I love that you’d laid out an easy to follow process for how to take that first step for growth beyond being solo. Your five points at the top about self-restriction hit me right to the core. I worry about all the same things.

But, by no fault of yours, I’m disappointed that this same formula doesn’t apply to my business that well.

I was shocked when I read that you spent 1 hour per week on invoicing. I only invoice once per month, and it takes me about 20 minutes. Outsourcing that task to someone else to save 20 minutes to per month isn’t worth it.

Five hours per week answer prospect inquiries? Two hours every week to update your website?? 5 hours of proposal and quote?! No wonder you were burnt out! I only spend a few hours each week, at most, to do all of those things combined.

Most of my time is spent strategising or executing creative work, or responding to feedback and other communication necessary to facilitate that work process. I run a very efficient business, so there’s not a lot of low-hanging fruit I can identify that would be easy technical tasks to outsource. Everything I do it too intimately connected to break it apart in that way. And every project I do it way too bespoke to provide it as a pre-defined package.

For me to grow, it would mean hiring and training someone to a similar level of expertise as myself — that I was comfortable handing over some of my core creative work (or entire projects) to. And then ramping up my marketing to ensure I had enough work to keep both of us busy. That’s a far scarier prospect than outsourcing repeatable technical work. It’s that challenge that I can’t seem to overcome. And I’ve yet to find any real advice on how to do it.