I run a small bakery and for the first three years I did everything myself. All the baking, orders, social media, deliveries, bookkeeping. I thought hiring someone would eat into my margins but honestly the exhaustion cost me more. I ended up getting sick and losing a big catering order because I couldn't physically do it all. Wondering if anyone else has been through this. What actually made you bring on help?
Business Operations
My biggest business mistake was trying to do everything myself
Yeah. I do landscaping. Same story. I was working 70 hour weeks for about two years and my back finally gave out. Hired my first helper about four months ago and I wish I'd done it at year one. The margins didn't crumble, I just had to be more careful about which jobs I took.
How do you even know whenn it's the right time? I keep telling myself I'll hire once I have enough steady revenue but then there's a slow month and I put it off.
there's never a perfect time. you just have to pick a moment and commit.
That's fair. For me it wasn't really a decision, it was more that I couldn't keep up anymore. I'd say if you're turning down work or falling behind on basic stuff, that's your signal. Not a revenue number.
I ran a small print shop for years and made this exact mistake. The problem foor me was that delegating felt impossible because nobody did things exactly the way I did. I had to accept that good enough was actually fine and that training training someone would take a few months before it paid off.
the hardest part is the cost of the first hire. it feels like a huge gamble when you're small.
it does. But I reframed it as buying back my time, not as a cost. Once I looked at the hours I was losing to stuff a part timer could do, the math got a lot clearer.
Hi, I'm in food too. What did you end up delegating first? I'm at the point where I know I need help but I dont know where to start without creating chaos.
For me it was deliveries and the social media stuff. Those were the most time consuming and the least dependent on my specific skills. The baking and the custom orders stay with me for now.
Deliveries are a good starting point. That's mostly juust driving and a schedule.
I think the real mistake was waiting until I was burned out to hire. The quality of my work dipped and customers noticed before I did. If I could go back I'd have hired a part time person six months earlier and just accepted the tighter budget.
out of curiosity did anyone use a service like fiverr or a temp agency first before making a real hire? feels lower risk.
I tried a temp for admin stuff once. It was okay for a one time project but not great for recurring tasks because you keep re explaining everything. A regular part timer you train once and then they know your system.
Outsourcing bookkeeping to an actual accountant was the other big one for me. That's not something you should be learning on the fly at 11pm.
This whole thread is making me realize I've been treating exhaustion like a badge of honor. That's probably not sustainable.
The badge of honor thing is real. i used to hear other owners talk about how they hadn't taken a day off in years and I thought that was what it meant to be serious. Now I just think it means they haven't figured out help yet.