Have you ever felt like your business just isn’t as moving as fast as it should? Maybe you’ve got projects that aren’t being finished. You’re drowning in decisions. And you’re running around with a headless chook, busy all day, but feeling like you’re getting absolutely nothing done. Here’s the hard truth. You might be the problem. I know it’s not what you want to hear, but listen, we’ve all been there, myself included. As business owners, we pour everything into our work, and sometimes it ends up being us who are holding us back. today, I’m here to help you get out of your own damn way. I’ll help you figure out if you’re the bottleneck, we’ll talk about why that happens, and most importantly, I’ll give you some practical steps to fix it.  Your business can’t grow if you’re stuck in the middle of everything. Let’s dive in   

  📍 Welcome to the business BFF, the podcast where fierce and fabulous business women come together for the kind of real talk and honest advice only your besties would give. I’m your host Emma Bowdler, founder of the Women’s Accountant, and I’m here to help you navigate the wild world of business, finance, and life. 

Whether you are scaling up. Starting fresh or just need a pep talk from someone who gets it, you are in the right place. So grab your favourite bevy and get comfy. It’s time for a chat with your business BFFs. 

 What does it mean to be a bottleneck? First things first, A bottleneck is anything that slows the progress. And if you’re a business, then that thing might be you. I know for me, it’s definitely been me in a lot of situations. That could look like maybe it means that you’re a control freak and everything in your business needs your approval. 

So or decisions stall, maybe you’re so busy doing the day today that there’s no time to think about scaling and growth, or maybe your team can’t move forward because they’re waiting for you to give them direction. Now, this isn’t just my opinion. There was actually a study done from the Harvard Business Review called The Founder’s Trap. 

It’s when a business owner needs to control everything, and it ends up holding the entire business back.  If that sounds familiar to you, then it  is fixable with some really clear  and concise boundaries around you. So what are some of the signs that you’re a bottleneck? 

There’s a few here that kind of stick out for me and that The first one is that things always feel stuck. your team or your project can’t move forward without your input is a really big one. That’s what that looks like for me in my business is if I’m doing client tax work. I’m the person who always reviews it. 

So know, that job can’t move forward to the next stage without me always without me doing what I need to do. One of the second ways that you could probably identify that you’re a bottleneck is that you’re always busy, but nothing is moving. what that looks like is that you could be working really long hours, but the needle isn’t moving towards some of those bigger goals that you I guess have got in place. The third thing is that you’re always putting out fires and that is one of the worst ways, in my opinion, that you can run a business is that your whole day is spent reacting. That can look like following up emails that should have been followed up two weeks ago. It can mean things with invoicing, it can be fixing mistakes. know, there’s, you’re not leaving any time to plan ahead when you’re constantly reacting. Another common problem that I see, and it’s something that I’ve certainly struggle within the past is the struggle with the ability to delegate. They’re those thought patterns that come in of you think, Oh, look. It’ll just be faster if I do it myself, or why would I train somebody when all in my head and it’s easier for me to do, or they won’t do it as well as I do. That is probably. biggest red flag for me, if you don’t have the ability to delegate to others, then you probably are the bottleneck. You can be a bottleneck if perfectionism is killing you. I feel like I’m speaking to myself here because a perfectionist as well. So things that will show up for you, if you are that perfectionism type of personality is you’ll redo tasks or you’ll hold onto them because they’re not quite right. This podcast perfect example. I held off on, it’s been something we’ve been wanting to do for a couple of years now everything wasn’t just quite right. And I didn’t have a plan and. All of those things I held on to that because it still just wasn’t quite right for me. Another common way that we can identify ourselves as bottlenecks is that your team feels helpless. this one’s common, particularly if you haven’t taken the time to train people in the right way, is that they’ve stopped taking initiative because they know that you’ll just step in and fix things. Again, this is me do something half assed and then just leave it because they know, Oh Emma or the owner or someone else will just jump in and fix it to where it’s supposed to be. You can’t run a business like that. And if any of these sound like you, then please don’t panic. 

