your ROI is poor. 

When you look at it like that, it makes zero sense to carry all the burden yourself. As an entrepreneur, you must assume the risk, not all the responsibility.

Backstory: The first week of April, I flew to New Jersey to attend the Next Level Author workshop, hosted by Mike Michalowicz and AJ Harper. I stumbled upon a bookstore in which I got lost for nearly an hour. Not literally lost, but I couldn't stop looking, imagining, and soaking it all in. A journal called 500 Writing Prompts captured my attention, and I bought it. Then I committed to using one random prompt per day to share with my readers. 

This story is inspired by my upcoming release of Fix This Next for Healthcare Providers. If you haven't already, check it out on Amazon. It's available for pre-order.