There are three people in your business
I know you think you're working alone but I have news for you...
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Kaila’s freelance writing business was growing steadily. Last year, she made about $100,000 in revenue after expenses and taxes. This year, she was set to make 25% more than that. She was working with clients she loved, felt like she had solid systems built, and rarely had to go looking for work. She also felt calm most of the time and when her stress levels did start to jump up, she had a toolkit she could apply to bring her nervous system back down. She was working about 35 hours per week and had a full life outside of work. It felt good.
Kaila and I had been working together for a while when she hit a small bump in the road: A few great clients had approached Kaila asking her to work on some really interesting, well-paid projects. She wanted to say yes, but she didn’t have the capacity for it. (By capacity, I mean she didn’t have the mental bandwidth or the time.) She knew that she could burn the midnight oil to get the work done but she was wary that burnout could be lurking just around the bend.
We explored several different options and eventually landed on the idea that Kaila wanted to hire someone to help her run her business so she could take on this extra work. This person would help with the administrative tasks that Kaila tended to dread: invoicing, research, outreach to sources, updating her portfolio, and beyond.
Kaila was excited by this idea and she was nervous. I felt the same way when I hired an assistant for the first time! There’s so much potential for them to help you run a streamlined business and it feels like a huge risk. At first, it’s nearly unimaginable that you’re going to hand $500/ month of your precious earnings to someone else.
And yet, bringing in help is one of the smartest ways to scale. (It’s worth noting, of course, that it’s not the only way! And growth is not a pre-condition to a successful business. But eventually you will probably arrive at a place in your business where you alone are the stop-gap. If nothing can happen without you, you may need to bring on someone else so you don’t burn out.)
Lately, I read something in The E-Myth that explained the anxiety so many of us feel when we decide to hire someone. Hang tight with me on this metaphor, which I’ve adapted slightly! When you run your own business, there are three people who exist in your head:
The Technician
When you work for someone else, you’re almost always the technician; you get the work done. You don’t need to think into the past or the future, you are simply concerned with the present and the tasks at hand.
Kaila is a writer; this is her technician persona. When she’s in this role, she’s writing. She’s putting words to paper. (She’s also interviewing people, researching new ideas and fact-checking.) This technical expertise feels like her most important role and it’s also become the most comfortable place for her to land. In all of the jobs she had before becoming a freelancer, Kaila was an excellent writer. And her excellent writing is part of why her clients love her, too. Kaila is a very, very good technician.
The Manager
But when you decide to run your own business, you’re not just a technician anymore. You also become a manager. This is a role you might be less comfortable with; I know I am. But if you want to succeed (meaning, in this case, not burning out), you’ll need to grow your skills as a manager. The manager is the practical, systems-oriented person in a business. They see problems, clean up messes, manage the books, and live almost entirely in the past. When you’re hiring someone to work with you, you’ll realize that you’ve got to become a manager in addition to your technical work. This is a huge leap for most of us, especially if you’ve never managed anyone before!
When I told Kaila that hiring someone meant becoming a manager, she looked nauseated. “I don’t know how to do that!” she said. But I argued that she did; as a successful soloprenuer, she’d been managing herself all along. She had systems in place. She problem solved. She sent invoices. She was managing a business; it was just hard to see that work as being as necessary (or, frankly, as interesting) as the work of writing her words.
The Entrepreneur
The third person living in your head is the entrepreneur. This is a future-looking role. The entrepreneur dreams, builds, and loves possibility. They’re best in moments of crisis and high drama. They can solve anything! If you’re running a small business, you’ll also need to play this role not infrequently.
I often find myself playing the role of entrepreneur in coaching sessions, especially with freelancers who are new to the game. They come to me to find possibilities and to learn how to dream. I give them a toolkit to do this work and eventually send them away. My goal is that they leave with entrepreneurial thought patterns built up.
This is why most freelancers burn out and turn back to full-time jobs (and why many small businesses fail): When you try to spend all of your time on the technical work you’ve always loved, you ignore the management and entrepreneurial tasks necessary to run a business. You spend all your time working in your business rather than on your business. As The E-Myth author puts it: In this case, you don’t run a business. You have a job! But it’s the worst job in the world because there’s no structure and no long-term plan!
I get it: You love your technical work. Most of us don’t want to be managers; that feels incredibly corporate. When I explained these roles to Kaila, she told me that her hiring anxiety was 100% tied to spending more time managing than writing. She didn’t want to give up writing just to build systems and track people’s workflows.
But she also wanted to keep growing her business without totally burning herself out. She could see what was possible. (Here, I heard Kaila’s inner-entrepreneur piping up.) She knew there was untapped potential in her business. She wanted to see her earnings increase. She wanted to see what might happen if she brought in one person, then maybe two or three. If she was being honest about her big dreams, she said, she would be interested in starting an agency.
Eventually, Kaila decided that it would be worth investing in her manager skills a little bit more. By hiring someone, she would be forced to learn how to direct another person’s workload. She’d have to make her perfect-for-her-brain systems a little bit more widely understandable. It would only cost her a little bit of extra bandwidth if she hired this person for a limited number of hours, which felt worth it. It was time for a level-up.
For most freelancers, bringing your inner-manager into your business starts with learning how to manage yourself.
What kinds of schedules work best for you?
How can you streamline your systems (and combine all of those spreadsheets into one place)?
What would it look like to hold yourself accountable to getting things done without task switching as often?
Managers are pragmatic. They like order. They check in. They ask around to find the best systems. I’d challenge you to turn up the volume on your inner-manager just a bit, and to direct that energy at yourself first, before you hire someone to help you in your business.
All of this, of course, is a career’s work. Eventually, maybe you’ll end up with a 60% technician / 20% manager/ 20% entrepreneur split. (For most freelancers I know, this feels like a good balance.) And if you do decide to hire more people, you might get to what The E-Myth defines as an ideal balance for stress levels and business function for most people: A 33/33/33 split.
Honestly, the outcome here doesn’t matter as much as the effort. When you made the choice to work for yourself, you made the choice to learn. I know it’s fun — and safe— to invest in technical skills related to your expertise. But without management and entrepreneurial skills, you may not be running your own ship for long.
In a few weeks, I’ll talk about what it’s been like to hire three (!!!) new people to help me in my business over the past month. I’m now paying almost $2,000/ month to a virtual assistant, editorial assistant and subcontractor (but in March, I billed for almost $19,000 because of their help). It’s been a huge learning curve and I’ve had to contend with all the complications of becoming more of a manager. But so far, despite the challenge, I agree with Kaila: the level up has been worth it!
Stay tuned,
Jenni
Curious about my background? I’m a writer and business coach based in Central Oregon. I have two small children and I work part-time so I can spend a lot of time with them. Lately, I’ve been obsessed with non-linear business building and teaching people how to build successful businesses that support their human needs first. Check out my coaching offerings here and follow me on Twitter & Instagram!