April 16, 2025 • 29 mins
Are you working harder than ever but feeling stuck at the same income level?
The number one problem holding back most entrepreneurs is the inability to delegate effectively.
In this episode, you will meet James, a web designer who collapsed from exhaustion after working 80-hour weeks. Why? Because "nobody could do it as well as he could."
One year later, his team handles 90% of client work while he works just 30 hours weekly—and profits are up 40%.
Discover the Time-Money Matrix framework that will transform how you think about delegation:
-
How to identify which tasks you must keep and which you should delegate first
-
Why the "it's faster to do it myself" mindset is actually costing you thousands
-
The surprising reason many "delegation disasters" happen (and how to prevent them)
-
Why delegating high-value tasks is BETTER for your business than doing them yourself
We also address common objections from control-freak entrepreneurs. Have you ever thought, "My clients only want to work with me" or "I've tried delegating before, and it was a disaster"? We have, too! Learn how we got over it.
Key Quote: "Your highest value as a business owner isn't in doing every task. It's your strategic vision, relationship building, and ability to see opportunities others miss. These are the true areas where you're irreplaceable."
Welcome solopreneurs considering your first hire. Bienvenidos, established business owner struggling to step away from day-to-day operations. This episode provides a practical roadmap for breaking free from being the bottleneck in your own business.
Get our complete "Delegation Starter Kit" in the Wealth Wisdom Financial Community today: wealthwisdomfp.com/community
00:00 Are You the Bottleneck in Your Business?
00:05 Meet James: A Case Study in Delegation
01:19 Welcome to Wealth Wisdom Financial Podcast
01:57 The Delegation Dilemma
04:15 Introducing the Time Money Matrix
05:39 Delegation Quadrants Explained
09:07 The Control Freak Zone
10:32 Financial Planning: What Not to Delegate
13:01 Real-Life Delegation Success Stories
19:37 The Life Time Money Matrix
24:37 Final Thoughts on Delegation and Financial Freedom
Watch On YouTube Here: https://youtu.be/8YAVMKaWcy0
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Are you the bottleneck in your own
business?Let me introduce you to
James. He's a web designer who worked
80 hours a week because quote.
Nobody could do it as well as I can.
Could we rename that person Amanda?We
probably could. Yeah. I made this episode
for myself, y'all. Let's say
James Amanda. Yeah. Last year, not
(00:23):
Amanda, James, collapsed from exhaustion
at his desk. Today, his team
handles 90% of client work while he works
just 30 hours per week and profits are
up 40%. In this episode, we're gonna
reveal the delegation framework that
transformed his business and can
transform yours too. If you've been with
us through this series of Work-Life
(00:46):
Reset, this is the best episode. Thanks
for being here. If you're just joining
us, thanks for being here too. Um Even if
you can convince no one can do things as
well as you can, today's your
episode. It's my episode too, let's do
this.
In a world where chaos seems to reign
(01:06):
supreme, where uncertainty lurks around
every corner and financial markets are
now more unpredictable than ever. There's
one place you can turn to to find clarity
and control. Welcome to the Wealth Wisdom
Financial Podcast. Hey, I'm Brandon.
And I'm Amanda. Join us as we dive deep
in the world of personal and business
(01:28):
finance to assist you in navigating
through the chaos and building the
financial future you deserve. We believe
when conventional financial thinking
doesn't get you where you want to go, you
need wealth wisdom. So if you're ready to
take control of your financial destiny.
Tune into the Wealth Wisdom Financial
Podcast because in a chaotic world,
(01:50):
your money shouldn't be. Subscribe
now and never miss an episode.
Almost every entrepreneur struggles with
delegation at some point. I
know she has. UmYou have
too. Yeah. YeahWe tell ourselves it's
faster to do it myself than explain it to
someone else. I have said that many times
(02:12):
or even with your own kids, you know, I
mean, seriously, cleaning your room. Um,
nobody cares about the quality as much as
I do or my personal
favorites. I don't have time to train
someone else. I think Amanda has said
that. Multiple times. Yeah. So let's
back up here for a second. If you're just
joining us, we're in this series called
(02:33):
Work Life Reset. We're exploring how
businesses can be created that serve
business owners and your lives rather
than consuming it. And we've been
tackling some of the biggest obstacles to
entrepreneurial freedom. And today we're
talking about the one that is a big
whammy for a lot of them, an inability to
(02:54):
delegate. And if you're like most
entrepreneurs, business owners, you
started or you bought your current
company because you're good at something.
Maybe it's designing websites like James
from the intro. Maybe it's coaching
clients, creating products, providing
specialized services. Maybe it's the back
end of the business you're really good
at. But the skills that make you
excellent at your craft are
(03:15):
entirely different from the skills needed
to run a business that can function
without you being involved in every
decision. So, and in order for you not to
be involved in every decision, we gotta
delegate. So that's what we're gonna talk
about today. So we all have thoughts that
create a dangerous trap. You
become the bottleneck in your own
business, working longer hours while your
(03:37):
growth remains capped by
your personal capacity, right?Not
anybody else. This isn't just bad for
business. It's devastating for your
health, your relationships, and the very
reason you became an entrepreneur.
freedom. So you don't have freedom
anymore because you're the own
bottleneck. You're your own nightmare.
(03:57):
Yeah. And you might have come to this
episode because you've heard this a
million times. Delegate. You need to
delegate more. Delegate, delegate,
delegate. But for many entrepreneurs,
especially those with perfectionist
tendencies, I'm pointing to myself right
now, delegation seems
impossible. That's why today we're
introducinga big epiphany I had,
(04:19):
this framework that we're calling the
time money matrix. And it's actually two
different matrices, okay?Matrices?
Matrices, two different ones. Yeah.
Matrixes, you don't- Matrixes. It's
matrices. That's the tech, that's the
word. Isn't that like a lady of the
house or something?No, that's a matron.
Oh, okay. OkaySo we, and
(04:41):
for those who think you know what this is
already, it's not. Okay. A lot of people
have seen like the time urgent versus
important andYou're supposed to delegate
all the things that are urgent but not
important, you know and blah, blah, blah.
