Todd Heitner

I think another challenge to some of those people run into with hiring people is the idea that they could do it better themselves. Like, I don’t want somebody else because I feel more comfortable doing it. I don’t think it’ll get done right if I pass it off. Any thoughts on that?

Ellie Perlman

Yeah. It’s a trap that many, many business owners need to deal with. And it was something that I was struggling with at the beginning. Even if it’s true. Well, some part of it is true for two reasons. One, you’re the most, as a business owner, you are the most motivated person on the team many times. And also you think you do it best because you do it the way that it’s built in your mind. And anything, any deviation from that could look like it’s not the best way of execution. You can do it, but you’re going to be working in your business, not on your business. And at some point you have to let go.

For me, the moment that I let go of that and I said “I’m okay with things being done 90% and not 100% the way that I visioned them. They still have to be good.” I mean, it doesn’t mean that it’s not going to be quality, but it’s not exactly how I wanted. Then this is where my business actually took off.

You just got to let people in your team, you got to give them the autonomy to do that. And you have to free up your time. I read Robert Kiyosaki’s obviously, “Rich Dad Poor Dad” book and then the “four quadrants” and actually I like the four quadrants more because it makes the book makes a distinction between the four quadrants, basically four types of occupations or states where people are. So, the first one is a W-2 that’s an employee. Then you have an employee and then on the other side you have investor. And most people want to jump from employee to an investor, but you basically have employee, self employed, business owner and investor. And usually you go from employee to business owner or from employee to self employed and then to investor because the self employment or the business ownership will generate enough cash so you can start investing.

However, one of the things that resonated with me when I read the book is that the author makes this distinction between business owner and self employed. He said that basically many people are getting confused between the two. They think that if they’re consultants or they’re doing everything in the business, that they they own a business. But if you go on vacation for six months and the business dies, then you don’t own a business, you are self employed and it’s very, very different. And you can scale when you understand the difference and when you move to the business owner bucket. So the same thing is applied here. Yeah, of course it will be perfect the way you want it, but you’re always going to stay self employed. You’re never going to make the jump to a business owner.

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