From barely making ends meet to tripling my income through delegation
When I started my fitness business, I was in a state of "the chase." As in, chasing every opportunity I could just to make ends meet. This led me straight into a problem that many fitness entrepreneurs face when starting up a business - burn out.
It's easy to get into that hustler mentality, where you take on all these side gigs due to this so-called blanket of security they provide. And I'm not knocking side gigs, but I know how ineffective they can be when there are so many that you can't focus on growing your main business.
You know, long hours, doing all the work and not really moving forward because each day seems to be a never-ending to-do list that spills over into the next day - aka burn out. And, what's even worse, is it can become burn out without the extra income.
After I learned about the burn out life myself, I quickly realized that in order for my business to truly thrive, there was no way that I could do everything on my own. And the idea of delegating was scary to me because on one end I thought:
1. If I go the barter system or unpaid internship route, are they going to value this experience enough that I can trust they'll do there best work, or
2. If I pay someone to do the work, am I going to be able to keep up with paying them.
I had to learn to stop thinking of the what if's and realize that nothing was going to get done if I didn't at least try. From podcasts and books to webinars, conferences and even my mentors, I learned that all the smart business owners I was learning from delegated wherever they could to free up extra time to build more business, handle the parts of the business they actually liked and simply live their lives more freely.
Delegating can be scary at first, but if you pick the right people it can be one of the best thing you ever do for your business.
First ask yourself the questions:
What am I good at?
What do I dread doing? or What do I struggle with?
Continue to sharpen the what you're good at, and delegate the rest. Find someone who can take on the task(s) you don't want to do or that you're not good at. If it's something you can teach, you don't have to necessarily choose someone who comes to the table outlandishly good at the task, they just need to be teachable. Plus experts are more expensive. Now if it's a crucial part of your business don't cut corners (you may not want to put an college freshman intern over your accounting). No offense to freshman interns, but I'm just saying... might be taking a risk there.
Here are some examples of some places you may be able to delegate:
Booking and scheduling
Web and graphic design for marketing materials
Sales
Phone call and email follow up
Social media and brand development
Welcoming/greeting staff
There are plenty of people looking for business who can help you with any of these things.
You can ask department administrators at your local colleges if they have internship programs you can apply to be a part of through the school
Search related hashtags on instagram and slide in the DMs
Barter with people you know (even clients) who are already doing the things you need help with
Reach out to me (shameless plug) if you need help with branding
Ask someone you trust, who is in a position you want to be in, to be your mentor
Visit sites like Fiverr, Craigslist, Upwork and People Per Hour that connect you with freelancers all over the world to get the job done.
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