At six people, everyone does several jobs and the owner does whatever is left over at the end of the day. That leftover pile is where the delegation decision actually lives.
Sort the week into three piles
- Only you can do it — sales you personally close, the decisions that need your judgment, the relationships that are yours
- Someone could do it, and it repeats — invoicing, chasing, first-reply support, scheduling, reporting
- Someone could do it, and it happens once — a website migration, a rebrand, a one-off audit
The second pile is the one to buy back. It is the largest, it is the most repetitive, and it is the pile that grows fastest as you do.
Start where the work is measurable
Delegate something with an obvious output first — tickets closed, invoices chased, meetings booked. Not because those roles matter most, but because you will know within a fortnight whether it is working. Delegating something vague makes it impossible to judge, which is how delegation quietly fails.
Spend your time on the work only you can do.
Expect the first week to be training
This is the part owners get wrong with people and with us. Week one is correction. You review the output, you say what is off, and it holds. A hire that needs no correction in week one is not a miracle — it is a sign nobody looked closely.
After that, the pile stops coming back to your desk. That is the entire point.