You’re not alone. So now I want to talk to you about some of the reasons that we get in our own way. And for me, there’s one real reason. And that reason is fear. It shows up as a fear of losing control, a fear of that someone else won’t do it right, fear that stepping back. means that you’re not needed, here’s the thing, being in control of everything isn’t the same as leading. you follow Dr. Brené Brown, and if you don’t, I highly recommend you do. says that trust is choosing to make something important to you vulnerable to the actions of someone else.  And so for that trust is essential and you know what, your business isn’t going to fall apart if you let go some of the things and in fact it will grow. And it will grow really well. So really practical steps for you to get out of your own damn way is to, in my opinion, it’s something that I do every 90 days for my own role is I audit it. And I know that sounds very accountant type, but what I do is I keep a time log of every single thing that I do. write it down and then I use. Colored highlighters to go through and highlight does this task really need me? Could somebody else do it? And should I even be doing it all? And I guess what it does is streamlines my role into a reminding me of what I should be doing, but it also gives me a really clear picture of what I can either delegate in sometimes there’s things I can automate or in sometimes there’s things that I should just drop altogether. 

If we were to start with a small delegation, then what you might do is pick one Time sucking task that you’re doing that you could let it go. one of those things might be you might look at outsourcing some of your administration. It could be having someone do your invoicing, your social media, for me, podcast production. There’s a whole heap of things that you are probably doing that somebody else can do 10 times better than what you can. And some of those tasks, I think it’s really important to remember that it doesn’t need to be perfect. It just has to get done. So that’s something you might want to consider. second thing I want you to consider is to empower your team. and stop micromanaging. And this was a hard one for me to let go. A bit of a micromanager, but I’ve been able to move out of that space by giving my team really clear goals and let them take ownership of tasks. Leadership isn’t about doing everything. It’s about empowering others to succeed. And so if I can do that for my own team, setting them up to take off some of those roles and those tasks that I do and letting them become theirs, then that empowers them in their own role. Something else you might want to consider is building systems that work for you. 

And I’m particularly thinking about those people putting out fires all the time have a look at your systems and processes and create workflows and checklists and templates as to how things need to be done. There’s some really great tools out there that can do that. So things like Monday.com, Asana, Trello, Zapier to do those repetitive tasks. Yes, Scribe is a really beautiful tool to build out systems and processes in a business. So that you can then allow to delegate some of those tasks to your team. Something else that is really important is to protect some of your time to build out strategy. 

So out time for some of that big picture thinking where you’re not doing. Emails, you’re not doing admin, you’re not doing client work, you’re not managing team. You’re just focusing on building your leadership and the strategy in which you want to take the business.   are a few things that happen when you stop being the bottleneck and they include things actually get done. 

They get done, they’re on time and without your involvement. And that’s a really beautiful thing as a business owner. One of the other things that happens when you stop being the bottleneck is that your team feels more confident and they feel more productive. They feel like projects or tasks are moving forward and again when we think about employee retention that is really important as well what better feeling than having a team that’s confident and productive without you micromanaging them all the time. The third thing that happens when you stop being a bottleneck is that you have time to focus on what matters to you. So whether that’s growth, it’s creativity, or even taking a goddamn break. When was the last time you had a break as a business owner? I’d has a guess that it’s probably been a hot minute. 

So you can stop being the bottleneck, Stop controlling everything and empowering others to do what you’ve employed them to do. You might just find that you’ve got some time back The truth is that no one can run a business entirely on their own. We don’t have to wear all hats. We don’t have to solve all problems and we shouldn’t have to carry all of the tasks on our shoulders. Honestly, that’s not what you’re supposed to do. job as a business owner isn’t to do it all. It’s to lead, it’s to set the vision, and it’s to create something that works for you. here’s the thing. Change is a choice. you keep holding onto every little thing, the day to day grind will keep pulling you down. 

And every time you think, I’ll deal with this later, you’re just choosing to stay stuck. know that letting go can be comfortable and trust me, I’ve been there, but I also know. When you stop trying to do it all, you create a space for things that really matter, whether that’s growing your business, spending more time with your family, or simply having the freedom to breathe. don’t have to fix everything all at once, small changes, one step at a time can completely transform the way that you work and how you feel. Thanks for joining me today. And I want to leave you with this. What you aren’t changing your choosing.   

  📍 Thanks for tuning into the business BFF. We hope you’ve found this episode, equal parts, big hug and kick up the bum, all the things a bestie is good for. Remember, you’ve got this and we’ve got your back like only a BFF can. If you’ve loved what you’ve heard, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with your fellow business besties. 

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 If you like what you’ve heard, then let us know over on Instagram @thewomensaccountant and be sure to share this episode with one of your business besties. Until next time, stay awesome.