Switching from Managing Tasks to Managing People

Those of you who took the plunge to entrepreneurship well know the perks:

being able to pick when and where you work;

• having freedom to be  present at any event you want without asking the boss, because you are the boss;
• possessing the freedom and flexibility to live your  priorities and values;
• having the power to determine you own income based on how much you do or do not want to work.
• being able to pick when and where you work;

Living the business owner dream fuels my motivation to overcome the challenges of making it work.  

I have left the employee mindset where my schedule, expectations, and stress level were at the mercy of others, whether those individuals  were healthy or not. I love the peace of calling my own shots and having near complete control over my environment. There was a part of me that wanted to keep things in my own biz small and simple.

Once I got all the moving parts working in my Christian Biz Owners on Fire business, the market responded.  

I realized:

• I had created unique products and services for my Christian entrepreneur clients that weren’t being offered anywhere.  
• My message of helping people create a business where God, their life, and their relationships being in the center with their business working around it rather the other way around, which is how most people live,  “caught fire”.
• My sales process became quite easy (when I had the time to devote to it).  
• My skill set fits perfectly knowing how to deliver the results my clients were looking for.  
• I created a signature system that was proving to duplicate positive results with a variety of clients in different industries and with different life situations.  

Yet, I could see the potential train wreck ahead. Once I actually started marketing  and engaging sales activities above my current hit and miss approach, I would quickly be over capacity. I was feeling overloaded without the extra clients juggling the 17 Hats* TM of being an entrepreneur as it was.

As my life as a solopreneur begin to reach its expiration date, I couldn’t imagine being more busy.  I emerged from my denial that there were enough hours in the day to get key tasks done. This reality propelled me past my fears to making my next big hire: a personal manager.

Along the way my master manifesting skills allowed me to contract people to help me with areas in my business I wasn’t handling well. People who were  managing my guests on the radio show, getting speaking gigs for me, and navigating my technology challenges, one-by-one came into my world.

I recognized there would be a productivity drag due to the recruiting, interviewing, hiring and training process, something I dreaded and avoided with my procrastination. But three months in with an additional part-time employee, several new contract people, and two members who had been with me for a while, I felt more overwhelmed than I did when I was trying to do it all myself.

How did that happen?

I had magnetized all of these talented people looking to me for guidance and direction.  I knew investing in their training and development was important. I committed myself to the time to work with them.

Quickly, I felt I was spending a large part of my time in meetings, creating systems, and developing my team. In the interim, many of my former tasks were slipping through the cracks. I took a hiatus from some of my regular marketing and sales activities, of course, to find the revenue dipped right with that.

I found myself constantly juggling conflicting priorities; apologizing to multiple people for late work output; and feeling a bit frazzled by the end of the day.

So what was going wrong?

Actually, nothing.

I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

Once I accepted what was happening as the price of taking that next leap in my personal and professional development, my self-criticism declined. And I started to see solutions where I was before focusing on problems.

Then I made the important switch: I embraced managing people, not tasks.

Anytime I was doing a task that was outside of my zone of genius, I asked myself, “who else on my team could do this task?”.  I logically saw that taking 20 extra minutes to document how I wanted the task done and delegating it to a team member would save me hours of frustration and time down the road.

I challenged any guilt I was feeling about not getting about not crossing as many checks off my to-do list.  I started to evaluate my behavior and performance in terms of how much was operating like a CEO and a coach to my team rather than  minimum wage help.

Owning my new role of a developer a people, not a doer of things, exponentially adds to my peace and freedom each day.  

It felt good on me. It helps make my clients shine.  And it was starting to look good on the members of my team.

I could see the people God drew to me, who had believed in me enough to stick around through the lean times, were flourishing and feeling energized by where we are headed.   The empowerment and coaching that is part of this new role comes as naturally to me as drinking water.

We had our  our first “Christian Biz Owners on Fire” Annual Zoom Kick-off”  meeting several weeks ago. I looked at the Brady-Bunch Zoom tiles of the seven official members and was overcome with appreciation in God for bringing us together.  

God never intended me to build this alone.

Now I could not see the additional value we would be able to offer our clients and a community of Christian business owners I could see them craving for. But more importantly, I could see me loving my new life and new role as helping each member of my team prosper and love their life and the vision we are creating together.

Christian Entrepreneurs Biz and Life Tip:  Understand a few months in the hot seat with growing pains towards a business or personal leap will yield ten-fold in peace, freedom, and joy in the landscape of your life.