This is not that, okay?Instead,
picture the same two axes, an x-axis
and a y-axis, and the y-axis, the
(05:02):
vertical one, represents money.
Okay. Specifically, what different
activities in your business are worth per
hour, okay?So you're thinking about the
things that you do. what the things that
produce the most money, okay?Then you've
got the horizontal axis, the x-axis, that
represents time. How many hours
(05:23):
do those activities require?So
something that requires a lot of time but
makes a lot of money is in
one quadrant, something that takes no
time and doesn't make any money, e-mail,
goes in the opposite
thing there, okay?So we end up with four
quadrants. The first one
(05:44):
that seems almost like a no-brainer that
most people delegate right away is the
lower right-hand corner
where we have things that take a
lot of time, but don't produce a lot of
money. These are the admin
tasks, right?These are the things, you
know, like all this paperwork, all these
(06:04):
things, bookkeeping, whatever it might
be, admin, you're gonna delegate that,
easy, done. Okay, hopefully, easy, done.
Admin are really strong at that. Great.
Love those guys. The top
left corner, the opposite of that,
is the part that doesn't,
relatively speaking, doesn't take a lot
(06:24):
of time, but has a lot of value
for your business. These are things that
are probably within your unique ability.
You do them way better than anybody else,
and you love to do them. You could do
them for the rest of your life 'cause
they're so life-giving to you.
And it doesn't matter like how much time
they take it, but you probably do them
faster than most people. So that's why it
(06:44):
doesn't take a lot of your time. There's
also leadership tasks, strategic
thinking, annual planning, profitability
strategies, leadership also falls there.
So your unique ability and leadership. So
those are the opposite of each other. And
if you're watching this on YouTube
or or listening to this episode, you
might wanna go back to the YouTube
version 'cause we're gonna have that on a
(07:05):
screen. So you don't have to just
visualize with Amanda's hands. Yeah, or
in your brain. But you could just draw
this on a piece of paper. But don't do
that if you're driving right now on the
podcast version. OK, so those are the two
quadrants that are kind of most people
think easy, done, good. It's the
other ones that are where people
(07:26):
don't delegate and or it's really
difficult to delegate. First, we're going
to talk about the bottom left,
which is the low value, low time
activities, the one that I said e-mail
cough cough earlier. I like to
call these things termites.
They don't look like they cost very much,
right?They're 2 minutes. You know, you
(07:46):
can reply to an e-mail. It would actually
take longer to tell somebody else how to
reply to that e-mail than for you to
reply to the e-mail, those kind of
things. And they just eat away at our
time and they don't actually make any
money. And we think like, why would I
delegate this?It's weight like way
too simple. Let's not
move. Let's not do that. But that's
actually one of the best things to
(08:07):
eventually figure out how to delegate
checking emails, scheduling appointments,
handling small customer service issues.
Don't hold on to it just because it's
quicker to do it yourself. These are
small tasks. They are constantly
interrupting you and prevent the deep
work and strategic thinking that's in the
the the quadrant above that, your unique
(08:28):
ability and your leadership tasks. So if
you think about a house, if you have one
termite, it's not going to make that big
of a difference. But there's never one
termite. But there's never one termite.
There's usually multiple. If you found
one, then there's a bunch more somewhere
else. and that's when there's a there's a
problem. And so making
sure that we get rid of or eliminate
(08:48):
the termites. That means making sure like
some of it, say the the e-mail task,
maybe there's a way to automate certain
things to eliminate those
termites. Yeah. Automation is a great
thing to put with the delegation or just
elimination. That's a great one. Okay.
Then we havethe top
(09:08):
right quadrant, the one you've been
dreading me talking about. It's the one
that is high value, high time
activities, things that bring in a lot of
money but take a lot of time. I
have nicknamed this quadrant the
Control Freak Zone. This
is where us control freaks,
(09:29):
I I said us, I'm one of them. This is the
hardest things to delegate. High
value, time intensive activities. Things
like serving premium clients,
creating intellectual property,
developing new product lines.
This control freak entrepreneur
typically refuses to delegate these
(09:50):
because they're just too important. I've
heard that. before. But this is
exactly where you need to invest in
systems, training, capable team
members who can handle portions of these
processes, freeing you to focus on the
truly irreplaceable aspects of your
role, your unique ability and your
leadership, right?These
(10:13):
are the quadrants. If you are looking for
delegation, do the admin delegation,
do the termite delegation automation
elimination if possible,But this
control freak zone is where you could
really see some exponential growth that
you've never seen before by delegating
those things. Now, there's one
(10:33):
critical element of your business that
should never appear in your
delegation quadrant, and that's the
financial planning and
profitability monitoring portion.
I think about that all the time in that
people are like, oh, I'll just get a, get
somebody to do it for me. And you,
(10:54):
as the business owner, needs to make
sure that you understand, uh, the
financial planning and profitability
monitoring portion so you can be
the mover of that. Yeah. These are part
of your leadership, right?As the business
owner, you must keep a finger on the
financial pulse of your company. This
(11:15):
does not mean you handle every
bookkeeping task. I did not say that. You
still might have a bookkeeper that helps
keep those in line, but you must
regularly review your numbers,
understanding your profit margins, and
make the final decisions on major
financial moves. Delegate the
(11:36):
process, not the
responsibility. Let me say that again.
Delegate the process,but the
responsibility is on you as the
business owner. Yeah, this is part of the
leadership quadrant. Never delegate
financial planning and profitability
monitoring. Delegate the process to give
you the data you need for those things,
(11:57):
but not the responsibility. Now,
after the break, we're gonna come back
and share the next level of
this time money matrix, along with
three real businesses in our community
and how this framework transforms them.
(12:20):
Ready to take the next step towards
securing your financial future?Whether
you're planning for retirement, saving
for your dream home, or you just want to
make your money work harder for you, the
team at Wealth Wisdom Financial are ready
to assist you. And now it's easier than
ever to see how we might give you a boost
on your financial journey. Schedule a
15-minute discovery call with one of us
(12:41):
today. And let's discuss your questions
and your financial goals together. Don't
wait any longer. Your financial freedom
awaits. Schedule your discovery call at
www.wealthwisdomfp.com/call.
