Should You Fire Yourself?

Spending too much time working “in” the business and not “on” the business is a pretty common struggle among not only agency owners in The Admin Bar, but business owners in general.

A lot of my clients struggle with the same thing — and it’s why getting content done for their website, blogs published, social media campaigns scheduled, and other aspects of their marketing take forever or never get done.

There’s actually a pretty obvious reason why this happens so commonly among business owners, particularly small businesses… It comes down to accountability.

If we don’t get the work done in the business, our clients hold us accountable by not paying us or outright firing us.

Most of us kinda like getting paid, so that makes for a pretty decent accountability system by default ????

If you continually made promises to your customers, and failed to deliver — logically, you’d expect them to fire you, right?

But if we apply that same logic to ourselves the endless things we want need to get done working on our business — then we all would have fired ourselves long ago.

The client work has it built in, and that’s why you’re more likely to get client tasks done. But if you want to work on your business, instead of just in it, then you need some sort of accountability system for that too.

If you’re a self-starter, maybe something as simple as writing everything down can help. “Out of your head and onto paper” is a good first step at making progress and can often start the snowball down the hill.

If that’s not enough, then try talking about your plans and goals aloud for others to hear. Even if those people aren’t likely to hold you accountable, there’s something about telling other people what you plan to do that makes you more likely to actually do it.

But if you really want to ensure you get something done, you need to have another human that will hold you accountable to it. Maybe that’s an employee, a spouse, a friend, or hell — someone in The Admin Bar.

Knowing you’re going to have someone following up with you, and expecting you to do what you say you will is a great way to be held accountable and finally get to all those “on the business” tasks.

Chances are you know someone else struggling with the same issues — why not pair up and help each other out by setting up an accountability system and following up regularly?

That’s part of what we do inside TABLE, and structured accountability has been the biggest factor in helping members take their biggest leaps forward.

I’m happy to share the systems we have in place if you want to try to setup an accountability system with a friend (reply and let me know if you’re interested).  I’ve seen those be extremely successful.

But if it’s going to work, you have to take it seriously — otherwise this is just something else you put on the back-burner or never get around to when working in the business gets in the way.

What’s made it work inside TABLE is I’m there to ensure members are holding each other accountable, and they hold me accountable by only paying their dues if I hold up my end of the bargain! Everyone is relying on each other in a nice, symbiotic way. 

Accountability inception!