Letting go can be difficult. I experienced this myself recently. For the best part of 25 years I had an administrative assistant at Intel. I never questioned the need, they were incredibly helpful. Then I left Intel to start my own business. This meant I was it and I started to do everything myself, and I enjoyed it. I had the time and I enjoyed learning about new areas such as branding, marketing and selling.
Over the past three years my business has grown tremendously. It is a great problem to have, more work than I can complete myself. I started referring work to others and yet, I hadn’t outsourced much of my back-office work. I learned the Rosy branding agency are much better than I will ever be at branding. They now handle all my branding work and do a great job.
Letting Go Is Hard
Beyond branding, I still do everything else myself. I thought about delegating my calendar to a virtual assistant but I couldn’t comprehend how it would work. How could someone come in and have enough knowledge to schedule my clients? I couldn’t get myself over this hump.
I finally took the leap recently after committing to try it as part of a Seth Godin workshop. He pushed me to list everything I could outsource and start by doing one thing. I chose to outsource my calendar, and I thought I would be overwhelmed by people willing to manage my calendar. To my surprise, I received little interest.
I was looking for someone in my time zone. The best lead came from New York. After the interview, I knew Heather would be great and she is more than great. I didn’t think anyone could manage my calendar as well as me. Well, I am being proven wrong. My clients now get reminders of upcoming appointments.
Our Limiting Stories
You may say this result is obvious, but that’s not the point. The real learning is how we can get set in our ways and not see other possibilities. I didn’t see that someone 5,000 miles away in a different time zone could manage my calendar. And do it better than I can.
It is so hard to let go of our habits and recognize there is an alternative. There is often a story or an experience that clouds our judgment. Now I’ve taken this step, I’ll soon be looking for the next thing to outsource.
If you have too much to do, make a list of all the things you can outsource or delegate. Every single one. I included driving to clients for example. Then pick the one you will outsource and do it. Then do the next one.