March 2023
“I'm NOT A MILLIONAIRE and this is exactly how much help I have”
Part 2 - 'The Journey'
Head back to the homepage to catch Part 1!
From the desk of Skye Barbour.
Oxford, United Kingdom.
Creator of Freedom Dynamics™️ for family-driven entrepreneurs who want more time, money and choice in their thriving business and life.
Starting out a people pleaser, with ideas fast and furious, sometimes too timid to act, I quickly realised the one MAJOR issue. ...
There is only one me.
And whilst I knew I needed to get help, outsource and hire….
What others were doing around me, the worry of looking too big for my boots and lack of confidence kept me flying solo and small longer than it should have.
Thinking...
When you have just started your business… cash is tight, and time is in even shorter supply.
Personal brands online can do everything themselves.
Hearing some highly successful people say you don’t need to get paid help until you reach 7- figures.
I call BullSh*t!
I didn’t believe it, or want to have a life like that, and wanted to do this differently.
I didn’t want to struggle and reach burn out again. I didn’t want to spend all of my time working and not being able to live. I didn’t want to do the things that didn’t light me up (for long!)
My team building started from £0 income.
My business has now generated over £600k (cumulatively) and has multi-6 figure years.
From £22k in year one to £200k.
For some, these are great results; for others they are tiny.
I tell you this for one reason...
…. That you don’t need to be a millionaire to have help.
You don’t, in fact shouldn’t, wait for the “right time” or until things have got too much to start expanding the team.
I (like you) can build a team from the ground up.
As a leadership coach and team expert, people are my thing. Delegating my joy. Outsourcing my bread and butter.
So why, Oh why? Did building my own team seem just darn scary!?!
Surely, as an experienced role model, I should have all of this under control?
The breadth of my experience is wide: I have done this for huge businesses with a £45 million annual turnover. To medium businesses,around £4 million. Right down to one woman bands at £40k. In product and service based industries, both offline and on.
This is what I do.
And yet… my gosh, I felt the fear. That fear when it’s not other people's business… this is me. My business, my responsibility, my money.
In the first few months I was all over everything. Or at least trying to be.
Doing all the doing that needed to be done!
I soon realised this wasn’t the way I wanted to build my business… so...
At the very start, before I even made £1,000 I hired help.
*disclaimer alert* I had saved money from my corporate job to be living off £1,000 per month separately to my business.
Before my first sale:
My first hire was a cleaner at £80 / month, 4 hours every 2 weeks. She gave me the luxury of a clean home, clean sheets, a mould free bathroom… but most importantly… stopped any guilt or procrastination cleaning from me.
And arguments with my husbands about “who’s turn it was”.
With a small baby in my arms, my next hire (and I use the word loosely) was my mother and mother in law. Childcare 2 days per week, for free.
I realise that not everyone is that fortunate to have able and willing family members to share the load with - but I share with you to illustrate how (even though family) they were part of my team.
I communicated with them as such. Respected them as so, and ensure a great relationship.
2 days a week child care was brilliant. But for my ambitions - and love of work - I wanted to spend more time building the business.
Before I was ready, I hired a self-employed nanny / housekeeper.
Removing the need for a cleaner, and putting less pressure on family members. The wonderful right hand women, joined my team starting on 10 hours per week.
The truth was, at this time, I really couldn’t afford her. I felt the pain of guilt that I was outsourcing child care, when I wasn’t making any consistent money.
I was worried about what my family and husband thought, and felt I was putting my own needs before theirs.
That said, I knew that I could generate income with that time, and clung onto the reasons why I started this business in the first place.
The freedom to choose.
This increase in team help allowed me to invest my time in business building… and it worked. Within a few months I was turning over £2-3k consistently.
The Myth of 'doing it all'
At this time I started to have friends ask me how I was doing it - that it seemed I had everything together than they didn’t understand how I was doing it all.
I was honest. I wasn’t!
No cleaning, washing, ironing, house tidying. No child care for 4 days, no gardening (thank you mother in law!) no food shopping (hello online deliveries).... I was outsourcing and automating as much of my life as possible, to create time for the business, and my family & social life!
Yes, I felt the pangs of “i’m a bad mother” comparison to the wonderful women around me.
Yes, when I had time away from the business to have fun, I felt I “should” be working or with Abie.
Yes, I didn’t have a clue what to call my nanny /home help / housekeeper officially, without sounding like a posh idiot! That aside, I can say hand on heart I don’t know what I would do without her.
And I tell her regularly.
She thinks for me when it comes to so many areas of our life. She ensures the food bin goes out on the right day, that the shopping list is up to date, that Albie has yummy food for his allergies, DIY is done around the home, James random sewing bits done (which frankly I wouldn’t even dream of knowing where to start mending!) and so much more.
Enjoy this blog?
Part 3 of 'I am NOT A MILLIONAIRE and this is exactly how much help I have' coming soon......
Ready to discuss how you can also go from doing it all to creating time to do what you actually want to be doing?
Why not book in for a FREE Bottle Neck Review with me - a 30 minute call with Skye to unpick exactly where you are now and the action plan to take you from overworking to THRIVING!
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