(13:01):
Now I know what some of you guys are
thinking, and I've heard this again
plenty of times. My situation
is different. I can't
delegate because dot, dot, dot.
Right?My situation is different. You
already were saying that in your head.
Just be honest. Raise your hands. UmNo
one's gonna see you. No one's gonna see
(13:22):
you. UhThe other thing. I can't delegate
because. The other thing is my clients
hire me specifically. They won't accept
working with my team. I've said that one
before. Yeah, I've said that one before
too. Um, so apparently that's us control
freaks. Um, yeah, so we've said it.
We're not just saying it to you and, and
(13:45):
passing judgment. We, we've been there.
Yeah. So this fear, let's talk about this
one. My clients hired me, you know, I
can't delegate because my clients hire me
specifically. It was a common fear,
but it's rarely actually real. So I
learned this from Tara, a marketing
consultant. Tara had this
exact concern. She introduced a
(14:06):
tiered service model where premium
clients still had access to her for
strategy sessions while her
team handled the implementation.
To her surprise, 80% of her clients
chose the team implemented option once
they understood the process. Here's her
keywords. This is language I am
borrowing, stealing, using all the time.
(14:29):
I'm instead of I'm passing you off to
right, which sounds oh like they don't
want to talk to me anymore. They're
passing me off. The The replacement
is you'll be working with our
implementation specialists who focus
exclusively on execution.
Boom. They're working with a team all of
a sudden, not just Tara. They're working
with specialists who focus on execution,
(14:51):
not Tara, the brains behind it that come
up with all the ideas, but have a hard
time with follow through. They get to
work with the people that are designed to
custom tailor their experience going
forward. Amazing. I think
those words really help us
also to give it up, to free it up, and
to allow others, as they're growing part
of our team, they're able to take on
(15:13):
and grow in their roles. Yeah.
Okay. So the next one is, I can't
delegate because I've tried delegating
before and it was a disaster.
Brandon, why don't you take this one?
Yeah. Um, I think about this one, uh, uh,
a lot in our previous business.
Usually when we dig deeper, we usually
(15:34):
discover the issue wasn't
delegation itself, but how it was
attempted. Most delegation failures
stem from one of three problems:
delegating too much, too
quickly, and not providing enough
training, or failing to create systems
before delegation.
(15:55):
Right. So then we have Carlos. He's a
software developer. He tried handing off
client communications to an assistant
with minimal guidance. It backfired
badly. The second time he created
templates for common responses, recorded
screen videos explaining his
communication philosophy, and scheduled
(16:16):
regular check-ins for the first three
months. This systematic approach
framework. had better and bigger
results. Yeah, for sure. Now we get to
the third one. I can't delegate
because I can't afford to
hire help yet. Right?How many
times have we wanted help?We wanted to
delegate, but we feel like we can't
(16:37):
afford it. We don't have the money for
it. Love that you're being budget
conscious, but let's let's talk about
this. It's a chicken and egg problem, and
it stops a lot of businesses from
growing. The solution is
starting small. Lisa, a graphic
designer, began by hiring a virtual
assistant for just five hours a month to
handle her most dreaded tasks, the things
(16:58):
that, you know, were definitely not in
her unique ability. And that five hours
per month, that was time that she
reclaimed and allowed her to take on a
couple new clients, right?Which
actually more than covered the cost of
those five hours. And gradually she was
able to increase that VA's hours and as
her client roster grew and it became a
really good snowball in the right
(17:19):
direction. Amazing. So if you feel like
you can't afford to hire help yet, start
as small as you need, even one hour a
week with, you know, having one of your
kids do something that you hate. That can
be really cool. And we have a few
resources if you if you want, watch our
video, right?VA
does that. Yeah, that's true. He helps do
(17:40):
that for us. Even if you listen to the
podcast, all we do is record and he
handles the rest. Yeah. YeahThanks,
Rosby. And then we also,
if you want, you could go in our show
notes and we'll have a link to their
group or others. But having a right
VA, the the problem is when you
haven't thought about that stuff for the
VA and you've given them good guidelines.
(18:01):
then that, that's where you're like, hey,
they didn't do what I wanted to do
because you didn't know what you wanted
to do. Yeah. Go back to what you were
talking about a second ago. Yeah. YeahYeah
So most control freak entrepreneurs
fear delegating with low quality
standards. In reality, the opposite often
happens. Again, look at our videos. Uh,
definitely better than when. If we were
doing it ourselves. Yeah. Uh, when you,
(18:23):
you're stretched too thin, quality
inevitably suffers. Ecialized
team members focused on specific asects
of your business can often achieve better
results than one person trying to do
everything. OK, you ready
for my big reveal?This is the other
matrix. Oh, yeah. I thought I
(18:45):
was like, wait, that's not. Yeah, this
one came. The one we already looked at
came second. This is the one that came
first. OK. This journey from control
freak to effective delegator and able to
focus just on your unique abilities and
your leadership is not just about
business efficiency. It's about
reclaiming your life. What
we talked about today was all about work,
(19:06):
work, work, work, work, work, delegate,
delegate, delegate. But there's also the
rest of your life, right?When you start
to implement this business, you know,
work time money matrix, you're not just
getting improved business metrics, you're
also getting better sleep, more family
time, rediscovering hobbies that you
abandoned for years. And for some
business owners, this is when they get to
(19:27):
start thinking about their personal
finance too, because they're making more,
they're working less. They're like, OK,
now I can start saving for retirement,
figuring all these things out. What do I
do?And this is where you turn your time
and attention to the life time money
matrix, OK?So this one
also very similarly has the vertical line
of money and the horizontal line of
(19:50):
time. And we're going
to start this time with the no
time, no money quadrant. Who in the
world, in what life stage do we have in
no time and no money?No
time and no money.
We're busy, busy, busy bees, but we have
$0 in our bank account. Oh,
(20:11):
maybe a student. Yeah,
students, kids, college, right?
