S2 E87: The hidden cost of doing everything yourself

In this episode we do a deep dive on this question:

What does it cost to do everything yourself?

The bottom line is that as the leader of your organization, doing something you don't like or are not good at is the largest expense to your company, bar none. 

This is because there's 10 times more energy and time wasted trying to master a new skill, or procrastinating on the action due to lack of interest or time. 

Therefore, when you start to create a team, you're already getting a 10x return on your investment. The talent that you bring in is going to free you up for the tasks only you can do.

So how do you start? There are four simple steps for hiring that first person:

1) Define success:  We use a tool within our business we call Multiplier Max.  

• What is the desired result? 
• Why will this make a difference?  
• What are the consequences for NOT taking action?  
• What are the benefits OF taking action?  
• What does success look like?  (Observable) 

2) Value of the role:  What time will this free up for you and how will you grow the business with this newfound time? Put a dollar value on this per month. 

3) Develop a single page overview of the role. Using the work you’ve done to this point.  Add your company mission/vision/values (if known). Share this role with friends, team members, colleagues and ask for recommendations and referrals. 

4) Pay them for a small, time bound project. Give them a real world, tangible project to do that you would like help with. Compensate them fairly for that project. See how they interact with you and how they deliver on the project. The project should take 1-2 weeks, max.  

Hiring is a decision that every business goes through and I think it's better to take these steps early so you have the space and time to excel where you are needed most. 

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If you'd like to get started on your own for love of team journey, reach out via email, at winston@winsightz.com with the subject line Multiplier Max, and we'll be glad to send you out a sample of our fillable PDF.

