Without employees, all you basically own is a job. While that statement may hurt some people’s feelings, you can’t truly call yourself a business owner if you are the business. And this is the main difference between those that are self-employed and those that own businesses. Those that own businesses hire people, delegate, and strive towards creating a self-sufficient, cash-flowing entity.
This is a timely conversation for 2025 because the labor market is very strong right now due to an influx of cheap foreign labor from failed federal immigration policies. Not only has this created a surplus of new labor, but it has also pushed many existing people into unemployment. While this has caused economic devastation around the country, this has also given employers plenty of options when it comes to hiring and delegating.
I love to hire part-time employees because you don’t have to spend a ton of money on payroll, and you can create a lot of redundancies just by having several people ready on standby. The biggest fear about hiring is the cost. Hiring part time addresses this concern because you are not tied into a big salary, and if you clearly communicate with all your prospective employees what this opportunity is and is not, they will match their expectations to what is available.
I have had a lot of success hiring part-time employees that only want to work one day a month, some two times a week, and some one time a week. Many of these people have other jobs or have life situations where part-time work is all they want or can handle. Furthermore, because my operations team has set up the business with separations of duties and technology that dummy proofs all the processes, training is quick, and pretty much anyone can do the core function of the business.
Delegation Increases the Value of your Business for a Sale
One day, all business owners will contemplate selling their businesses. And those that have not hired will come to the sad realization that their business is not worth anything close to what they thought it was worth because of their reluctance to hire and delegate. A business that is self-sufficiently creating a profit of $30,000 a year with no effort on the part of the owner is more valuable than a business that creates $90,000 a year in profit, which is just the owner’s salary for doing every task. In the first scenario, a prospective buyer is analyzing their cash-on-cash return on an asset. And in the second scenario, although a prospective company buyer will factor in the value of the book of business, they would subtract the value of time required to make it a self-sufficient, cash-flowing asset. So, because all entrepreneurs will eventually end up here, it makes sense to hire and delegate now to maximize the value of the asset you will one day have to sell.
Delegation Increases the Value of your Time
Rich business owners tend to have most of their focus on high-value activities, which are mostly concentrated on selling, marketing, and acquiring new assets. However, if one chooses not to hire, then they must invest their time into the operation of their business, and by the time selling, marketing, and acquiring tasks must be done, the time they are investing is what is left over after their best footing has been given to operations. If marketing, selling, and acquiring produces the most profit, then that should be prioritized before anything else. Nobody has an unlimited supply of time and energy. This is the main reason why delegating increases the value of your time.
Delegation Increases your Ability to Scale
Until you find the right people and delegate, your business will not scale. If you are doing everything yourself, it will grow, then fall, then grow, then fall, repeat ad nauseam. Without delegation, your earning ability is directly tied to your personal effort in fulfilling your deliverable. And as stated earlier, there are very real limits to how much energy and time you can spend in and on your business every day. More delegation increases your capacity to sell more products and services. So, if you have a goal to scale and grow a company, part of the critical infrastructure required to do that is people.
Delegation Increases your Happiness outside of Work
Entrepreneurs that do not hire will often experience problems outside of work in areas such as deteriorating personal relationships, health issues, and sometimes even substance abuse. There is an old saying from South Africa that goes, “When financial problems enter in the front door, love goes out the back door.” And I’m sure there are several people reading this who can certainly relate.
It is a myth that the most successful entrepreneurs spend all their time at the office and work seven days a week. It is entirely possible to work a regular work week, or even less than a regular work week, make lots of money, travel, and achieve balance in other important areas of life.
Self-employed people that complain about long, unrewarding hours, are usually stuck in the mentality that “no one else can do it” and that “if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” And usually, these kinds of limiting beliefs are what make them insufferable to work with, and that’s what ultimately restricts their ability to hire and keep people for the long term. These are the same people that get upset at their significant other when they are no longer present at home, and their only defenses are “no one else can do it,” and, “I am the only one that can do it right.” The reality being expressed in those statements is that the person is a poor manager, has trust issues, and would rather play the victim card than try to find a solution.
If you have personal obligations that require you to be fully present, you need to embrace the idea of hiring, delegating, and trusting others. Most people do not enjoy spending their time with a person that, even if they showed up to a social event, are constantly on their device, checking text messages, emails, and taking phone calls. Don’t be that guy. Instead, hire and be present with everyone during downtime. Your staff can handle it.
Kevin Tam is a Sculpture Hospitality franchisee with more than a decade of experience working directly with bar, restaurant, and nightclub owners on all points of the spectrum. From family-owned single bar operations to large companies with locations on an international scale, Kevin works with them all and understands the unique challenges each kind of company faces. He’s also the author of a book titled Night Club Marketing Systems – How to Get Customers for Your Bar, a regular writer/contributor for Bar & Restaurant.
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