How to Scale Your Business by Delegating, Outsourcing and Automating

When I was writing What's Your Money Personality?, my publisher asked me to proofread the book.

I thought, how hard could this be?

Then I did it.

And it took everything out of me.

It was one of those experiences that reminded me very clearly why I never want to own a publishing company, but the truth is, I had already learned this lesson once before when I decided to self-publish The Womb & Money Journal, I discovered what self-publishing actually meant.

It wasn’t just writing the journal, it meant dealing with printers, making decisions about every little detail, following up with graphic designers, editors, proof readers, constantly solving problems and then making sure the final product actually got into people's hands.

At one point, I was so overwhelmed dealing with the printers and their drama that I ended up sleeping outside in my car in their parking lot.

That experience taught me when you take on a business task, you're not just taking on the task, you're taking on everything required to make that task happen.

And when you're an entrepreneur, there is a real cost to that - while I was focused on getting the journal produced and delivered, other parts of Wealthy Money essentially came to a standstill because everyone on my team was focused on the journal.

So much of my own energy was going into solving journal-related problems and suddenly the entire business was being organized around getting one product out the door.

It worked.

We got the journal into people's hands but it also showed me something important about how I wanted to build my business.

I don't need or want to do everything, in fact, doing everything can become a very expensive way of running a business.

One of the biggest shifts I've made as an entrepreneur has been learning to understand my strengths and weaknesses.

What am I actually good at?

What do I uniquely bring to the business?

What drains me?

What requires skills I don't have?

What could someone else do better, faster or more efficiently?

What am I doing simply because I believe I should be the one doing it?

I've learned that hiring support and handing tasks over to other people isn't about avoiding work, it's about using my time and energy strategically.

When I focus on what I do best, I have more capacity to do the things that actually require me.

I can create, teach, develop ideas, connect with my audience, sell and think about the direction of the business.

All those are the things that move Wealthy Money forward and that experience with the journal taught me to look at my business differently because I started thinking about all the different elements that make a business work: my products and services, pricing, branding, marketing, sales, operations, customer experience and team.

And I started asking myself where each piece needed my attention and where it needed support because when I can map out the different parts of my business, I can see where things are getting stuck and I can start to identify what needs to be improved, what can be automated, what should be outsourced and I can see where my own energy is most valuable.

The goal isn't for me to become capable of doing everything in my business.

The goal is to build a business that doesn't require me to do everything because if every part of the business depends on me, then I've created a business that can only grow as far as my personal capacity allows and I don't want that, I want Wealthy Money to grow, increase sales and create more impact and I want to do that without constantly running myself into the ground.

So these days, I'm much more intentional about asking:

What do I do best?

What should I delegate?

What can I automate?

What needs a specialist?

What actually needs me?