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Transcript

Winston Faircloth: 0:00

There's a huge cost of not taking action. But more importantly, I think this is the real motivator for a lot of people. What are the benefits of taking action multipliers? It's Winston Faircloth and welcome back to for love of team. This is the podcast where as leaders simplify teamwork, helping you surround yourself with teammates doing the work, they love simplifying your business processes so that you can serve more doing the work you love. So this past week, I attended a business retreat here in Florida with some of my colleagues who are just starting out in their business. And one of the things that they bring up over and over again, is this chicken or egg expense of hiring a team. So thinking that hiring a team is expensive, is costing you business money, and understand why do you think this especially if you're starting out, or if you're a solopreneur, but your ROI isn't just the cost to hire. So what's the cost of doing something you hate? I guess we've talked about this before, but I want to bring it up again, doing something that you hate or something that you're not good at thinking you're good enough at it so that you should do it yourself is like changing the oil on your car. Now that I bet there's some folks out there that this is not a problem for but I am one of the least handy people you've ever met. In fact, one time I was putting the back on a bookcase and this particular back was very flimsy, and so use the power stapler to do it. And so I was using this power stapler and you guessed it, I put a staple through my thumb. So I'm not handy. So I'm using this metaphor, thinking you're good enough at all things in your business that you should do it yourself is like changing oil in your car. It's pretty simple task. And it's probably cheaper to do it yourself. But think about it, does it make sense for you to do this or to take it to a professional if you're like most people, and I bet you're like me, you probably agree that it's totally worth the investment. When it comes to your time, money and expertise. For me going to a professional, they have the tools, they have the supplies, they have the expertise, they can do it so much faster and better than I can do it. So when you think about it, what's more expensive than hiring somebody new well, bottom line for this is that you as the leader of the organization, doing something you don't like or good at, that's the largest expense in your company, bar none. But there are different ways that you can take away these activities off your plate to actually grow your business and generate money is just not costing you the time when you do something you don't like. Honestly, there's 10 times more energy and time before taking that action. So this is one of the costs spending time dreading that thing that you don't like we've talked about this one other time before how procrastination is one of those inner signals that you are running up against something that you're not good at or you don't like and that time that you're in that procrastination zone, that dread zone is a tremendous cost to your company, every minute that you dread this action is 10 minutes of not being effective in the areas where you do Excel, this is literally costing you income. So when you start to create a team, you're already getting a 10x return on your investment. First, you're freeing up the time from the activity itself, which is incredibly valuable. Second, and more importantly, you're also creating new confidence that you can take for the rest of your entrepreneurial life because you never have to, again, do this task or ever think about it. This means that you can pursue your ideas and areas of gifting that only you can do and enjoy as the leader as the captain of this organization. These are things that the CEO Captain are skilled at that no one else can do. So what are some simple steps to hire that first person? Well, I there's four simple steps that I'm going to share today. Number one is defining success. Now we use a tool here in our business that we call multiplier, Max, and really it comes down to five different sections. Number one, what's the desired result? As we think about this particular role, responsibility, what's the result that we're looking for in creating this role? But number two is why will creating this role make a difference? These two things, get those creative wheels going and the more that you spend time crafting this you're going to get greater and greater clarity, but here are a couple more questions that are going to take it to the next level. Number three, what's the consequences of not taking action on creating this role? We've covered some of those just above right what we talked about your dread time, your procrastination, the DIY thing of learning how to do things fumbling through it with the with not the right skill set or the right tools. There's a huge Cost of not taking action. But more importantly, I think this is the real motivator for a lot of people, what are the benefits of taking action, freeing you up giving you more energy, allow you to focus on the things that only you can do. And then five, this is this is a critical part because as you begin to think about and then begin to imagine this person, this gifted, independent collaborator that is going to come into your team define observable measures of what success looks like, it doesn't have to be super granular, but both you and the contributor would be able to both recognize that we have achieved success. And I like to do this, like in a 90 day framework over the first 30 6090 days, what does success look like for this role? So number two, that's defining success using the tool multiplier Max, item two, what's the value of this role? So going back to an earlier discussion, think about for a moment that the time that this is going to free up for you this role, this responsibility, you know, if you've taken off for love a team tracker, you know how much time this is going to take you in a given week, month or year, put $1 value on this? What is this keeping you from doing? What is this helping you avoid? If you continue to do this, you're avoiding certain things in your business more profitable, more enjoyable things, there's a price tag not only for the activity itself, as we've talked about, but also for the time leading up to it, whether it's learning about it with DIY videos, or courses, the time that it takes you to kind of get yourself psyched up to do it. And the dread time that you always procrastinate, those three things put together give you a value for the role. And if you're looking at your value, compare it to what an investment and a team member who has the tools, the gifting the experience, they're going to do it faster, cheaper, better, even if you had the same hourly rate, but you're going to probably have a different rate because you're the founder and leader and the team member that you're bringing on has a different value that they have. So defining success, that was step one value of the role of step two. Now this is where you're going to develop a one page overview of the role. This is your sales tool, in effect. So using the work you've done to this point, with the multiplier max and the value that you are assigning to this role, this is where you would bring that information over. But you also add your own company mission, vision and values. We're going to talk about this in upcoming podcasts. This is the secret sauce of attracting the talent that you want. So it's one thing to define the role. But it's another to define the environment and the purpose in that larger why that people are coming and working on your team versus other places that they can invest their talent. And as you add that to this one page sheet, you want to share this role as broadly as you can ask him friends, team members, colleagues, you're going to ask for recommendations and referrals. And then number four, this is a critical step that I think a lot of people just jump to and don't think about is when you enroll them for that first time you found your your found your wonderful collaborator, someone who fits the model fits the role that you're looking for, start them out with a time bound small project. Sometimes I do this actually in the interview process before I enrolled them, I give them a real world tangible project that I want help on and I pay them for that I compensate them fairly for their time, even before I hire them. And I want to see how they're interacting with me how they're interacting with the team, how they deliver on the project. And I like to tailor these kind of smaller projects to one to two weeks. And I think it's worth paying for the people who are at that final stage. Let's see how they respond. And let's compensate them fairly for their time. So here are the four steps again, in the order that I recommend. Number one is defining success using the multiplier max tool number two, assigning a value to the role. This is where we use the for love of team tracker to help you get a sense of how much time you're already spending on this. Number three, develop a single page overview of the role where you're going to feather in both the success criteria the value, and this is where that secret sauce of mission vision values is going to come into play. And then for once you've kind of narrowed the field give them a small time bound project where you're compensating them and testing them out. Now, the other thing I'll mention about that particular step is sometimes I do that during the interview process, other times because the task that I'm looking for the role or responsibility is so important that I do a three month trial because there's an onboarding and learning process, getting comfortable and familiar with how we do things. Then bringing their how their gifting and their special, how ways of doing things that improves how we do things that takes a little bit of time to to work. Through. And so oftentimes, especially in a very responsible role, we will do a 90 day 30 6090 day check in and see how it's working together because these are longer term, more valuable relationships. And I think that's a really good timeframe to kind of see if we're aligned and see how we're going to work together. So those are four steps. And here's the option you can be that cap, you can be the ceiling on your business growth. Or you can step into this Captain CEO role of your company and learn how to start hiring your first team members so that you can grow and thrive. This is a decision that every business goes through and one of the things I always share with my coaching clients and mentees is I think it's better to take this these steps uncomfortably early because the leverage that you get financially but more importantly that talent that you bring in is going to free you up for the things that only you can do. And so if you'd like to get started on your own love of team journey, reach out to me by text that's the fastest best way to get hold of me 1-754-800-9461 if you want the love of team tracker or if you want the multiplier max tool let me know in the in your text. And by the way since I don't know who you are, if your call texted me for the first time text me a little bit about your background Give me your name, I'd love to create and begin this dialogue with you and begin to help you down this process or if you prefer email us this special email that I've created when at when sites wi n si gh t z calm and use the subject line FL o t tracker that's for the time tracking or multiplier max either one of those subject lines and feel free to fill me in on your journey I would love to connect with you. So when it when sites calm or text 1-754-800-9461 and finally remember friends leaders simplify teamwork multiplying your impact income margin and freedom and business be blessed friends. I'll catch you on the next episode.