That's That's where we kind of start. And
now let's go to, we have
no money, but we have
lots of time. What
life stage might somebody be in if they
have no money, but lots of time?
(20:33):
Oh, maybe that's sometimes
a younger student or unemployed.
I think an unemployed person who
they had plenty of time, but they are
looking for a job. Right. And I I know
people that they said the time when they
were in the best shape of their lives is
when they're unemployed because they just
got to work out every day. Yeah, right.
(20:53):
Yeah. And then we go to the top
left quadrant. Sorry, right quadrant.
Where you have no time, but
relatively speaking, lots of money.
You're running around here and there
doing all kinds of things, having to, you
know, get DoorDash because you don't have
time to prepare dinner and you've got the
money to buy the DoorDash. So you're not
(21:14):
so too concerned about it. The rest of
the world, I don't know. I think about
sometimes business owners I think about.
doctors or other people like just people
working. Yeah. Professionals, moms and
dads, like this, you know, that kind of
thing. And now we get to the
final quadrant, the top
(21:34):
left, which is where we all wanna go,
where we have lots of time and lots of
money. We are able to do what we want,
when we want, how we wanna do it, with
whom we wanna do it, all those things.
What do we call that time in life?Oh man,
everybody wants that when we do our
financial analysis. And what they, what
we ask is, what does financial freedom
look like to you?And that's usually what
(21:55):
they're describing is, I wanna do what I
want, what I want, and have all the money
to do it. Yeah, so financial freedom,
that's what we could call that. Now,
here's the thing before we move on.
If you never delegate, if you don't
figure out how to free up your
time, you stay in the professional box.
Until you're forced to retire and you
(22:17):
often end up back in the unemployed box,
right?Because you haven't figured out how
to increase the time available
and you haven't figured out how to make,
you know, save money, have money
available for when you do have that time
freedom. So if you're in that
professional box and you look
toward, if you want to like put a dot
there and pretend like you're moving to
(22:39):
financial freedom, what's the thing that
changes?It's not the money that changes,
although, yeah, let's try to get you more
money, right?Let's have that be at an
angle, not just flat across. But the
thing that's changing the most is what?
Time. Time, right?You're freeing up your
time. This is why we delegate, right?
The most powerful insight comes when we
(23:01):
realize delegation isn't about finding
people who work exactly like you do. It's
not about finding people to excel at
things that you don't. It's about
creating a stronger business. And it's
about freeing up your work to do more
life, to have financial freedom.
And And the thing that most people that
keeps them from doing this is
(23:21):
our identities. We identify by all
the things we're doing. If we have
nothing to do, if we're getting to,
I've delegated all the things that took a
lot of time and brought in a lot of
money, you know whatever that is in your
business, you feel like, what do I do
next?Right. That's the thing that I built
this business on. All the things I sold,
all the products I made, all the services
(23:42):
I rendered. If I delegate all those
things to do my unique ability and my
leadership, who am I anymore?That's when
you're a business owner, right?That's
when you get to lean into strategic
vision, relationship building, the
ability to see opportunities that others
miss. These are the true areas where you
become irreplaceable. I think
(24:02):
that's also, as we go through some of
this and seeing like the professional,
sometimes we go back down to the student
level, uh, cuz we're like, oh, but I want
financial freedom, so I'm gonna go back
to school. And then we never get out of
that because we eventually become the
professional. And oftentimes
weMost people don't actually have
(24:24):
financial freedom. And again, having more
time and more money to do what we want,
when we want. Yeah, and don't miss that,
that the difference between the
professional and the financial freedom
often isn't money, it's time.
And a final reminder, while you
should delegate many things, and I'm
gonna say this again, never delegate
(24:45):
understanding your business finances and
your profitability. I know I said that
before,But it mean needs to be said. And
again, don't delegate
understanding your business finances
and your profitability because that's
what brings that financial freedom, right?
So you need to have clarity on of your
(25:06):
numbers to make sound strategic
decisions. And this doesn't mean doing
all the bookkeeping yourself. Again, I
said that before. It doesn't mean regular
reviewing financial reports and
maintaining ultimate responsibility.
or financial decisions. It does mean, I
didn't, but it does mean
(25:26):
regularly reviewing financial reports and
maintaining ultimate responsibility
for your financial decisions. Okay, so
how do you get into successful delegation?
Don't overcomplicate it. It's a really
simple process. You look at that business
time money matrix, the work one.
And you look for, okay, what's the admin
(25:48):
stuff that I'm still doing that I need to
get rid of?What are the termites that are
interrupting me throughout the day and
keeping me from deeper work?I'm not a
termite, am I?Sometimes. And
then what are the places where you're
being a control freak and you're in that
control freak zone and you could start to
move toward hiring people that have
skills that could take over some of those
(26:09):
things. You got to document your
processes before delegating, hire for
skills rather than trying to just clone
yourself. But sometimes clone yourself,
that's good too. Provide proper training,
establish clear communication channels,
and you got this. Don't overcomplicate
it, just get started. And the
the business owners who end up mastering
(26:30):
delegation, they build businesses that
can operate without their constant
involvement. That creates both wealth and
freedom, gets them into thatfinancial
freedom on the the life side of the
matrix, which is exactly what most of us
were seeking when we started this journey
after all. I mean, again, we do financial
analysis all the time, and this is what
they always are saying. I want more
(26:52):
time and more money. Yep. So if you're
ready to break free from being the
bottleneck in your business, today in the
Wealth Wisdom Financial Community, we've
published our Delegation Starter
Kit. Of course you have to have a, I
don't know, you probably didn't create
it, someone else did, right?No, I did.
You should just delegate it
(27:15):
with three practical tools, a
billable time money matrix worksheet
to identify your highest
leverage delegation opportunities,
our process documentation template that
makes capturing your knowledge
Painless and a delegation decision
(27:35):
tree to help you determine what to
delegate first. Head to
wealthwisdomfp.com/community,
become a member, and write in the
comments that you want that. And we will
make sure you get it, but you can get
that resource at
wealthwisdomfp.com/community.
