Ep 5 | The Hidden Cost of DIY in Business

Welcome back to The Backend of Business.

This week, I'm talking about something I hear all the time.

"I'll just do it myself."

And most of the time, you probably can.

You can build the website.

You can learn the tech.

You can watch hours of YouTube tutorials.

But that doesn't mean you should.

At some point, doing everything yourself stops being resourceful and starts getting in the way of your growth.

In this episode, I'm sharing why letting go was one of the biggest mindset shifts I made in my own business, why delegation isn't just for big businesses, and how systems and support gave me back something far more valuable than money… time.

In This Episode

•  Why "I can do it myself" is keeping so many business owners stuck 
•  The hidden cost of doing everything yourself 
•  Why delegation feels so difficult 
•  How I built a business that can keep running while I'm away 
•  The mindset shift that changed everything for me 
•  Practical ways to start letting go without outsourcing your entire business 

Links Mentioned

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Hello lovely, welcome back to the Back End of Business Podcast with me, Carly Murphy, the founder of Mobile Tech Agency, and today we are talking about something that I hear all of the time. And honestly, it is probably the biggest thing that holds business owners back from going. The sentence is I can do it myself. Now the funny thing is, most of the time that's true. You can learn Canva, you can build your own website, you can figure out email marketing, you can spend six hours watching YouTube tutorials, trying to connect all the different systems together. Like you can absolutely do all them things. So the question isn't whether you can do them, it's should you. Because there comes a point in every business where doing everything ourselves stops us from being resourceful. So it stops us from spending time doing the things that we love. Time with clients uses so much energy stuck in tech doing their things that you should be giving out to other people. So when I say it becomes expensive, it becomes expensive and not financially expensive, it's expensive in energy, it's expensive in opportunities and expensive in your growth. Because every hour that you're spending trying to figure out something outside your own zone of genius is an hour that you could have been spending inside your business doing the things that actually bring the money in. I know this because I've done it myself. The DIY trap, I call it. So when we first start doing everything business, we're wearing all the apps with the CEO, with a marketing assistant, the marketing manager, with the tech support, the accountant, we do all the things ourselves, the customer service department, and it all completely normal. But most of the time, along the lines of doing all these things ourselves, we fall into a trap of becoming an expert in something that we shouldn't be. So we convince ourselves that it's quicker to do it ourselves, or nobody can do it the way that they do it, and this is a big one that I struggle with hugely. Or they feel that they're just not ready, they're not ready to delegate, they're not ready to invest yet. But here's something I've noticed. So the people that grow often get support before they feel ready. I'm actually in a summit soon, and something I recorded a video on today is don't start getting these things in place before you're ready. Don't start when you're when you feel like you're ready, start before because then you'll be supported along the way, and the stepping stones will be there for you. So this support that you get it usually comes in a way that helps you reach that next level. So, not the reward for getting there, the cost that nobody talks about. So, let's do some simple maths. So, imagine you spend five hours trying to fix a tech issue. So, five hours trying to figure out why an automation is not working, why something in your website's not working, why building a sales page step by step following a guide? Five hours trying to connect all the systems together. That's 25 hours in a month, 25 hours that you could have been doing something else. So you could be working with a client, you could be creating content, you could sell in, sell out on your offer. How nice would that be? You could have had a day off, you could go and sit in the spa, you could spend time with your family, you could have gone on a walk, actually finished work at a normal hour, not sat recording podcasts at half past nine. Um, that is me tonight. SAT recorded podcasts at half past nine, but that is the quiet time at our house. But the problem is for most people, they only look at what it's gonna cost in money pounds, dollars, euros. They don't look at what it's gonna cost for themselves. So, what changed for me is a few years ago I was doing everything, and I was exhausted. I was doing everything in my own business, I was doing everything in my clients' businesses, and I was exhausted, not because I didn't love my business, because I was trying to be every single role at once. I was trying to build all my stuff, grow my own business, do all the client stuff, do the email marketing, be a social media manager for myself, record, edit, upload podcasts myself. Like these are things that I don't do. I don't once this podcast recorded my team, take it away. They edit it, they upload it, they record it, they put it on YouTube, they put it where it needs to be, they get an email bit up for me for me to check over. Uh they schedule that email in, the content gets scheduled out. So I was trying to do this all myself. Now, when I look at the task, I ask myself differently. I think, do I want to do this myself? Not can I do it myself, do I want to do this myself? Should I be the one doing this? Because yes, I can edit videos, but probably should I? Probably not. Yes, I can spend time editing and creating graphics, but should I? I created a template so the things are done my way, and then once the template's created, I have my social media manager who goes and creates the graphics from it. I check it all over at the end to make sure it's done how I want it to be done. Um, but that's just the way I work. So you can do you can do other things, you can spend half a day sorted admin out, and this was me today. I'd um decided I want to update my uh onboarding. So I was looking listening back to last week's episode on onboarding, and I was like, How can I make my onboarding for me simpler? Because everyone gets like a personalised welcome pack, they get everything they need. I have to go in and set the contract, but once once them bits are done, the emails go out the cell. But I have to do some tweaks and I thought, how can I make this simpler for me? So I went in, I edited my updated my welcome pack and made it more generalized. And I put into an automation, I set all the different things up, and this was to onboard a new client. Before I knew it, three hours were gone. Three hours were gone because one thing you go into Canva to make something and it leads to something else, and it leaves something else, and before you know it, um you've not finished the job you were doing, you're now creating a new workbook, a new free bif somewhere else. So, not just because I'm capable of doing it myself, but that was a task I could have delegated out because it's took a massive chunk out of my day. These podcasts were meant to be recorded during the day tomorrow, but now I've not done as much work today that I needed to do, so I'll have to do it tomorrow. So it's taken up time