The Real Reason You're Still Doing Everything Yourself

The better you are at running your business, your way, the harder it is for you to see that your way is literally a prison cell that you have built for yourself.

I recently had a conversation with an e-commerce store owner who was feeling stuck and didn't know how to grow the business to the next level.

Let's call her Colleen.

Now, I asked Colleen to walk me through where her time was going each week.

It's one of the easiest places I can start to see, okay, where are we focusing our time? Because where focus goes, the money flows.

She started with a very nervous laugh and she said, I should have seven more employees.

Now, here's the thing.

I know Colleen's business.

I know what her turnover is.

I know how many orders she's getting each week and she does not need seven more employees.

I mean, seven full-time employees is generally, you're going to have to be at mid seven figures to hit that number.

And so I brushed that nervous laugh away and I said to her, give it to me straight.

Where are you actually spending most of your time? And she said that she was spending a good chunk of her day around five hours just on picking, packing and dispatch.

Now, here's where I need to be honest with you about what I thought when she said that.

I have had this conversation before many times and I know what the pick and pack problem generally is.

It's that the back of the store is a mess.

Whether we're talking a warehouse or a storeroom, stuff is everywhere.

Nothing is labeled.

No one knows where anything is.

The owner can usually find something or there's one person in the business who can generally find everything because they put it there and they've been living in that space for years.

But any new person would walk in and have no idea.

That was my assumption going in.

But I was wrong.

Turns out Colleen has everything labelled, coordinated and is extremely organised.

So at this point, score one Colleen, Sal, zero.