Weddingbee PRO

I admit that I’m a little bit of a control freak, and like things done a certain way.  I think that most people who run a small business can relate, because it’s your company and it’s so personal to you. When you run a small business, you wear many hats — CEO, secretary, janitor, pr, accountant, customer service…  At first, it’s probably out of necessity because you don’t have the budget to hire anyone.  So you become accustomed to doing everything yourself, the way you like it.  Over time, even when it may be in your means to hire someone, it becomes difficult to delegate and let go of certain responsibilities you’re used to controlling.

Something I had a difficult time letting go of was scheduling posts.  One little known behind the scenes secret is that our Bees don’t actually publish posts — we schedule all of them to go live at a specific time.  I had a lot of scheduling “rules” that were second nature to me, but were crazy to impose on anyone else.  For instance, if two posts in a row have text, the third has to have a picture to break it up.  If there’s a post that I know won’t get a strong response, I’ll sandwich it between two stronger posts.  I like to start the day off with a strong post, and end the day on a strong post.  I like to time posts to go live closer together during our peak traffic hours.

Some of these rules may make a lot of sense, but I have about… oh 25 more I could name off the top of my head that might make you think I’m a little crazy.

Eventually Weddingbee grew to a point where I realized that I just couldn’t do everything by myself.  I was squandering my time on things I could easily delegate, when I should have been focusing on the most important aspect of the business — improving and growing it. Then at some point, I couldn’t take it anymore.  I was burned out, my spirit was breaking, and it just wasn’t fun anymore.

So last summer Mrs. Penguin, a former Weddingbee blogger, started helping out part-time. As she became familiar with the business, her responsibilities increasingly grew, and she recently became a full-time editor. I didn’t fully let go of scheduling Weddingbee’s posts until last month — I’d been doing it pretty much every day for three years, but now it’s completely Mrs. Penguin’s domain and it feels pretty good to let it go.

The past couple of months have been pretty brutal, because we launched Weddingbee PRO and we typically experience a 50%+ jump in traffic from December to January.  I recently hired an intern, a Weddingbee reader, and then the following week I hired an assistant, another Weddingbee reader to help with my workload.  If I’m being honest I’m not really working any less, but I do have more time to work on things that will positively impact the business.  And there still isn’t another job in the world I’d rather be doing!

I’m getting better at letting go and delegating as time goes on, but I think it’s something I’ll always struggle with… at least a little.  No one will ever do things exactly the way I would do them, but that’s ok.

Do you have a difficult time delegating or letting go of control over certain aspects of your business?