When you are a premium member, it's right
(27:56):
there for you. And I will just add that
creating things like this delegation
starter kit, that's my unique ability. I
love making practical tools for people
and helping them take something that
seems so hard and difficult to do, like
stop being the bottleneck in your
business. And giving them tangible things
to move forward easily, quickly and
make their business what they always
(28:17):
dreamed it could be. Yeah, I would say it
is your definitely your superpower. Yeah.
So join the community. Get that. I'll
keep making them for you if you keep
reading them. For now, thanks for joining
us. Hit that subscribe button. Next week
we're gonna be exploring 5
fundamentals of better work
life integration for business owners.
(28:37):
A lot of the work life balance things,
which we hate that word balance. Are
out there are for employees. This is
something custom tailored to you. That's
going to take what we've been talking
about so far. The in this series is the
wrap up of it to bring it all together.
So we look forward to seeing you there.
Live long and profit. The topics
presented in this podcast are for general
(28:59):
information only and not for the purpose
of providing legal, accounting or
investment advice. On such matters,
please consult a professional who knows
your specific situation.
Are you the bottleneck in your own
business?Let me introduce you to
James. He's a web designer who worked
80 hours a week because quote.
Nobody could do it as well as I can.
Could we rename that person Amanda?We
probably could. Yeah. I made this episode
for myself, y'all. Let's say
James Amanda. Yeah. Last year, not
(00:23):
Amanda, James, collapsed from exhaustion
at his desk. Today, his team
handles 90% of client work while he works
just 30 hours per week and profits are
up 40%. In this episode, we're gonna
reveal the delegation framework that
transformed his business and can
transform yours too. If you've been with
us through this series of Work-Life
(00:46):
Reset, this is the best episode. Thanks
for being here. If you're just joining
us, thanks for being here too. Um Even if
you can convince no one can do things as
well as you can, today's your
episode. It's my episode too, let's do
this.
In a world where chaos seems to reign
(01:06):
supreme, where uncertainty lurks around
every corner and financial markets are
now more unpredictable than ever. There's
one place you can turn to to find clarity
and control. Welcome to the Wealth Wisdom
Financial Podcast. Hey, I'm Brandon.
And I'm Amanda. Join us as we dive deep
in the world of personal and business
(01:28):
finance to assist you in navigating
through the chaos and building the
financial future you deserve. We believe
when conventional financial thinking
doesn't get you where you want to go, you
need wealth wisdom. So if you're ready to
take control of your financial destiny.
Tune into the Wealth Wisdom Financial
Podcast because in a chaotic world,
(01:50):
your money shouldn't be. Subscribe
now and never miss an episode.
Almost every entrepreneur struggles with
delegation at some point. I
know she has. UmYou have
too. Yeah. YeahWe tell ourselves it's
faster to do it myself than explain it to
someone else. I have said that many times
(02:12):
or even with your own kids, you know, I
mean, seriously, cleaning your room. Um,
nobody cares about the quality as much as
I do or my personal
favorites. I don't have time to train
someone else. I think Amanda has said
that. Multiple times. Yeah. So let's
back up here for a second. If you're just
joining us, we're in this series called
(02:33):
Work Life Reset. We're exploring how
businesses can be created that serve
business owners and your lives rather
than consuming it. And we've been
tackling some of the biggest obstacles to
entrepreneurial freedom. And today we're
talking about the one that is a big
whammy for a lot of them, an inability to
(02:54):
delegate. And if you're like most
entrepreneurs, business owners, you
started or you bought your current
company because you're good at something.
Maybe it's designing websites like James
from the intro. Maybe it's coaching
clients, creating products, providing
specialized services. Maybe it's the back
end of the business you're really good
at. But the skills that make you
excellent at your craft are
(03:15):
entirely different from the skills needed
to run a business that can function
without you being involved in every
decision. So, and in order for you not to
be involved in every decision, we gotta
delegate. So that's what we're gonna talk
about today. So we all have thoughts that
create a dangerous trap. You
become the bottleneck in your own
business, working longer hours while your
(03:37):
growth remains capped by
your personal capacity, right?Not
anybody else. This isn't just bad for
business. It's devastating for your
health, your relationships, and the very
reason you became an entrepreneur.
freedom. So you don't have freedom
anymore because you're the own
bottleneck. You're your own nightmare.
(03:57):
Yeah. And you might have come to this
episode because you've heard this a
million times. Delegate. You need to
delegate more. Delegate, delegate,
delegate. But for many entrepreneurs,
especially those with perfectionist
tendencies, I'm pointing to myself right
now, delegation seems
impossible. That's why today we're
introducinga big epiphany I had,
(04:19):
this framework that we're calling the
time money matrix. And it's actually two
different matrices, okay?Matrices?
Matrices, two different ones. Yeah.
Matrixes, you don't- Matrixes. It's
matrices. That's the tech, that's the
word. Isn't that like a lady of the
house or something?No, that's a matron.
Oh, okay. OkaySo we, and
(04:41):
for those who think you know what this is
already, it's not. Okay. A lot of people
have seen like the time urgent versus
important andYou're supposed to delegate
all the things that are urgent but not
important, you know and blah, blah, blah.
This is not that, okay?Instead,
picture the same two axes, an x-axis
and a y-axis, and the y-axis, the
(05:02):
vertical one, represents money.
Okay. Specifically, what different
activities in your business are worth per
hour, okay?So you're thinking about the
things that you do. what the things that
produce the most money, okay?Then you've
got the horizontal axis, the x-axis, that
represents time. How many hours
(05:23):
do those activities require?So
something that requires a lot of time but
makes a lot of money is in
one quadrant, something that takes no
time and doesn't make any money, e-mail,
goes in the opposite
thing there, okay?So we end up with four
quadrants. The first one
(05:44):
that seems almost like a no-brainer that
most people delegate right away is the
lower right-hand corner
where we have things that take a
lot of time, but don't produce a lot of
money. These are the admin
tasks, right?These are the things, you
know, like all this paperwork, all these
(06:04):
things, bookkeeping, whatever it might
be, admin, you're gonna delegate that,
easy, done. Okay, hopefully, easy, done.
