This episode deals with a question sent in about Delegation. We are going to talk about the things that we should consider before relinquishing the responsibilities. It is about deciding at what point we delegate and the things to delegate.

The CORES of Business

To grow, scale and build something that is meaningful we need to let go of control. Here’s how you decide on the things and whether they are something that you delegate or hold on to:

• Critical: If it is critical to the operations of your business and drives profit, then be the one in control of it. Others will not be as effective as you. Even if it is something that you do not like or are not proficient in, you need to responsibly monitor it. Have a system in place that drives things and you are on the monitoring end.
• Original: Keep in control of those elements that is your differentiating point. Stay close to the key characteristics that set you apart in the marketplace. For example: Your image, culture and branding. These things are your market differentiators so keep tabs on it at a great level.
• Revenue: If it drives your revenue, stay on top of it. Without cash, your business cannot survive. So, be the one who is closely monitoring the things like client relationships and sales that bring in the revenues of your business.
• Expansive: Spearhead those strategies that keep your business going. Command the strategic elements that allow your business to grow and expand. You can have other people for implementation and execution but the expansive piece is yours.
• Strategic: As a visionary and the strategic thinker of the business, be the one to decide on the techniques that fits. You do not need to be the implementer but be that visionary who oversees where your business is heading. Always have your finger on the pulse.

— Begin Transcript —

Hey there, I’m Mel Abraham, the author of the #1 best-selling book, The Entrepreneur’s Solution and the founder of Business Breakthrough Academy, where we teach you how to design a business and create a life: A life of financial freedom and peace of mind.

And welcome back to this episode of The Entrepreneur’s Solution show and in this episode I’m going to answer a question that came in online. It’s a question from a good friend of mine that is asking about Delegation.

• What to delegate?
• What shouldn’t I delegate?
• What is it that I need to consider?

So, I’m going to give you a framework of the things that you don’t ever want to delegate or that you want to make sure that you have control over. And we’re going to kind of divide some things. I’m going to give you a framework when we come back after this brief introduction.

And just like every other episode, this episode comes with a downloadable tool. This happens to be The Core Priorities worksheet and you can download it by going to MelAbraham.com/session043. And if you happen to not be at your computer: go ahead and just text me. Text me MYLEGACY one-word to 38470. We’ll make sure that I get you the download link.

And I’ll see you back here right after this brief introduction. Cheers. See you soon. Bye.

Hey there and welcome back. I’m Mel Abraham, the author of the #1 best-selling book, The Entrepreneur’s Solution and welcome back to this episode of The Entrepreneur’s Solution show. Looking forward to answering a question that came from a friend of mine which is a cool question to deal with. Made me kind of rethink some things as I’m preparing. I’m preparing for (in another week or so), I’m doing my, with my high level clients: Titan’s Thinktank and Thoughtpreneur Academy and we’ll talk a little bit about this. There it goes into much deeper.

So, let’s just talk about the question. So, a friend Ron Reardon asked this question. He says, “Mel, there is a long laundry list of to-do’s for an entrepreneur who is starting from scratch.”

The interesting thing is that whether you’re starting from scratch or not, that list is always long.

He says,

Which do you consider essential for the entrepreneur to consider doing personally versus being delegated, handed off to contractors either immediately or as quickly as possible, understanding that just because they are not done personally, the entrepreneur continues to monitor them? Thanks

What an incredible question and this is a question that comes up often: At what point do you delegate and what things do you delegate?

And I’ll tell you that, entrepreneurs in general—they’re creatives and problem solvers; they’re also control freaks. They’re absolute control freaks and letting go of control is a problem for them. It’s a challenge for many of them and yet,

• If we want to grow
• If we want to scale
• If we want to build something

> That’s meaningful, that doesn’t suck the life out of us; at some point we’re going to have to delegate certain things.

And I went through this myself. I had the same challenges myself. I still do. Question, “What do I delegate?” But I realize that my fallback position has to be lifestyle driven, growth driven because at some point there’s a concept called Choke Point and that choke point is in a sense a point of failure. It’s a point where it stems the flow of the business growth and at some point the entrepreneur can become the choke point in their business and they wonder

Why is the business not growing?
Why am I working more hours and more hours and more hours than I did before?
Why is my life feeling stressed and aggravated and anxiety ridden?
And I’m not seeing my family.
I’m not getting a chance to do the things that I used to do.
I don’t have my hobbies anymore.

Some of you might be relating to this and going, “Yeah, that’s me”. It’s because you’ve become a Choke Point. It’s because you believe that the only one who can do the work is you. And I hate to break it to you but you’re wrong. I was wrong. I was wrong. I thought that I was the only one that could do certain aspects of my business and I tried to tell you that the majority of it other than maybe content creation can be done by others.

Should it be done by others? Different story.

But some things should be done by others. Otherwise, you become the choke point and not only the choke point for your business—it chokes the life out of you in the process.

• You start losing relationships.
• You start losing friends.
• You start losing hobbies.
• You start losing free time.
• You start losing the enjoyment of being an entrepreneur and doing things your way.

