Could your business trade for six months without you?

When you started your business, the chances are it was just you running the show, probably from a kitchen table or spare bedroom. You answered every call, chased every lead, packed every order, and sent every invoice yourself because, well, there was no one else to do it. Eventually the workload outgrew you, finances loosened up a bit, and you hired your first employee. Except if you're honest with yourself, you probably never really let go. You're still the one everyone taps on the shoulder. Still the one whose name is on the client's favourite contact list. Still the one who holds the knowledge of how things work in your head and nowhere else. That's not a good thing. You can't scale a business by micromanaging every aspect of it, and in any case your marketing person is probably better at marketing than you are, and your finance team know exactly what they are doing as well. Every hour you spend doing what someone else could do is an hour you're not spending on the thing only you can do: deciding where the business goes next and making that happen.