Admin are really strong at that. Great.
Love those guys. The top
left corner, the opposite of that,
is the part that doesn't,
relatively speaking, doesn't take a lot
(06:24):
of time, but has a lot of value
for your business. These are things that
are probably within your unique ability.
You do them way better than anybody else,
and you love to do them. You could do
them for the rest of your life 'cause
they're so life-giving to you.
And it doesn't matter like how much time
they take it, but you probably do them
faster than most people. So that's why it
(06:44):
doesn't take a lot of your time. There's
also leadership tasks, strategic
thinking, annual planning, profitability
strategies, leadership also falls there.
So your unique ability and leadership. So
those are the opposite of each other. And
if you're watching this on YouTube
or or listening to this episode, you
might wanna go back to the YouTube
version 'cause we're gonna have that on a
(07:05):
screen. So you don't have to just
visualize with Amanda's hands. Yeah, or
in your brain. But you could just draw
this on a piece of paper. But don't do
that if you're driving right now on the
podcast version. OK, so those are the two
quadrants that are kind of most people
think easy, done, good. It's the
other ones that are where people
(07:26):
don't delegate and or it's really
difficult to delegate. First, we're going
to talk about the bottom left,
which is the low value, low time
activities, the one that I said e-mail
cough cough earlier. I like to
call these things termites.
They don't look like they cost very much,
right?They're 2 minutes. You know, you
(07:46):
can reply to an e-mail. It would actually
take longer to tell somebody else how to
reply to that e-mail than for you to
reply to the e-mail, those kind of
things. And they just eat away at our
time and they don't actually make any
money. And we think like, why would I
delegate this?It's weight like way
too simple. Let's not
move. Let's not do that. But that's
actually one of the best things to
(08:07):
eventually figure out how to delegate
checking emails, scheduling appointments,
handling small customer service issues.
Don't hold on to it just because it's
quicker to do it yourself. These are
small tasks. They are constantly
interrupting you and prevent the deep
work and strategic thinking that's in the
the the quadrant above that, your unique
(08:28):
ability and your leadership tasks. So if
you think about a house, if you have one
termite, it's not going to make that big
of a difference. But there's never one
termite. But there's never one termite.
There's usually multiple. If you found
one, then there's a bunch more somewhere
else. and that's when there's a there's a
problem. And so making
sure that we get rid of or eliminate
(08:48):
the termites. That means making sure like
some of it, say the the e-mail task,
maybe there's a way to automate certain
things to eliminate those
termites. Yeah. Automation is a great
thing to put with the delegation or just
elimination. That's a great one. Okay.
Then we havethe top
(09:08):
right quadrant, the one you've been
dreading me talking about. It's the one
that is high value, high time
activities, things that bring in a lot of
money but take a lot of time. I
have nicknamed this quadrant the
Control Freak Zone. This
is where us control freaks,
(09:29):
I I said us, I'm one of them. This is the
hardest things to delegate. High
value, time intensive activities. Things
like serving premium clients,
creating intellectual property,
developing new product lines.
This control freak entrepreneur
typically refuses to delegate these
(09:50):
because they're just too important. I've
heard that. before. But this is
exactly where you need to invest in
systems, training, capable team
members who can handle portions of these
processes, freeing you to focus on the
truly irreplaceable aspects of your
role, your unique ability and your
leadership, right?These
(10:13):
are the quadrants. If you are looking for
delegation, do the admin delegation,
do the termite delegation automation
elimination if possible,But this
control freak zone is where you could
really see some exponential growth that
you've never seen before by delegating
those things. Now, there's one
(10:33):
critical element of your business that
should never appear in your
delegation quadrant, and that's the
financial planning and
profitability monitoring portion.
I think about that all the time in that
people are like, oh, I'll just get a, get
somebody to do it for me. And you,
(10:54):
as the business owner, needs to make
sure that you understand, uh, the
financial planning and profitability
monitoring portion so you can be
the mover of that. Yeah. These are part
of your leadership, right?As the business
owner, you must keep a finger on the
financial pulse of your company. This
(11:15):
does not mean you handle every
bookkeeping task. I did not say that. You
still might have a bookkeeper that helps
keep those in line, but you must
regularly review your numbers,
understanding your profit margins, and
make the final decisions on major
financial moves. Delegate the
(11:36):
process, not the
responsibility. Let me say that again.
Delegate the process,but the
responsibility is on you as the
business owner. Yeah, this is part of the
leadership quadrant. Never delegate
financial planning and profitability
monitoring. Delegate the process to give
you the data you need for those things,
(11:57):
but not the responsibility. Now,
after the break, we're gonna come back
and share the next level of
this time money matrix, along with
three real businesses in our community
and how this framework transforms them.
(12:20):
Ready to take the next step towards
securing your financial future?Whether
you're planning for retirement, saving
for your dream home, or you just want to
make your money work harder for you, the
team at Wealth Wisdom Financial are ready
to assist you. And now it's easier than
ever to see how we might give you a boost
on your financial journey. Schedule a
15-minute discovery call with one of us
(12:41):
today. And let's discuss your questions
and your financial goals together. Don't
wait any longer. Your financial freedom
awaits. Schedule your discovery call at
www.wealthwisdomfp.com/call.
(13:01):
Now I know what some of you guys are
thinking, and I've heard this again
plenty of times. My situation
is different. I can't
delegate because dot, dot, dot.
Right?My situation is different. You
already were saying that in your head.
Just be honest. Raise your hands. UmNo
one's gonna see you. No one's gonna see
(13:22):
you. UhThe other thing. I can't delegate
because. The other thing is my clients
hire me specifically. They won't accept
working with my team. I've said that one
before. Yeah, I've said that one before
too. Um, so apparently that's us control
freaks. Um, yeah, so we've said it.
We're not just saying it to you and, and
(13:45):
passing judgment. We, we've been there.
Yeah. So this fear, let's talk about this
one. My clients hired me, you know, I
can't delegate because my clients hire me
specifically. It was a common fear,
but it's rarely actually real. So I
learned this from Tara, a marketing
consultant. Tara had this
exact concern. She introduced a
(14:06):
tiered service model where premium
clients still had access to her for
strategy sessions while her
team handled the implementation.
