Let it Go!

No seriously, let it go!  Your business is in imminent peril. You absolutely, without a doubt, have to relinquish hold on your business or you will see it die a suffocating death.

Stop and think about this for a minute.

Let’s say you run Harry’s Hardware. As Harry, you open the doors every morning at 8 am to greet your early customers.  You’ve come in at 6 am to spiffy up the store, stock a few shelves, return emails and make a pot of coffee.  The morning time before the hustle and bustle is the best because you have the place to yourself. Before you know it, the doors are open and you are helping customers.  Scotty, your handy helper arrives at 9 am to start his shift.  He’s been with you awhile and is getting very knowledgeable about the products.

Scotty let’s you know that Mr. Johnson wants a special order of brass hardware for his new kitchen, so you set yourself at the computer to get the order taken care of.  This leaves Scotty to handle the remaining customers.  While ringing up a sale for Mrs. Jenkins one of her products is displaying the incorrect price.  Scotty comes to you so you can override the price in the machine and proceed with the sale.  The next customer wants to check on a previous order that is suppose to be arriving the following day.  Scotty comes to you for you to search the order.

Around mid morning you have finished the special order and you’re back helping customers. Scotty lets you know you have a phone call from the bank and you step into your office to take the call. Within the first few minutes of your call, Scotty taps you on the shoulder to let you know the register has frozen and he needs access to the computer to look up prices and take sales manually.  You assure him when you are finished you will be right out.   Of course the bank call takes longer than expected and when you get out to the counter the customers have left.

Your afternoon needs to be spent placing orders for new inventory and checking with sales reps. But instead you unfreeze the register, help Mr. Sutherland locate his order from the back room, walk Farmer Joe through the setup of his electric fence and compile the promo email that needs to go out in the morning.

Scotty has done an excellent job of greeting customers and lining them up for you to help. Now that the store hours are winding to a close Scotty heads home.  You finally have time to sit down and work on inventory orders.  The sales reps have gone home for the day and you still need to sweep the floors to prepare for tomorrow.  You pick up and call your wife to let her know you won’t be home for supper… again.

*sigh*

You’re exhausted.  

You are beginning to dread the days and realize you will need to spend more hours working if you are ever going to get things done.

Your inability to relinquish control of tasks is strangling your business, pushing away customers and leaving your help to feel inadequate. Scotty could easily place a special order and search for past orders if he was shown how. He could give Mrs. Jenkins the correct price if he had permission to do the override. He could have also located Mr. Sutherlands special order and given Farmer Joe instructions on his electric fence. All of these things are within his capabilities with only a small amount of training and access.  You’re still there if he has questions.

But as it is he lines up the customers to get help from you because he doesn’t have authority to finish the sale. Customers who don’t like to wait or are on a tight schedule leave unsatisfied. Word spreads and sales drop off.  You cannot grow a business if you are the only one in charge of everything.  If you hold the reins and refuse to take “manual” out of the process, your business will die.

Trust me when I say, you are not the only one who can do each task.  Train your help; put systems and processes in place so they have somewhere to go to get answers if you’re not available.  Empower them to be the best they can and give them more responsibility.  Then before you know it you will not only be home on time for supper, you will be taking afternoons off to spend with your family.  Your business will thrive as much with you gone as when you’re there.  You owe yourself that much.