You know, it drives me crazy? Internet influencers who think they know everything about business. And one of the things that they talk about that drives me absolutely nuts is this mentality of hustle and grind.
And I never really understood what it was that irked me so much about that approach, but I finally figured it out. The mentality of hustling and grinding and having to do it all slows down or limits the growth of your business.
GROWING PAINS
If you always have a hustle-and-grind mentality, you're going to limit your growth in your success. So let me give you a little bit different approach to this.
We tend to see companies go through four different stages of growth. Some never make it past stage one. The ones who make it into the fourth stage are the true entrepreneurs, the real change-makers in society.
And that hustle and growth mentality is great. At the first stage of your business. You may be a solo entrepreneur or you may have one or two employees, and you just work, work, work, work, work. And this can be a good way to start the foundation of your business.
But there's only so much that you can work, and that's going to keep you at the first stage of growth.
STAGE TWO
The second stage that we tend to see in growing businesses is when the owner of the business, the founder of the business, the entrepreneur hires helpers. So these are people where the entrepreneur is still the genius, is still the leader, is still probably the hardest working person in the business, and he or she hires people to help him or her with certain tasks.
You may hire an assistant, you may hire a receptionist, or you may hire someone to do a little bit of marketing for you. These tend not to be people who are super great at their jobs. They tend not to be as good as the entrepreneur, but they can take some things off the entrepreneur's plate and make that person's life a little bit easier.
But again, as you can imagine, if you only hire helpers there's a certain stage that you're going to reach and you're going to hit a ceiling and you're going to get stuck. So what can you do about that? How do you get into the third stage of growth?
STAGE THREE
If you want to break through that second stage and you want to get into the third stage of growth and get a little bit of freedom in your business. You need to start hiring replacements, not just helpers, people who can do your job and probably do it better than you can do it.
This sounds easy, but it's scary because entrepreneurs take a lot of pride in the work that they do and it's scary to admit that someone may be able to do it better than them. And probably more common is it's expensive to do that.
Hiring a helper is going to come at a certain cost, but hiring a replacement, hiring someone to do your job better than you can be very expensive. And when I say your job, pick any role in your business. It could be sales, it could be marketing, or it could be creating the widgets that you create.
But hiring a replacement, hiring someone to do the job in place of you can be very expensive but it's what's going to get you to that next level. So here's where it gets tricky, because that third stage of growth where you've hired replacements and you've hired people to do the job so that you don't have to do it, that can get very comfortable for people.
You're making a little bit of money. You've got a little bit of freedom and flexibility. But there's another stage of growth beyond that. And while the prior stages may be personally fulfilling or professionally fulfilling, because you're doing core work or because you're making a little bit of money, getting into that last stage can be, I think the most personally and professionally and financially fulfilling piece.
And what is it that gets people into that fourth stage of growth? What is it that gets them true freedom and true flexibility from their business and true impact?
STAGE FOUR
Instead of hiring replacements, you need to start developing leaders. So in a business where you're hiring replacements, you as the owner need to be a leader for your team. But to get to that next level, you need to start developing the people on your team into leaders.
This is a completely different level, this is a completely different outlook, and it's a completely different skill set. But it's the thing that's going to get you to that final stage of growth where you're having a real impact on your team, on your family, on your customers.
CONCLUSION
If you're going through these stages of growth and you're working on hiring helpers in your business, there are going to be some issues that you have to deal with. And even moving up through the stages and hiring replacements or people to do your job for you.
There's a whole new set of issues that arises at each level. But to get to that top level, to get to the point where you're developing leaders within your company and on your team, you need to be very careful and intentional about who you surround yourself with.
Who are you working with? Who are you meeting with? Who are you interacting with? Who are you learning from? Because as you develop it makes it easier to develop the rest of your team.
So if you're interested in working with a law firm that's been through all of these stages that understands what it means to hire helpers or replacements, or to build a team or develop leaders, reach out to us, let us know.
