How much do you value your life, dear Reader…?

Recently, I encountered the most mind-boggling story.   Picture an Internet marketer spending numerous hours so determined to respond to hundreds of blog comments in a weekend that their fingers AND HANDS swell from the effort.

Wow, talk about dedication.  Right?

Dude.

Seriously…??

If we’re being realistic, this is truly bizarre.  One can marvel at how anyone could be that blindly committed to gettin’ er done, and in such a timeframe that they would consequently and quite obviously ENDANGER THEIR PHYSICAL HEALTH in the process?

Reader, when was the last time you had an entire hand swollen?

Okay, when is the last time this occurred merely as a result of… your typing?

Exactly.

So to say that a person has done so due to a personal commitment to “always respond to every comment left on their blog” — as in this case — and to spend the entire day doing so until you can physically no longer continue… well, that, to me, is just bananas.

I don’t understand that sort of compulsion to do everything on one’s own–

Well… not true.  Actually, I do understand the compulsion.  But because I’ve grown beyond it, I realize that there’s no shame in asking for help, and that this is actually a Freaking Smart Thing To Do.

Why would a person be so unhealthily bent upon doing something all themselves?

Hey, don’t judge me.  Like I said, I get it — and not as an overly-critical outsider.  This is actually coming from the perspective of someone who was bent upon managing absolutely every activity ALL on my own for years, enjoying it immensely.

“Wha–! So What Gives, Hypocrite?”

Didn’t I just ask you not to judge me…?

As a backstory…

During this time period, I built an audience.  It was never the largest following, but it was one of the most responsive you could ever imagine.  (I mean so responsive it seemed truly unbelievable.)   To quantify this claim of “responsiveness,” an example:

There were ezine publishers who had readerships of 5- or 10- or 20,00 — or even 100,000 people in some cases.  But even when my little ezine had just 1,200 readers, for instance, ads run in it brought markedly higher conversions than the ‘zines with readerships of 10 or 20 or 100,000 subscribers, many of which were published by industry “gurus.”

It was incredible.  (At least, to me.)  How could mine bring more actions, more sales, better quality customers, and more responsiveness in general — consistently — than readerships in the  tens of thousands?

It sounds like I’m bragging, but I’m not.  Even today, I’m actually just as incredulous as you.

Response was so awesome that I quickly began to guarantee sales and clickthroughs for every advertiser, something totally unheard-of in ezine advertising at that time.  (And even now, really.)  Advertisers were constantly on waitlists for months.

Hmm.  Why so successful?

Well, my audience knew that I pulled no punches and would give it to them “Straight from the Horse’s Mouth.” If something worked, I told them. If it “failed” miserably, I told them that, too.

I also made a commitment to personally evaluate every product/program/etc. run in my ezine.  So if an ad ran, it was literally as a personal endorsement from me.

This meant was that YOU LITERALLY COULD NOT PAY ME to run an ad to my readers — my friends — if I thought your product was trash.   (Or even less mild than “trash” — just something I couldn’t stand behind.)

“Well, What’s Your Point?”

Impatient little gremlin, aren’t you? ;)

That example was, indeed, one of me injecting myself — and my personal time — into absolutely everything I did for that business.  While it was majorly effective for a while (as I imagine it’s also currently quite a successful standpoint for our swollen-fingered author who served as catalyst for this post)… it was also majorly draining.

In the end.

And there was one.

I wanted out.

And that is because I didn’t have any smart system in place to help manage the load.

So if I’m honest with myself, yes, back then, I would have been that person to spend hours upon hours writing 250+ blog responses until I couldn’t move a finger, and I’d have done it without a second thought.

But today, with the wisdom and knowledge that I’ve gained as a result of that hard lesson I learned from my first business, the very thought seems nothing less than foolhardy.

So here’s the lesson:

Then, I was so unhealthily obsessed with handling it all and having a personal and individual connection with every subscriber, every customer, that I ended up burning myself out in a major way.  

It had gotten to a point where I just couldn’t do it anymore.

And to be frank, I was young.  I probably was honestly too prideful to WANT to release control, to build a team to help me interact with my audience.

What I realize now, though, is that I was OUT of control — by being a control freak about every little detail.

The true power, control, and wisdom lies in knowing what to commit to, and what to relinquish for sanity’s sake.

I sacrificed (and lost) relationships.  My business was my entire life.  Literally.

And so, I vowed that if I ever started another business, I would go in the opposite direction.

Fast-forward to today.

I have since started that business.  And I’m sharing the load.  Sure, there is still a lot that I’m doing myself (and I plan to keep it that way, because a personal connection with my audience still is very important).  But we’re also still in the building stages.  So I know that, eventually, my personal, hands-on involvement will be lessened even more — by necessity — as we continue to grow.

That is not “a bad thing,” my friend; that is good business sense.

I mean… is it truly that vital of an accomplishment for you to be able to say “I respond to every single one of the blog comments left by random visitors and strangers, (30% of which I’ll never hear from again)“…?

Or is it a bit wiser to be able to say, “Yes, I respond to every single one of my emails,” or, “every last one of my phone calls”?

Or better yet, “I personally support each and every one of my customers.”  And “For my colleagues, I’m always there when they need me.”

When You Are Working Yourself Sick… YOU ARE NOT IN CONTROL.

I read another exceptional article by Marcus Sheridan of The Sales Lion that was, (on the surface), about blogging and realizing the commitment involved.  On a much deeper level though, it was about there being responsibilities and tradeoffs involved with EVERY business decision we make.

And we must think through the consequences of what we say that we want, to make sure that those decisions are ones we can later support.  Reality check, boys and girls.

In short, “be careful what you wish for” (cuz you just might get it — ha!, I ♥ Pussycat Dolls).

Anyway, the point here is simple:

As small business owners, we do not become small business owners to be slaves to ANY job — much less one of our own design.

We have started this endeavor for more free time, more flexibility, more satisfaction… more of “the good stuff.”  So why do we constantly allow ourselves to be shortchanged by our blind determination to “do it all ourselves?”

It’s insane.

And as painfully hard as it is to find good people, yes…  despite that fact… we also need to realize that because we may be the “sole” owner of a business,this does NOT also mean that we must be the sole worker.

Or else… what have we built this for…?

I don’t know about you, but I realize that the key to being truly successful is to know when to relinquish “control” and to share the responsibility with others whom we trust.

That, my friends, is called outsourcing and it’s MANDATORY if we ever hope to grow beyond our current situations and truly build this into something the world knows about — and follows.

Put It Into Perspective.  Please.

Do you really think  Oprah Winfrey is sitting around spending 10 hours a day typing until she has sausage fingers?

I mean, hell-o.

Set a goal.  (I’m talking long(er)-term, broad scale, “I want to be making $xxx per year by 2014,” or “I want to buy a new car by January.”)

Then, throughout the day?  CHECK YOURSELF.

If your current action or series of actions could be done smarter, faster, better, more efficiently… STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING and make an adjustment.

For if not, how are you ever going to get to where you truly need to be… with YOUR business?