YOU Are the Bottleneck in Your Business

Does everything that comes through your business somehow end up with you? At one point, everything (and I do mean every single thing) had to come to me for something. Decisions that needed to be made, reports to be reviewed, client questions answer, bookkeeping tasks, payroll work. It drove me absolutely crazy! I felt like no one on my team would make a decision to save their life, and that they had to run everything by me. I didn’t realize how much of an impact this was making in my business.

What was the problem?

When I finally took the time to stop and look at what the problem was, it was me. I was the bottleneck in my business.

I had made everyone feel like everything had to come through me so that is why they did it. Clients would come to me to ask questions and I would answer them instead of directing the clients to my team. My team is very knowledgeable and could easily have answered the questions being asked, but I had never empowered them to answer these questions.

By not empowering my team, I had created a situation where they lacked the confidence to talk to clients. They knew the answer but were afraid they would make a mistake. I even had a client tell me that my business partner and I were the true value in our practice and added that he could create a team in two weeks. For a business owner, that was an eye-opening experience. My team were the ones that had been doing everything for his business behind the scenes, but he did not even realize or recognize it! My partner and I both explained to him at that very moment that we were not the individuals who worked on his books. Even though we stressed that it was my team's responsibility, he still would not recognize it.

That client meeting was a defining moment for me.

How did I solve the problem? I knew I needed to empower my team to show what they knew and what they did. They had the knowledge and experience, but they needed to have a voice. Most importantly, I needed to change the way I managed. First, I needed to document processes to give them the confidence to make a decision. Then, I needed to mentor them and show them how to make decisions on their own. Finally, I needed to allow them to make decisions on their own and own the outcome of it.

I knew that taking the time to invest in team empowerment would keep me from being a bottleneck in my business.

As I worked through this process with the team, two things happened. First, if someone made a decision that I felt was wrong, I gave them feedback. Second, and most importantly, I let them own the outcomes. They took control of their clients' accounts and learned from each other. They cross trained on all clients, which meant that clients were not dependent on only one person, avoiding any future bottlenecks with only having one team member with knowledge of a specific client. And the result is that our clients felt confident without me involved at all!

What happened once I removed the bottleneck? Discovering and acknowledging that I was the bottleneck in my business has been extremely rewarding in the long run. It was an investment in my firm and in my life. I now feel like I can leave my business for weeks without it imploding. My business partner and I can both step out of the business at the same time, and it will continue to run without us.

What was the ultimate result? Once I removed myself from being a major bottleneck, I have had more time to do other things. I work less hours, and I work on the business much more than I have ever done.

Was that the end of bottlenecks in my business? No. During this past year end and tax season, I recognized that I had become the bottleneck once again. So, I invested time and effort again in what I had done previously. I documented processes during the season so that my team will be able to make decisions during the next year end. I will mentor them and allow them to own their outcomes again.

As you can see, it is always a work in progress. You just need to keep moving forward.

Another area where I don’t want to become a bottleneck is in the transition from compliance work to advisory work. I am making sure that I my team is also getting training in advisory work as well. This way they will also become excellent business advisors in the future.

What does this mean for you and your firm? First, remember that we only have so many hours in the day. If you are the bottleneck in your business, you need to figure out how not to be. Working through the bottleneck is extremely important to be able to move the needle in your firm. If you choose not to resolve your bottlenecks, you will just keep doing the same thing year after year.

Many accountants and bookkeepers have asked me, “How did you do it?” The answer has two parts.

First, you need to recognize that you only need to solve one thing at a time. When you look at everything, it is overwhelming, and you may get paralyzed. Then you choose to just do nothing, because you will never be able to do “all that.” So, you just keep doing things as you always have.

Second, you need to identify your why. I just kept doing things as I always had until I looked at what I wanted the end to be. I wanted to be able to travel and be able to work when and where I wanted. I did not want to be strapped to my business. I did not want to be that person sitting on the beach working. I did not want my kids to be constantly waiting for me to get off the phone.

You can get there. I have. Although it hasn’t been an easy process, it has been well worth the investment. When I look back at where my company and I were six years ago when I first took over the firm (and fired my mother) compared to now, all I can think is that we have been transformed.

We solved one bottleneck at a time and made sure that it did not move from one person to another. It took a lot of change, and it took a willingness to let go of “the way it has always been done”. We had to change technology, team members, mindset, clients, and much more. But we’ve made it.

And you can get there, too. Be willing to put in the work to get the results you want. Be willing to stick with it and just keep moving forward.

I have been fortunate enough to have a business partner that had the same goal as I did along with an amazing team that was willing to do the work with us. We have been fortunate to find mentors that have helped us along the way. Sometimes having an accountability partner goes a long way and pushes you through the tough times. There will be difficult times when you want to stop and just keep things the way they are. It will completely push you out of your comfort zone, but it will be worth it if you keep your end goal in mind. My advice is to find that accountability partner that will help keep you on track. In the end, it is your business. Shouldn’t it be run the way you want it to run instead of how your clients think it should be?