The information to Win in Business, the information to Win in Life, all wrapped up in one winning, weekly email. Winformation Weekly.

My 14 years’ experience of growing a business from £0-£100m as well as the life that goes with it.

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Simon Says

Winformation This Week...

“Big things coming..., keep your eyes peeled...we can’t wait to finally reveal” ...sound familiar? I’ve seen more of this on social media in the past few months than ever.

Brand new businesses being launched or existing ones expanded. More predictable than the “coming soon” posts are the slump and silence that follows them.

After the initial excitement and has worn off, reality kicks in, and the bit where you actually have to run the business knocks on your front door.

The social media engagement dries up, the sales dip off, and even Aunty Susan has stopped buying your "thing". You start to think your launch or expansion has failed.

It hasn’t.

Below in today’s One Idea to Win in Business I want to give you confidence that everyone experiences this “slump” or the “valley of despair” as its official called. I also want to provide the tools and mindset to get yourself out the other side. There’s even a graph too. I know. What a time to be alive!

I was once a terrible delegator. Terrible, as in, I never delegated. I thought that by doing things for my team, things they could be doing, I was saving them time, and also an awkward conversation.

The penny dropped a while back when a team member asked if I trusted them.

I was shocked, because of course I trusted them, but when reflecting on this it turned out I was doing 90% of the tasks I should have delegated to them.

They actually wanted extra responsibilities. They were craving them.

When I realised this, my whole outlook...and outcome changed. In today’s One Idea to Win in Life, we look at how to delegate like a pro.

One Idea to Win in Business

Something to Survive the Dip

The Valley of Despair Every Founder Must Cross – Here's How

So, you've started a business and by now (like I did) you have probably quite quickly realised it’s not all IPOs and unicorns. Most startups or phases of scale up follow a very similar journey, as depicted by the Dunning-Kruger Effect (below). If you are still dreaming of one-day launching a business of your own, then this is your heads up.

You’ll kick things off with a burst of excitement, standing proudly on the "Peak of Enthusiasm" (or as some call it, the summit of Mount Stupid). Your confidence is high, but at this moment you are unaware of how or what to do.

Then, reality hits, and down you slide into the "Valley of Despair." The clapping from friends and family is over. Things get serious. Things get confusing. It can feel like you're failing. Please realise, you aren't.

I’m here to give you confidence that this is the journey for almost everyone. They wouldn’t have produced a graph and given it a name if it wasn't very common!

But fear not, success can be found on the other side.

Here are 5 tools to get you out the other side and ahead of the competition that took the easy route out...and quit at the bottom of this valley.

1. Continuous learning. One of the big factors in starting to climb up the “slope of enlightenment” is to increase your competence. Upskill at every opportunity. I’m 15 years in and still attend regular training sessions. Every time I drive alone, I listen to audio books. I read whenever I can. I consume content from people further ahead than me constantly. Your business will never outgrow your own development.

2. Remove the ego. Very hard for some people that have announced a venture online, discussed it at length with friends and family to eventually tweak it or change it altogether. Take advice, take feedback, learn, and adapt. You have to sometimes admit you were wrong. Keep asking yourself, “am I being coachable...am I being flexible...am I listening to what the customer wants?"

3. Focus on today. Looking at the huge mountain to climb ahead of you can be overwhelming. Zoom in on today. What 3-5 actions will make today an incredible step towards your success? At the end of the day, ask yourself “I repeated today 100 times where would my business be?” Define what a great day would look like and then make that happen. On repeat. Before you know it, you are halfway through the valley!

4. Replace emotion with data. This reality slump after launch will feel bigger than it is. You’ve poured your heart and soul into expanding your existing business or launching a new one. Very quickly, the excitement fades. But what is excitement...it’s an emotion. Try to ignore how you feel and instead obsess over the numbers. Your customers registered, repeat sale ratio, pipeline, weekly activity output. When the numbers start to make upward movements, the good emotions will return!

5. Back yourself. This isn't easy. The vast majority of businesses don't make year 2. They don't make it out of the valley of despair. Please realise you have this awareness now, you knew this was coming. Take the daily steps, the daily habits to start to climb out and you will. Your competition is quitting all around you. You are built different, keep going.

One Idea to Win in Life

Something to Free Up Your Time

THE Freedom Skill on Tap: How to Delegate Like a Pro

5 Tips: Learn How to Delegate Like a Pro and Watch Your Team Thrive

You will find it almost impossible to scale your business and organise your life if you end up doing everything yourself.

You have to be able to delegate and do it well.

Here are 5 steps to delegate effectively, release yourself of the stress and allowing the team to develop.

1. Focus on your strengths. If you hate compiling spreadsheets and aren’t much cop at it either, then give the task to someone who is and enjoys it or could enjoy it given the opportunity. Your days should be filled with what you excel at, what you enjoy, and what the best use of your time is from an ROI perspective. Anything else needs to be delegated.

2. Still provide support. Delegating doesn’t mean washing your hands with that piece of work, it doesn’t mean micro-managing team members either. They want the autonomy, with some support on top, so best to set time aside to review how your colleagues did with a set piece of work. It enables them to be accountable and gives you the chance to provide feedback to enable them to further develop.

3. Forget the to-do list because delegating is less about ticking a box and more about trying to achieve a set outcome. That should be what you delegate. While you may give some guidance, if necessary, on what the boundaries are in achieving that outcome, the delegated work will be more rewarding and likely to provide better results when framed this way.

4. Set clear expectations. From the offset, make sure you are crystal clear on what you are asking for when you delegate. This means the person understands the desired outcome required, the resources available to them and the deadlines involved. If they still have questions, make yourself available to them.

5. Think about who you delegate to. Every team will have someone who can be trusted to rattle through work, but that doesn’t mean they are always the right person to delegate to. Going down this route means high performers could fill their time with low level responsibilities. Ask yourself if anyone else could benefit from being delegated to.

Win or Wonder?

Ask Me a Question…

No matter where you are on this mad journey. Starting out, scaling up, or somewhere in the messy middle feel free to ask me anything.

Business, life or mindset, I read and reply to every question. The best ones will get featured in future editions of Winformation, with your permission of course!

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Until next week! 

Let’s win, together!