PENNY WISE - POUND FOOLISH
Published on:
Saturday, December 16, 2023
By Aidan Steinbach
PENNY WISE - POUND FOOLISH
Permit me to begin by quoting one of my greatest virtual mentors in life, Andrew Carnegie:
"The secret to success lies not in doing your own work, but in recognizing the right man to do it."
Starting an organization requires a tremendous amount of work. Between setting up systems, processes, websites, landing pages, and fulfillment you will quickly find yourself in somewhat of a paradox. The lifeblood of a business is cash flow, but at varying times, it will be the least important item on the totem pole. At some point or another, the limiting factor will shift to your time. You need to buy back some of that time.
The paradox with this time-capital relationship however, is that the place you have come from will not get you to the place you are trying to go. Point A, if you will, left you with a deficiency of cash and a surplus of time. By extension, your perception of these two things is fundamentally skewed. As a result, it is not uncommon to find entrepreneurs bogged down with menial jobs because they "Don't want to pay someone to do something that they can do equally, if not better than another." To use an analogy in chess, you have just sacrificed your knight to save a pawn.
This is where the Paraeto Principle comes into effect. Commonly referred to as the 80/20 rule. Managers are taught to identify the 20% of actions that produce 80% of the results. By only focusing on that 20% they can derive the most efficiency out of the system. So, when we talk about delegation as it relates to this principle, there's a high likelihood that your 20% constitutes marketing, selling, and fulfillment. Any other tasks should be delegated and systemized as soon as possible.
While this will cost money for certain tasks, not everything has to be extremely expensive. People naturally want to help if they believe in the vision. For many, knowing that they had a hand in your success is payment enough. In the words of management guru Peter Drucker: "Do what you do best, and delegate the rest."
