There's no way PrettiBone could've gotten to where it's at without the power of delegating. When everything is broken down, there are more than 50 tasks, that have to be done every day. Here are just a few:

• Shipping
  • Poshmark
  • eBay
  • Shopify
• Packing
  • Poshmark
  • eBay
  • Shopify
• Emails
  • Contact emails
  • Valet emails
• Instagram
  
  • Posts
  • Messages
  • Comments
• Listing
  • Poshmark
  • eBay
  • Shopify

• Supplies buying
• Sorting
• Damages repair
• Shooting Photos
• Inventory Box Packing
• Steaming
• Inventory Buying
• Shipment dropoff
• Blog
  • Posts
  • Comments
  • Upkeep
• Listing
  • Poshmark
  • ebay
  • Shopify
• Content making
• Text messages

Those are just some things that are required just to keep up with the selling and blogging side alone. Nevermind the services, future planning of PrettiBone and day to day problems. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather have a lot of things to do than nothing. I just love to work!

BUT, as you can see, there's no way I can do all of this myself, that's where delegating comes into play. This blog post is to give you my insight on why and when do I delegate 90% of the tasks pertaining to PrettiBone.

Generally speaking, I would never delegate a task unless I know how to do the task myself. Only when I know how to do the task myself is when I will be comfortable delegating that task. This is important for a few important reasons.

Delegating a task that I don't know how to do myself leaves room for inefficiencies. In other words, if I don't know how to do it then I can't really critique it. If I'm not able to critique it then I can't measure it. And if I can't measure it then I can't improve on it!

Another reason as to why I need to know how to do everything myself is for me to get a better understanding of who I should delegate the task at hand to. Mix this with my understanding of my staffs' strengths and weaknesses results in a well-oiled machine. For instance, I would not have a staff member who lacks attention to detail take care of my emails.

There's no ands, ifs or buts about it...your time is ticking. This not only goes for life in general but your life as a reseller. Really ask yourself are you wasting your time doing something that you can hand off to someone else to do. Of course, this only makes sense if you can produce more with the freed up time than if you were bogged down by the said task. This goes for EVERYTHING in life; it's called opportunity cost. And to get big, you need to delegate. Keep thinking that you can do everything yourself and you're well on your way to stay the same size, this is the harsh truth. Your 24 hours will never beat a team of 10 with 24 hours themselves, it's just simple math.

"I don't want to delegate because it cost money" is the biggest mental mistake you can make when it comes to delegating. Of course, it will cost you money, but how much is it really costing you to do something yourself?

A lot of people think they are in charge of their operation, but in reality, their operation is in charge of them. Nobody wants to believe this because it's something called ego. Your ego will tell you that you're always in charge. It will also tell you that you're the best person to do everything for your operation. Really? You don't think there's someone out there that can ship, list, sort just as well as you? Reselling is not neuroscience so please don't complicate things. Take a task, break it down into repeatable steps and hand it off to someone that's capable of doing that task.

Now I'm not going to sit here and act like delegating doesn't cost money, it sure as hell does. I'm just trying to convince you to look at the bigger picture. The picture of you being able to take a vacation and not having to contemplate if you should hit that "Vacation Mode" button. It comes down to trade-offs and making the right ones. This also means that you should also know when NOT to delegate.

There are times when delegation is not an option but luckily, this list is a short one!

• Sensitive data 
• Budgeting issues 
• Lack of helpers
• Haven't reached scale
• Leadership is lacking

While these are legitimate reasons as to why you can't delegate, the good thing is that there are always workarounds for all situations but that goes beyond the scope of this post.

Here are some tell-tale signs that you should consider delegating:

• You're finding yourself doing the same repetitive task
• You're feeling that the task is holding you back from doing more
• You're making more money but you're also working more (this is huge!)
• You make more sales (money) from your operation than you can spend on improving your operation
• You can break your operation/process down into easy to understand steps
• Your sales are increasing every month

While there are definitely more, this is my personal list

I want to leave you with this important point. While I'm a big fan of doing it BIG, I would never want anyone to overextend themselves. I would not want anyone to pay to delegate if it means that they're putting their finances in jeopardy. I say "pay" because money is a direct cost when it comes to delegation unless you have some elves that are willing to work for free. But all jokes aside, please take inventory of your operation and budget carefully before doing so.