So, what do we need to do?

• What are the things that we need to consider?
• What are the things that we’re going to delegate?
• And what are the things that I’m going to hold on to?

And I call these things, The CORES of Business. So, I’m going to make sure that I don’t let go of The CORES of my business. It’s another acronym. I know that I said that I don’t usually use acronyms. In this case, again it fits. So, here we go again.

So, the first thing is that: It is Critical to my business. It is critical to the operations of my business and what drives profits. So, for instance, in my case: My content creation is absolutely critical. I’m not going to delegate my content creation. I can’t delegate my content creation.

Can I delegate some of the massaging of the content?

Certainly.

I don’t do the transcription of these videos or any of my audios. I don’t do the editing of them. I’ll go back through it, but the bottom line is that it’s on my shoulders to create content. If I’m not there creating content, I’m not connecting with you. I’m not connecting with the audience. I’m not providing you value.

And if I’m not providing you value, you’ll find the value elsewhere and I feel that my purpose here is to support you. My purpose here is to give you the tools, the skills, the strategies so you can turn around and

• Build the entrepreneurial life that you want,
• To build the business that you want,
• To have the blessings that I feel like I’ve been blessed to have.

And I feel like … because I’ve been blessed with that it’s a responsibility to continue to do those critical functions.

I’ve also heard many people say, “Well, I don’t like sales. I don’t like marketing so I’m just going to delegate that.”

And I beg to differ. I think that when you start to, especially if it’s brand you. Right now it’s brand me. If you’re trying to sell yourself, the best person to sell yourself is you. And if you delegate that, if you outsource that they’re not going to be as effective. At least not initially. It may take a long time for them to ever get as effective as you.

And so, if we have some challenges with saying, “I don’t like selling. I don’t like marketing.” Those are separate issues that we need to deal with on another episode. So, to get that through and we’ll talk about convincing selling or conviction selling, and that whole process in a separate episode.

But what are critical to your operations? What are the critical elements that will drive your profit?

Here’s what I would ask you to do in this whole process in using this. What I do with this is I’ll take a piece of paper and I’ll fold it in half lengthwise. So, and then I’ll draw a line down the center. And on the left side, I write CORES. Those are the things that I can’t let go of. And on the right side I write non-CORES. Those are the things that I can look for possible outsourcing partners, joint-venture partners, delegation partners, team members that can take that off my shoulders.

Now, let me clarify. When I say delegate, when I say outsource that means that you’re actually delegating and outsourcing the task, the activity, the productivity of it. You’re not delegating the responsibility to monitor it. I always have to monitor my business. I always have to make sure that I keep the fingers on the pulse.

If I delegate and I did this back years ago in my personal life from an investment standpoint. I hired an investment advisor. I delegated, I outsourced; if you will. I gave them the responsibility for my portfolio. And it went horribly wrong, horribly wrong.

And it was not because they didn’t do their job; well maybe it was. But it was also because I didn’t monitor the pulse. I didn’t check the pulse on the patient and so now my wealth strategies that I work with—one of the things that we do—we will talk typically monthly. We meet quarterly. And we have that lengthy annual meeting. So, I’m constantly monitoring everything that is going on in the portfolio.

• I’m not making all the choices.
• I’m not doing all the management.
• I’m not doing all the tracking.

But I am not closing my eyes and using a park and pray strategy which a lot of people do, especially in investments. I’m going to talk about that in another session from an investment money standpoint but parking and praying is not a good strategy. Hope is not a good strategy. Have a system in place that’s going to drive things and that you’re monitoring things on an ongoing basis to make sure that things are going in a direction.

So, when we talk about delegation and outsourcing, we’re outsourcing an activity, a task, a productivity piece but we’re not necessarily relinquishing complete responsibility for it.

So, the next piece is Original. If the element that you’re dealing with is your differentiating point; that key characteristic that sets you apart in the marketplace—you need to keep in contact and control of it.

• It could be the image.
• It could be your culture.
• It could be the branding.

All of those things become critical because they’re your market differentiator. If you look at Tony Hsieh and Zappos, he is driving the culture at Zappos and he has not relinquished that completely. He’s got people that work with him as a part of the team and they all work together. But he is the driving force. He is the one that set the bar. Steve Jobs did the same thing. Gary Erikson at Clifbar has done the same thing.

It’s the differentiating point. If it’s your differentiation point in the marketplace, you got to keep your tabs on that at a great level. Otherwise, you start to find that’s when brands dissipate. That’s where brands shift.

You look at Compaq computer and what’s happened with that company. Look at HP and what’s happened with that company. And there’s a whole list of companies where they lost their differentiation because they did not care take it in a way that it should have been.

Next is, if it’s driving your Revenue and I kind of talked about this in the critical part of it. If it’s driving your revenues you need to stay on top of it because your revenues are the source of ultimately the cash flow and the cash flow, it’s the oxygen for the business.

