Mickey Mouse Training
It isn’t easy to do, either, for many reasons. For one, pride: You’re performing a job you’ve mastered. You’re the best in the company at it, and you want to remain the best. And you don’t want anyone to screw up and give you a bad reputation.
Money can also be an issue. Why should I pay someone else to do the job I can do so well, and have them take away from my income?
That particular bit of reasoning can also hurt your expansion plans and tie you up doing menial tasks for way too long – as well as hinder your company’s growth because maybe, just maybe, someone else could do it better and faster, which can be a real blow to the ego (and also miss out on more profits through better production).
Close to a decade ago, when I still had a janitorial company and was becoming a known entity in the stone trade, the Canadian government “encouraged” me into paying all my sub-contractors as employees. Up to that point, I could easily handle payroll on my own and had a system for Accounts Payable and Receivable that was working and simple.
It was at that time that I looked at hiring a bookkeeper to handle my accounts, payroll and make sure that Uncle Jean (the Canadian version of Uncle Sam) got his more-than-fair share. Now, I must say that Mom (yes, my mother) didn’t do things, well, my way.
Did she keep it as simple as I had in the past? Not at all. Did she keep Uncle Jean happy? Sometimes. Did she pay our suppliers like I used to? Nope! Was she as good at collecting as I had been? No way – no how!
But, considering how the business was growing, could I have done it all on my own? Not in the slightest!
Did she eventually get it right? Well … she quit to go work for my brother (who says there’s no such thing as karma) and helped us hire Jane. I say “us,” because Greg had stepped into the company to take over the janitorial operations, as I focused on stone (more in a minute).