for me that I could have been working on something else, something that I wanted to be doing. So let me tell you a little story. So last month, I talked about this slightly recently, but not in as much depth. So last month I went on a holiday in May. I went away for 11 nights, and while I was away, 1500 worth of client work was completed, and it wasn't because I was secretly working on a night doing bits and bulbs, I did no work while I was there. I lie, I got one thing from a client and passed it to someone else. That's the only work I did, and it wasn't that I was sat on my phone all day, I put my phone in the safe. This was the first time I was able to go on holiday and rest, be with my family, and know that my business is running, and it was amazing because I have the support. I have an amazing team that helped me run my business. So I have the support, I have the systems in place that if somebody bought something while I was on holiday, my team didn't have to jump in because they bought, they paid, they got the thing. Like I've spoken about in the last few podcasts. If you've not been go and listen, but talking about setting up these things and more automation so you can sell in your business. One day I had a three grand day, and I had not even looked at anything business-wise. The only thing I looked at was my bank account, and I had a three grand day from things selling from recurring revenue, which I spoke about in the other podcasts, because I created recurring revenue, people got access to things they needed, and everything was running, and it's just amazing to come home and think, wow, I haven't got a massive load, a massive load of work to be doing. Like I worked my ass off before I went to make sure the stuff that I normally do was done, and while I was away, the stuff that the team could do, they went and did it. Because now I I have a business that doesn't rely on me entirely, me being the one at my desk every minute of the day, and that's what all business owners want. Like, don't you want that? Don't you want to think that your business can run without you having to work? You can earn money without having to actually do something to exchange that time for some money. So it's not necessarily a bigger business, it might be the business that you've got now, but a business that supports your life, not one that takes over it. And for me, that is massive. So, why delegation feels hard? So now I want to touch about the reasons it's hard to delegate. So, a little story about me. I started Maybelle originally as just me being a BA, Maybell virtual assistant, and before, quite quickly, I realised I hated admin, I hate spreadsheets, and people were coming to me with that stuff, and I didn't want to do it. So I hired someone within about three months of starting my business. I hired someone to help me do them things, and it got to a point where I struggled to delegate, and it wasn't because I couldn't give the work, it's that I didn't want to think, Oh my god, my clients know that I'm not doing that job, so they're not gonna think it's not gonna be done in my way, it's not gonna be done how I like it, and it's scary, it's really scary. And I sat and had a VIP day with my coach, and she said to me, Um, why did it become an agency? and it was nothing about the the the shifting name wasn't what did it, it was the mindset behind it. People knew I had a team, I could say I passed this on to the team. Like I have a process, everything comes back through me. So I delegate it out, everything comes back through me, so it's checked and it's done the way that Callie does it into the level of callie. But I don't do everything now that comes in, and yeah, it like I said, it's scary. So you're giving something out to someone else, you're trusting someone else with your business, you're spending money on that thing, and sometimes it feels easy to keep hold of it all yourself. We all do control over our own things, but all joined to everything is usually what creates overwhelm in the first place when you've got the massive to-do list, and I I was a saying I had this massive to-do list which never ended, and my week wasn't done until I finished this list. Now I look at my to-do list and go, that can go there, that can go to that person. Some people in the team have regular jobs, they do week in, week out, they do the email marketing, they schedule the emails, they edit the podcasts, they upload them, they put them into the places where they need to be. So, like, you don't have to outsource your your whole business tomorrow. Like, I don't ever see a day where I'm not doing something in my business. You don't need a team of ten. You don't need to be earning loads of money to be able to outsource to someone else. Sometimes it's just someone to take a couple of things off your plate. One task, one project, one area that you keep avoiding. I've got so many clients in my business that can do it all, they have done it all for years. They know Carter Inside Out, a platform that I use a lot, they know that inside out, but they no longer want to do it. They think, right, if I'm charging for a coaching session and I'm getting £150 for an hour for coaching, I could be I could pay Carly, Carly and a team this rate. If I pay her this rate, I'm gonna be profiting whatever X amount of money it is, and not have to do that thing myself. So I could be doing something I love and I enjoy in that time and spending time with my clients, doing things. The reason I did my business, I built it in the first place, while calling a team and creating that funnel, they're updating that website, they're creating that workbook or them graphics. So just think about one area in your business that you avoid, you dread doing it, drains the shit out of you. Like doing that job, knowing it's on your list, you pull it down to the bottom list all the time. So that's one thing you should look at. The thing I'd I'd make a list in your business and think, right, what what what things in my business do I enjoy doing? What do I not enjoy doing? What do I believe could be done by someone else? This is this things that only you can do in your business. So this is your voice, your ideas, your relationship with people, your vision, your expertise. Nobody's gonna replace those things in your business, but I'm not even saying I bet there's plenty of tasks, I know there's plenty of tasks that don't require you to do them. They're normally the things that are keeping you stuck. So have a think about that. So my final thoughts are if you've ever found yourself saying I'll just do it myself, pause for a second and ask yourself, am I doing this because it's the best use of my time? Or am I doing this because it's familiar? Because they're very different answers. Your goal isn't to prove to anyone that you can do everything, your goal is to build a business that works, that works around you and your life, and it feels good. And sometimes the smartest things you can do isn't doing more, it's letting go of some things. So have a good think about that. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. I'm really, really enjoying doing these. So I'd love to know if you enjoyed it. Pop me a message on Instagram. Feel free to share me and tag me. I love that. I love to connect with more business owners out there and see what your business is doing. So it's at Maybell Tech Agency on Instagram. I'm Carly Murphy, Mabel Tech Agency on LinkedIn, and Facebook is Maybell Maybell Tech Expert because Facebook will not let me change the name, it does not love me. So I will see you next week for another episode. Bye.