Why Salon Owners Who Won't Delegate Won't Survive

You might think doing everything yourself is dedication and giving your best to your business, but ultimately, you're stressing yourself out, doing a poor job, and holding your business back. Hello, my salon friends. Phil Jackson here, your queen of salons, coming all over the internet again with another dose of my Wise Owl Wisdom. How on earth are you? Achingly well, I hope, this episode dedicated to all of my control freaks. You know you're out there, those of you that just don't think anyone else can do anything as well as you can, so you end up doing all of it yourself. Well, today, I'm afraid, darling, it's a tough love episode from your Uncle Phil. We're just not having this anymore. Doing everything yourself, I'm going to suggest, is first of all, stupid. Nobody can be excellent at every single function in the business. There are people who are better skilled at doing things than you, and you need to accept that your way may not always be the best way. Secondly, I'm going to make the case that it's unprofitable because doing everything yourself is poor use of your time. You're spending time on things that are worth a fraction of your hourly value. And ultimately, I'm going to say that you're doing this to yourself. You are complaining about work-life balance, complaining that you don't have boundaries, complaining that you're taking work home with you and answering messages at two o'clock in the morning, when ultimately all of this is a direct choice that you're making day after day after day. This is not bad luck. Trust me, I am the best person to speak about this because I am a lazy, lazy cow. If there's somebody else who can do the job, I will find somebody else to do it. If there's a shortcut, I will take it. If there's an automation, it will be in place. So I'm only left with the hard work that I ultimately either enjoy or I really, really want to do. I don't waste my time carrying out tasks that other people are perfectly capable of doing. Yes, of course, I want some oversight. I want some feedback. But in all areas of my life, not just my business. And if you think you're self-employed, so you have to do everything yourself. My darlings, you've got some tough love coming your way as well, because you're worse than anybody. There are people that you can be delegating to. But in my business, in my relationships, I don't miss opportunities by not handing stuff over to other people. I think it's really tempting to think that our way is the best way. No, your way was the first way. It doesn't mean that somebody else hasn't got ideas. It doesn't mean that someone else hasn't got perspective. It doesn't mean that somebody else can't move your business forward in a meaningful way. But I want to widen the frame, because if you're working on your own in a business, delegation is bigger than a team. There is a team beyond your team. That means that we can bring in freelancers. You might have a VA, admin support, a bookkeeper, AI tools, software. None of this involves employing or hiring anybody. But saying that you can't afford to hire, therefore you have to do everything yourself, is kidding yourself. You're already delegating to lots and lots of different directions. You just don't realise it. So you don't monitor it in the way that delegation needs. And if there are people that you could use in those spaces, you need to start figuring out what that job vacancy looks like and start bringing in the outside help so that you get to stick to the stuff that you're actually brilliant at, which is getting on with your business. That said, my love, I do want a little reality check on the profit margin side of things, because sometimes I will hear salon business coaches saying that if your hourly rate is £60 and you can find somebody to do your social media for £40 an hour, you should pay that person the £40 so that you can do £60 worth of service. Not quite. It's the right vibe, but you're talking to a salon business coach who doesn't understand maths terribly well. Because, of course, the only place that that person can be funded is from your profit margin. So you might be able to turn over £60 an hour, but you need to be making profit of £40 in order to pay that person. So bear in mind your profit margin when you're looking at freelancers, when you're looking at admin support, when you're looking at bookkeepers, even looking at software, bear in mind that profit margin equation. We did an episode on this a couple of weeks ago, I'm absolutely sure. Head over to the queenofsalon.com website, have a look through the archives. We've got everything covered and I've even put it in sweet little categories. When I say me, I delegated that. So what are you missing? Where have you not delegated? Why are you resisting? And normally it's not a money equation. You might tell yourself it's a money equation, but it's usually the trust and control, the belief that nobody else can do it properly. You don't always know best. And sometimes people will do stuff differently and better or maybe just differently is fine just because they've got their own way of doing it, which doesn't match your way. Is the results the same? Does it really matter? I had a beautiful system of stock control. As you know, I'm a nerd. I'm a geek. I like my software. Love a spreadsheet. Me. A spreadsheet in an equation is better than a night out. But I'd set this system up and then delegated the system. And I was getting really, really frustrated because the team member kept printing the spreadsheets out, putting them on a clipboard, taking them over to the shelf and taking stuff off. And then she would go back and enter all the figures into the spreadsheet. Was it a better way of doing things? Probably not really. And I kind of quizzed her about it. She had two arguments. The first was that tying up the computer on reception for that long was inefficient. The second was that she found it really hard to keep up with the rows on a screen. She found it much easier to print it out with alternating colour rows. And then she wasn't making mistakes in the stock check. Was it my way of doing things? No. Did it really matter? Not really. Ultimately, we ended up with an accurate count of the stock that we had. Her way was just different to my way. And that's absolutely fine too. And actually, the notes that she had about tying up the salon reception desk for that amount of time were really worthwhile. And if she'd been doing stuff my way, I would never have had that realization. So sometimes people can bring their ideas and that's a good thing. And you're not going to get that unless you are letting go of some of these tasks. Ultimately, it's not the task that you're protecting. It's your identity as the person who does everything. You want to be seen as the business needs me. The business needs me to do all these things. You're using the business to fan your ego a little bit. Separate it out. Get some therapy if you need to. Work on that a little because the business doesn't need you. The business is a greedy, selfish beast. It doesn't care who feeds it. I promise you. So this isn't about just surviving the busy periods. This is about whether your business actually survives at all, because if you are doing everything yourself, if you have that lack of boundaries, if you don't have that work life balance, one of two things will happen. Either you will work yourself into an early grave and the business is going bankrupt or you will start to resent the business and start shutting it down anyway because you will resent the impact that it's having on your lifestyle. Either way, delegation is about survival of your business. And if you're struggling with that, you need to get your head around it. Just a little tool that I have for you, which is my cheat sheet. Why are you in business? It's all about looking at your values. It's all about looking at the reason why you put your business into the world in the first place. Those values are your beacon. Let's have those really, really clear in our minds. Free cheat sheet. Head over to queenofsalons.com and click the links button because I'm excited and like that and imaginative. All the links are on the page called links. Have a little look. Type in your email address. I will ping that cheat sheet straight over to you. Absolutely free of charge. What have I missed? What are you struggling to let go of? Is there something I can help with as far as delegation is concerned? If so, reach out and let me know. Phil at buildyoursalon.com. I love hearing from you. We haven't done a letters episode for a while. Perhaps November is the time when we start getting letters back in again. I love it when I get your inquiries. I love hearing what's going on in your business. And I want this to be a resource that actually helps you. And I can only do that with your feedback. Also, I know it's not Christmas. I know we're in November, but give me an early Christmas present, please. On your chosen platform, will you rate and review this podcast? Will you please just tell Spotify or Apple or wherever it is that you're listening how brilliant it is? It really is the very best way of making sure that the Build Your Salon podcast reaches more people over time. Plus, it makes me smile every time I get a little review. They don't email you when you get reviews. It's always a nice surprise when you go onto your profile and there's another little five stars. If it's not five star, by the way, send me an email instead. Nobody needs that negativity online in the long run. Just a few short days until I'm coming all over the Internet again with another dose of my wise hour wisdom. And until then, take care.