I am an owner sitting in four seats on our Accountability Chart, and I am ready to hire my first manager to take one over, but I do not know how to budget for this hire while still maintaining our current profit margins. How do I structurally prepare for this transition?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

To step out of your seats without ruining your margins, you must treat delegation as an investment rather than an expense. When you sit in four seats, you are likely working in the business instead of on it. This limits your company's revenue potential and keeps you from driving high-value strategic growth.

First, use Keith Cunningham's Thinking Time framework to analyze which of your four seats is costing you the most money in terms of opportunity cost. Identify the seat where your daily involvement is a bottleneck. For most owners, this is either Sales or Operations.

Next, calculate the revenue you could generate if you freed up twenty hours a week by hiring someone to run that specific seat. The goal is to ensure the new hire is self-funding within six months.

Once you identify the seat to outsource, write a crystal clear description of the five roles for that seat on your Accountability Chart. Do not hire a general helper to assist you with all four seats. You must hire a specific person to completely own one seat.

Before you hire, confirm that the candidate fully GWCs the seat. When you transition the seat, define clear measurable goals and review them during your Level 10 Meeting. By systematically letting go of one seat at a time, you build the operational capacity to scale your business, which easily covers the cost of the new salary and preserves your profit margins over the long term.