To her surprise, 80% of her clients
chose the team implemented option once
they understood the process. Here's her
keywords. This is language I am
borrowing, stealing, using all the time.
(14:29):
I'm instead of I'm passing you off to
right, which sounds oh like they don't
want to talk to me anymore. They're
passing me off. The The replacement
is you'll be working with our
implementation specialists who focus
exclusively on execution.
Boom. They're working with a team all of
a sudden, not just Tara. They're working
with specialists who focus on execution,
(14:51):
not Tara, the brains behind it that come
up with all the ideas, but have a hard
time with follow through. They get to
work with the people that are designed to
custom tailor their experience going
forward. Amazing. I think
those words really help us
also to give it up, to free it up, and
to allow others, as they're growing part
of our team, they're able to take on
(15:13):
and grow in their roles. Yeah.
Okay. So the next one is, I can't
delegate because I've tried delegating
before and it was a disaster.
Brandon, why don't you take this one?
Yeah. Um, I think about this one, uh, uh,
a lot in our previous business.
Usually when we dig deeper, we usually
(15:34):
discover the issue wasn't
delegation itself, but how it was
attempted. Most delegation failures
stem from one of three problems:
delegating too much, too
quickly, and not providing enough
training, or failing to create systems
before delegation.
(15:55):
Right. So then we have Carlos. He's a
software developer. He tried handing off
client communications to an assistant
with minimal guidance. It backfired
badly. The second time he created
templates for common responses, recorded
screen videos explaining his
communication philosophy, and scheduled
(16:16):
regular check-ins for the first three
months. This systematic approach
framework. had better and bigger
results. Yeah, for sure. Now we get to
the third one. I can't delegate
because I can't afford to
hire help yet. Right?How many
times have we wanted help?We wanted to
delegate, but we feel like we can't
(16:37):
afford it. We don't have the money for
it. Love that you're being budget
conscious, but let's let's talk about
this. It's a chicken and egg problem, and
it stops a lot of businesses from
growing. The solution is
starting small. Lisa, a graphic
designer, began by hiring a virtual
assistant for just five hours a month to
handle her most dreaded tasks, the things
(16:58):
that, you know, were definitely not in
her unique ability. And that five hours
per month, that was time that she
reclaimed and allowed her to take on a
couple new clients, right?Which
actually more than covered the cost of
those five hours. And gradually she was
able to increase that VA's hours and as
her client roster grew and it became a
really good snowball in the right
(17:19):
direction. Amazing. So if you feel like
you can't afford to hire help yet, start
as small as you need, even one hour a
week with, you know, having one of your
kids do something that you hate. That can
be really cool. And we have a few
resources if you if you want, watch our
video, right?VA
does that. Yeah, that's true. He helps do
(17:40):
that for us. Even if you listen to the
podcast, all we do is record and he
handles the rest. Yeah. YeahThanks,
Rosby. And then we also,
if you want, you could go in our show
notes and we'll have a link to their
group or others. But having a right
VA, the the problem is when you
haven't thought about that stuff for the
VA and you've given them good guidelines.
(18:01):
then that, that's where you're like, hey,
they didn't do what I wanted to do
because you didn't know what you wanted
to do. Yeah. Go back to what you were
talking about a second ago. Yeah. YeahYeah
So most control freak entrepreneurs
fear delegating with low quality
standards. In reality, the opposite often
happens. Again, look at our videos. Uh,
definitely better than when. If we were
doing it ourselves. Yeah. Uh, when you,
(18:23):
you're stretched too thin, quality
inevitably suffers. Ecialized
team members focused on specific asects
of your business can often achieve better
results than one person trying to do
everything. OK, you ready
for my big reveal?This is the other
matrix. Oh, yeah. I thought I
(18:45):
was like, wait, that's not. Yeah, this
one came. The one we already looked at
came second. This is the one that came
first. OK. This journey from control
freak to effective delegator and able to
focus just on your unique abilities and
your leadership is not just about
business efficiency. It's about
reclaiming your life. What
we talked about today was all about work,
(19:06):
work, work, work, work, work, delegate,
delegate, delegate. But there's also the
rest of your life, right?When you start
to implement this business, you know,
work time money matrix, you're not just
getting improved business metrics, you're
also getting better sleep, more family
time, rediscovering hobbies that you
abandoned for years. And for some
business owners, this is when they get to
(19:27):
start thinking about their personal
finance too, because they're making more,
they're working less. They're like, OK,
now I can start saving for retirement,
figuring all these things out. What do I
do?And this is where you turn your time
and attention to the life time money
matrix, OK?So this one
also very similarly has the vertical line
of money and the horizontal line of
(19:50):
time. And we're going
to start this time with the no
time, no money quadrant. Who in the
world, in what life stage do we have in
no time and no money?No
time and no money.
We're busy, busy, busy bees, but we have
$0 in our bank account. Oh,
(20:11):
maybe a student. Yeah,
students, kids, college, right?
That's That's where we kind of start. And
now let's go to, we have
no money, but we have
lots of time. What
life stage might somebody be in if they
have no money, but lots of time?
(20:33):
Oh, maybe that's sometimes
a younger student or unemployed.
I think an unemployed person who
they had plenty of time, but they are
looking for a job. Right. And I I know
people that they said the time when they
were in the best shape of their lives is
when they're unemployed because they just
got to work out every day. Yeah, right.
(20:53):
Yeah. And then we go to the top
left quadrant. Sorry, right quadrant.
Where you have no time, but
relatively speaking, lots of money.
You're running around here and there
doing all kinds of things, having to, you
know, get DoorDash because you don't have
time to prepare dinner and you've got the
money to buy the DoorDash. So you're not
(21:14):
so too concerned about it. The rest of
the world, I don't know. I think about
sometimes business owners I think about.
doctors or other people like just people
working. Yeah. Professionals, moms and
dads, like this, you know, that kind of
thing. And now we get to the
final quadrant, the top
(21:34):
left, which is where we all wanna go,
where we have lots of time and lots of
money. We are able to do what we want,
when we want, how we wanna do it, with
whom we wanna do it, all those things.