If you’re not generating cash flow business can’t survive. You can’t survive. You can’t pay bills without cash flow. We’ve got to do that in every day and what it starts with is managing the top line, managing the revenues which means that we need to manage the client relationships, the client contact points and those elements as we move forward.

The next is it’s Expansive in what we do. There’s going to be strategies that you put in place that are strategies that keep the business going. Then there’s going to be strategic elements, strategic growth strategies that are going to allow to expand, that are going to allow you to grow the business and I believe especially in smaller organizations that you need to spearhead those strategies.

You need to take that, the reigns of those strategies and make sure that you’ve got the proper people in place for the implementation and execution of it but it’s the expansive piece of your business and then the last part of this that I think that we need to think about is that which is Strategic.

Most entrepreneurs are the strategic thinkers of the business. Most entrepreneurs are the visionaries of the business. Some entrepreneurs can be the visionary and the implementer. Many entrepreneurs can only be the visionary and not the implementer. And they get that wrong and they are unwilling to bring someone in to say, “I need you to go execute.”

Think about Richard Branson. Richard Branson isn’t the implementer. He is the grand visionary. He is the one that sees the vision, sees the opportunity and sees it with his eyes and then ceases it with his hands. And he brings in the team. He understands where his strengths lie; is to be that strategic person to say, “This fits and allows us to grow. This fits and now I need to bring the team in to help me execute. And now put a system in place, a feedback system that allows me to check the patient’s pulse on a regular basis.”

So, that’s the CORES:

• Critical,
• Original,
• Revenues,
• Expansive, and
• Strategic

If the function that you’re considering outsourcing, If the function that you’re considering delegating has some of these characteristics, has the more of these characteristics, the more important it is for you to hold on to. The more important it is and instrumental it is

• To your success,
• To your ability to grow,
• To your ability to create cash flow,
• To continue in business.

And therefore, I would not necessarily delegate it or I would not outsource it. And even if we do outsource things; remember it is delegation and outsourcing of tasks, action plans, productivity; it is not a relinquishing of the responsibility. If you’re at the top, if you’re at the top of the organization ultimately that responsibility will flow up to you.

You may have some people here in the mid to your management or upper management that are watching these things but create a reporting process that allows you to keep the fingers on the pulse. And if you’re in a small organization or a solopreneur and it’s just you, then it’s just you and you need to be careful about what you delegate. You need to make sure that you have something in place so you can measure it.

If it’s your financial structure of your business, and I get it, many entrepreneurs and creatives don’t really want to care about the accounting. Now, I’m an accountant so that’s near and dear to my heart but I also know whether I’m an accountant or not. I also know by managing the numbers, by watching the numbers; and you don’t need to watch a lot of numbers. Just watch what we call, what I teach in Business Breakthrough Academy your Prime Indicators: Those things that are the drivers in your business. Figure out your Prime Indicators and just watch those.

So, you are watching three or four numbers that will drive everything in your business. Make sure that you keep control of the CORES of your business.

• It will serve you to give you a piece of mind.
• It will serve you to give you growth in your business.
• It will serve you to allow you to know what you can not relinquish, delegate, outsource and do that without giving away the important elements in business that are going to drive you.

And I’m going to invite you to look at things that may be you want to delegate because they’re not enjoyable for you or that you don’t feel that you’re good at and therefore you’re going to delegate it like marketing or sales possibly. And I’m going to invite you not to do it if it’s critical, if it’s part of your distinction, if it’s going to drive your revenues.

And I’d invite you to build the skill set to be more effective in that process as you move forward. So, keep control of the CORES.

• Make sure that you’re managing them.
• Make sure that you’re monitoring them.

And those things that get managed, get monetized; they, that will allow us. So, let’s make sure that we do that.

I hope that this serves you. I hope you found this of value to you, that you use the CORES process to make sure that you figure out what is CORES, what is non-CORES. And as always, you can download the tool for this session at MelAbraham.com/session043. And if you’re not at your computer, go ahead and just send me a text MYLEGACY one word to 38470.

And would you do me a favor? Do me a favor and share this with a friend. Share it with a couple of friends. Let’s get this information out there. I’d love to be that entrepreneurial mentor for many people out there that are struggling and looking for a different way, a different paradigm than the old industrial age paradigm. How do they find and bring their dreams alive again using entrepreneurship? How do they reduce the risks of entrepreneurship and get themselves in the game using proven strategies, proven skills and tools that works?

So share this with a friend and if you haven’t done so already make sure you subscribe so we can make sure that we stay on this journey together.

And if you have a question for me, a challenge that you’re trying to deal with in your business and success or in wealth or anything like that, just go to AskMelNow.com. That’s AskMelNow.com. Leave me a message. I’ll make sure we get to it on one of the upcoming episodes.

And until we get a chance to see each other again,

May your vision be grand, your journey epic and your legacy significant!

See you soon. Stay in touch. I want to hear from you. Cheers. Bye!!

— End Transcript —
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Like this? Please share it and help a few more people bring their dreams out of the darkness and give life to them again. Cheers, Mel
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