If you want to immediately engage with an entrepreneur during a cocktail party, ask them how they handle their time between working in the business and working on the business.

I played tennis yesterday with the owner of an asset management company here in San Francisco and he was lamenting the departure of his #1 analyst. As he’s been interviewing for a replacement he’s had to pull double duty working in his business to make up for the temporary gap. It’s why I haven’t seen him for the last 2 months.

Today, I’m going through an unpacking exercise to see what in my business I should be delegating and potentially outsourcing so I can spend more time in my strength zone.

If 80% of my results come from 20% of my actions then only 2 out of the 10 things I do really reap any results… 8 out of 10 things I probably shouldn’t be doing. This unpacking exercise will help to identify those 8 out of 10 actions that I will look to delegate.

It’s time to pull me out of the business and put others into the business.

But first things first…

I must change my mindset – I have to start giving tasks away and feel comfortable with doing so. I mustn’t assume I’m the only one who can do the work well in my business – this is a limiting way of thinking and inhibits me building my team. Doing something at 80-90% of how I did it is good enough.

I’ve been advised to start with the top 10-20% – the easy pickings to delegate or I’ll be overwhelmed. No sculptor completes his/her work overnight. We all begin with a full block of stone and start chipping away.

Right now I can outsource smaller items such as email, scheduling, social media, design, editing, etc. Later on I can look to hire people to do the more specialized work of finance and coaching which only I do right now in my business.

Although I’ve spent a lot of time thinking into 80/20 over the last year, the work is never done specializing in my area of strength.

Never outsource your marketing. You must do all relationship building with clients and funders and ultimately drive the sales process yourself. The success of your business will depend upon it.