I’ve been sharing marketing tips and information and do’s and don’ts, but today I wanted to share something a little bit different. I was listening to a podcast recently about worst mistakes. Social U celebrated our 10-year anniversary recently and I got to thinking about some of the worst mistakes I’ve made — and I’ve made a lot! I would love to tell you that I knew exactly what I was doing and I launched this business and never had any issues, but that’s just not true. It’s normal to make mistakes and I hope people can learn from my mistakes.

So what was my worst mistake ever? I waited too long to build my team. It was such a scary decision for me. I’d been doing it by myself for so long. I actually started out with a partner but that didn’t work well. I struggled hard in the beginning but gradually got into a flow and knew what I was doing. Then I got really busy and needed some help. I thought, what if I hire somebody and it goes terribly? What if they can’t do it as well I do? What if, what if. Well, finally I had to get over that because I do have to sleep and I’d like to see my family sometimes, so I decided to invest in a team. And it was incredible! It was life changing. So the worst mistake I ever made led to the best decision I ever made. And the best decision I ever made was my team member Virginia.

For you guys who don’t know her, Virginia was the first team member I added and she’s amazing. She opened the door for the rest of the team and they’re all wonderful, but it all started with Virginia. Because she kicked the door down and allowed other people to come through, we’ve had tremendous growth this year. If it hadn’t been for the struggle — and the struggle was real! — it would never have led me to one of the best decisions I ever made.

Now, your team depends on your needs and what you’re good at. If you’re great with taxes and accounting then you don’t need a team member to handle that, but if you struggle with it, hire somebody to do your taxes. If you have a difficult time with content writing, hire a content writer. If you hate to blog, hire a blog writer. It all comes down to what you need. You have to figure out your strengths and weaknesses. My strength, something I’ve done for many years, is sales. I have a background in retail sales and my closing rate is incredible. Not to brag at all, it’s just what I’ve done for so long. Then I hired a team to do the stuff I was killing myself with every day and that freed up my time to focus my attention on sales.

Shockingly, my biggest freak out was, “Oh my gosh, how am I going to afford these people?” I’ve always done it myself, where am I going to find this money? Here’s the amazing part: When you have a great team, they free you up from the stuff that’s been bogging you down and allow you to focus on what you do best. And you make money! Incredible. Again, your team depends on your strengths. Because I’m doing what I love, we have a larger client base and it allows me to pay the team I was so worried about last year. If you’re worried about that investment, you’re really investing in yourself. You’re investing in the opportunity to have the time to do what makes you money. It works, it totally does.

You need to ask yourself, have you waited too long get help? Do you need help? If you’re worried about the investment, know that it will come. If you invest in yourself and give yourself the opportunity to work on what generates income, it will be there.