Guide
Nothing happens unless you do it.
If you can’t take a week off without the phone ringing, the business is running on you. That isn’t a flaw in you. It’s what happens when a business grows faster than the way it’s run.
Why it ends up on you
It all lives in your head
The prices, which customers need careful handling, how the work really gets done. If it isn’t written anywhere, you are the only place to find it.
Every question comes back to you
Without a written answer, people ask you. Each question takes two minutes. Thirty a day is a full hour, broken into pieces too small to do anything else with.
You are the link between the tools
The quote is in one place, the job in another, the invoice in a third. Someone has to carry the details across. Usually that’s you.
Handing over feels slower than doing it
It is, the first time. So the work never gets handed over, and the first time never happens.
Check it yourself this week
- For one week, keep a tally of every question people bring you. Star the ones you’ve answered before.
- Take the most-starred question and write the answer down once, somewhere everyone can find it. Next time it comes up, point to it.
- Pick one weekly task and hand it over with the written answer attached, even if it takes longer this once.
Two related exercises: field note 04 and field note 06.
When it’s worth getting help
Writing things down gets you part of the way. The rest is getting the business to hold the information instead of you: one place where jobs, customers and money live, and follow-up that happens without anyone remembering to do it.
That’s what we build. You deal with Joe from start to finish, and you keep everything that’s built.
Ready to stop being the glue? Before we talk, Joe reads your business from what’s public and sends a one-page read of where the time is going. You commit to nothing.