What do we call that time in life?Oh man,
everybody wants that when we do our
financial analysis. And what they, what
we ask is, what does financial freedom
look like to you?And that's usually what
(21:55):
they're describing is, I wanna do what I
want, what I want, and have all the money
to do it. Yeah, so financial freedom,
that's what we could call that. Now,
here's the thing before we move on.
If you never delegate, if you don't
figure out how to free up your
time, you stay in the professional box.
Until you're forced to retire and you
(22:17):
often end up back in the unemployed box,
right?Because you haven't figured out how
to increase the time available
and you haven't figured out how to make,
you know, save money, have money
available for when you do have that time
freedom. So if you're in that
professional box and you look
toward, if you want to like put a dot
there and pretend like you're moving to
(22:39):
financial freedom, what's the thing that
changes?It's not the money that changes,
although, yeah, let's try to get you more
money, right?Let's have that be at an
angle, not just flat across. But the
thing that's changing the most is what?
Time. Time, right?You're freeing up your
time. This is why we delegate, right?
The most powerful insight comes when we
(23:01):
realize delegation isn't about finding
people who work exactly like you do. It's
not about finding people to excel at
things that you don't. It's about
creating a stronger business. And it's
about freeing up your work to do more
life, to have financial freedom.
And And the thing that most people that
keeps them from doing this is
(23:21):
our identities. We identify by all
the things we're doing. If we have
nothing to do, if we're getting to,
I've delegated all the things that took a
lot of time and brought in a lot of
money, you know whatever that is in your
business, you feel like, what do I do
next?Right. That's the thing that I built
this business on. All the things I sold,
all the products I made, all the services
(23:42):
I rendered. If I delegate all those
things to do my unique ability and my
leadership, who am I anymore?That's when
you're a business owner, right?That's
when you get to lean into strategic
vision, relationship building, the
ability to see opportunities that others
miss. These are the true areas where you
become irreplaceable. I think
(24:02):
that's also, as we go through some of
this and seeing like the professional,
sometimes we go back down to the student
level, uh, cuz we're like, oh, but I want
financial freedom, so I'm gonna go back
to school. And then we never get out of
that because we eventually become the
professional. And oftentimes
weMost people don't actually have
(24:24):
financial freedom. And again, having more
time and more money to do what we want,
when we want. Yeah, and don't miss that,
that the difference between the
professional and the financial freedom
often isn't money, it's time.
And a final reminder, while you
should delegate many things, and I'm
gonna say this again, never delegate
(24:45):
understanding your business finances and
your profitability. I know I said that
before,But it mean needs to be said. And
again, don't delegate
understanding your business finances
and your profitability because that's
what brings that financial freedom, right?
So you need to have clarity on of your
(25:06):
numbers to make sound strategic
decisions. And this doesn't mean doing
all the bookkeeping yourself. Again, I
said that before. It doesn't mean regular
reviewing financial reports and
maintaining ultimate responsibility.
or financial decisions. It does mean, I
didn't, but it does mean
(25:26):
regularly reviewing financial reports and
maintaining ultimate responsibility
for your financial decisions. Okay, so
how do you get into successful delegation?
Don't overcomplicate it. It's a really
simple process. You look at that business
time money matrix, the work one.
And you look for, okay, what's the admin
(25:48):
stuff that I'm still doing that I need to
get rid of?What are the termites that are
interrupting me throughout the day and
keeping me from deeper work?I'm not a
termite, am I?Sometimes. And
then what are the places where you're
being a control freak and you're in that
control freak zone and you could start to
move toward hiring people that have
skills that could take over some of those
(26:09):
things. You got to document your
processes before delegating, hire for
skills rather than trying to just clone
yourself. But sometimes clone yourself,
that's good too. Provide proper training,
establish clear communication channels,
and you got this. Don't overcomplicate
it, just get started. And the
the business owners who end up mastering
(26:30):
delegation, they build businesses that
can operate without their constant
involvement. That creates both wealth and
freedom, gets them into thatfinancial
freedom on the the life side of the
matrix, which is exactly what most of us
were seeking when we started this journey
after all. I mean, again, we do financial
analysis all the time, and this is what
they always are saying. I want more
(26:52):
time and more money. Yep. So if you're
ready to break free from being the
bottleneck in your business, today in the
Wealth Wisdom Financial Community, we've
published our Delegation Starter
Kit. Of course you have to have a, I
don't know, you probably didn't create
it, someone else did, right?No, I did.
You should just delegate it
(27:15):
with three practical tools, a
billable time money matrix worksheet
to identify your highest
leverage delegation opportunities,
our process documentation template that
makes capturing your knowledge
Painless and a delegation decision
(27:35):
tree to help you determine what to
delegate first. Head to
wealthwisdomfp.com/community,
become a member, and write in the
comments that you want that. And we will
make sure you get it, but you can get
that resource at
wealthwisdomfp.com/community.
When you are a premium member, it's right
(27:56):
there for you. And I will just add that
creating things like this delegation
starter kit, that's my unique ability. I
love making practical tools for people
and helping them take something that
seems so hard and difficult to do, like
stop being the bottleneck in your
business. And giving them tangible things
to move forward easily, quickly and
make their business what they always
(28:17):
dreamed it could be. Yeah, I would say it
is your definitely your superpower. Yeah.
So join the community. Get that. I'll
keep making them for you if you keep
reading them. For now, thanks for joining
us. Hit that subscribe button. Next week
we're gonna be exploring 5
fundamentals of better work
life integration for business owners.
(28:37):
A lot of the work life balance things,
which we hate that word balance. Are
out there are for employees. This is
something custom tailored to you. That's
going to take what we've been talking
about so far. The in this series is the
wrap up of it to bring it all together.
So we look forward to seeing you there.
Live long and profit. The topics
presented in this podcast are for general
(28:59):
information only and not for the purpose
of providing legal, accounting or
investment advice. On such matters,
please consult a professional who knows
your specific situation.
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