Put Away Your Cape

As a society we certainly make being a superhero look fun. The person that swoops in and saves the day. What we don’t show is that being a superhero is exhausting. There’s a lot of pressure to do the impossible. In addition, it’s just not sustainable in real life.

Yet, business owners often design a business that forces them to be the superhero. And sometimes, it probably feels good to save the day. You may like the rush of being able to solve problems. You might value strong relationships with clients that cause them to ask for you by name. You might enjoy the work that causes you to step into the role of the superhero.

But at some point, the business will grow past your superhero capacity. You’ll find that strategic work often gets pushed to the side to deal with technical work or problem solving. Your personal life might start demanding more time, limiting your superhero time. And if you haven’t designed your business to be independent of you, then something will be dropped. It’s simply not sustainable to always be your business’s superhero.

We challenge you to put away your cape, roll up your sleeves and start working on your business. The first action to take is to identify where you’re the superhero in your business. If you were to be gone for a day, what wouldn’t get done or would be done poorly? What if you were gone for a week? Or a month?

This is the list that forces you to be the superhero. And the answer isn’t to make someone else the superhero. Because eventually they’ll fail as well, it’s just not sustainable. Instead, focus on training others in structures that take the pressure off your team.

We look at structures as technical processes. The how-to systems in your business.

• How to process a client’s order.
• How to do payroll.
• How to take a payment.

What’s typically missing are the systems that focus on softer skills.

• How to handle a crisis.
• How to problem solve.
• How to interact with an upset client.
• How to do what you do.

This isn’t discounting what you do. It’s not taking away from the knowledge, experience and expertise that you possess. Instead, it’s asking, how do we take everything you’ve learned in the last 10, 20, maybe even 30 years and teach that to your team quicker and without all the lessons from the school of hard knocks.

Yes, your team can and probably will learn some of these things on their own, over time. But imagine where your business and life would be in a year if you didn’t have to be the superhero anymore. If the business stopped depending on you. It’s possible. And the best part is you don’t even have to reinvent the wheel. A quick Google search will help you find some training materials. There are several problem-solving frameworks that are tried and proven.

We also encourage you to contact us about our business coaching, as we specialize in designing businesses that don’t require you to be a superhero. And yes, we have many of those softer skill systems that are ready to be customized to fit your business. The only question is, are you ready to put away your cape?