The job you won't hand over is usually the one to hand over

Every small business owner has one job they will not let go of.

Not the boring one. The boring ones get delegated eventually, because nobody fights to keep the invoicing.

It is the job you are good at. The one you enjoy. The one where you secretly think nobody else would do it quite right.

For me it is talking to customers. I like it, I am quick at it, and I tell myself it is too important to give away.

But that is exactly the problem. If the most important part of the business only works when I am in the room, then the business is just me with a logo. It cannot grow. And I cannot get sick, go away for a week, or sit through a school play without my phone buzzing in my bag.

So the question I am asking myself this autumn is not "what can I delegate?"

It is "what am I holding on to because it makes me feel needed?"

That one is harder to answer. It usually has my name all over it.

Someone else will do it differently. Sometimes worse at first. Sometimes, annoyingly, better.

Either way, it stops being the reason the business can only be as big as my calendar.