If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.

When your business was young, and you just had a small team, you needed to “move fast and break things.” Your ability to get things done, your energy, and hard work was what enabled your success. 

But your business has grown out of the start-up phase. And your team has grown with it, both in size and in capabilities. Throwing the project on your own shoulders and dragging it across the finish line isn’t working as well.

It’s not (only) up to you

We’ve been talking about the big goals you set for 2020, and how you are going to have to do things differently this year in order to get different results. One of the changes that will have the biggest impact on your results in 2020 is if you can stop being responsible to deliver services to clients. 

In order for you to grow, your team needs to be the primary channel for service delivery. You might have to pinch-hit when someone is sick, or on vacation, but in 2020 we need to make it no longer your job to “do the thing” that your clients are buying. 

What it’s costing you

When you are “doing the thing,” you never get time to focus. There’s always client work crowding out the time you need in order to get the transformation done that you have set out to accomplish with those big goals.  

When you are doing the thing, you get a feeling of accomplishment from doing what you are good at. It feels great to really deliver for a client. It’s much more clear that you can get that endorphin rush from client work than it is from the work you need to put into building your business. It’s clear how you’ll feel when you finish the client work, it’s not so clear how it will feel if you put that time into your key initiatives. 

Your focus is split. 

What it will free you to do

When you let go of the client work, when you build a team that can take the client work off your plate and deliver excellent results to the clients, then you are left in an uncomfortable place. You are forced to work on your business, to engage in the projects that have been in your goals these last few years (and haven’t gotten accomplished). 

But the increased focus will make it possible for you to see progress, and it’s clear who will get yelled at if it doesn’t get done.

What’s holding you back from letting go of the client work in your business? What is it costing you?