Maybe you’ve looked, tried to work with or even hired people to help you manage your business. But somehow, every time, things just didn’t go right, and there you were, left again with the mounds of paperwork, details and projects to manage. Alone.“No problem,” you tell yourself. “I can do it faster myself anyway.”

In that one statement, you just fell into the biggest trap of your entrepreneurial career.

Growing and leading your business is by far the biggest challenge a business owner faces. After all, you are highly specialized in your field – which is not business management. Unfortunately for most business owners, when a new employee or contractor comes into the business, one of two things usually happens.

1. The business owner and new hire spend hours, days, weeks and sometimes months working side by side, with the business owner explaining all of the intricacies of the job. When the employee or contractor gets good at the job, the business owner begins to panic, wondering if the person will stay. When the person leaves the company, the process repeats. Frustration, fear and doubt plague the business owner.

2. The new person is hired and told briefly what is expected of him/her. The big picture is provided and the person is left up to his or her own judgment as to how the job gets done. The person does the job in a different manner than the owner and is reprimanded for doing things a new way. The employee feels disempowered, afraid, and leaves.

Frustration, fear and doubt plague the business owner once again.  It doesn’t have to be that way. You can have the freedom, focus and results you want in business. Solving this problem is simple. You probably weren’t trained in school as a business manager, so you must first understand that business operations management is a required skill for a success in business. Most people make it too hard, by hoping for a single person to show up on their doorstep, smart, focused, creative and able to take away the tasks that lay before them with hardly a second thought. I’m about to burst your bubble, because that person is probably already in business for themselves.

It’s up to you to create the environment where other people can be empowered to assist you. Here are four simple steps to get you started on the road to turn-key success.

1. Create total focus.

Get out a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. Title the page Total Focus. On the left side, write down all of the tasks you do in a week, from answering the phone to shipping to providing service and creating new products. On the right side, write down the three things you love doing. Compare the lists.

2. Group tasks for easy delegation.

Next to each task, label it with one of the three major business areas: Administrative (office paperwork) Sales/Marketing (attracting customers or making the sale) Production (producing/shipping and delivery of products or services)

3. Start Documenting.

For each task, write down the steps to completion. You might start with “Here’s How We _____________” to prompt you. Use whatever method is simplest for you – a screenshot, written or typed steps, diagrams – just get it down on paper and put it in a binder called Procedure Manual.

4. Get Help.

Begin looking for people to work on tasks that are not in your “love to do” column. Start small. The right person works only a few hours per week on the things that take you days. There is no magic person who can do all business tasks (except you, of course!).

With your Procedure Manual in hand, you can delegate properly, relax and enjoy building your business, the simple way. What will you do in your free time?

Stephanie Frank is the Best Selling author of The Accidental Millionaire, a complete blueprint for self-employed business owners to go from a one person operation to million dollar mastery. To receive a complimentary digital copy of the book and a FREE clarity consultation to discover your next best steps to get to the next level so you can make more money, take more time off, and do more of what you love, visit: http://www.MyClarityConsult.com

But there’s something else going on – something nobody’s talking about.

On the other side of the fear and failure are people and organizations that are experiencing massive success.  Reality television shows make instant celebrities.  Business owners with “hot” ideas are growing faster than they ever have before.  One in 8 couples are now meeting online.

And they are getting crushed under the pressure of sudden success.

While most people think they want fame, fortune or something bigger, they are wholly unprepared for the emotional, mental and physical skills they will need to manage newfound success.  Celebrities deal with this all the time.  The late Michael Jackson, undeniably the King of Pop (whether you like him or not) lived a life of emotional trauma, lost youth and low self-esteem.  Shia LaBeouf: “I don’t handle fame well,” LaBeouf says. “Most actors on most days don’t think they’re worthy. I have no idea where this insecurity comes from, but it’s a God-sized hole. If I knew, I’d fill it, and I’d be on my way.”  

Now you don’t have to be a celebrity to experience the demands of sudden success.  Take the business owner who suddenly finds himself or herself leading an organization for which they are ill-equipped to run.  They lack the people skills, the leadership skills and emotional intelligence to make things work smoothly.  Working hours increase.  Productivity decreases.  Frustration and overwhelm take over.  Anxiety becomes normal.  Then personal criticism starts, which begins a never ending cycle of self-doubt and lowered self-confidence.

It doesn’t have to be that way.   Here are 5 things you must know if you are experiencing sudden success in any area of your life.

1.  Sudden Success Brings out the Weirdos. When you become more visible in your company, publicly or even in your family, weird things can happen.  It’s like the old story of the crabs in the pot – whenever one crab almost reaches the top of the pot and newfound freedom, the other crabs pull him back in to die.  Expect opportunities to arise, communications to increase and watch out for people who want to use you or ride your coattails.  You will need some trusted advisors to put together a system to discern your good opportunities and weed out the dream stealers.

2.  You will need to learn emotional intelligence. When success demands more of you, it will demand more of your emotional energy as well.  You will have days where you wonder if it’s all worth it, and begin the cycle of self-defeat.  Don’t go there.  Likewise, you will need to learn to manage your emotional state in every situation to be able to think clearly and react appropriately to things coming at you fast.  People will begin to judge you, have opinions about you, and that can make you feel bad if they are negative.  With a high level of emotional intelligence, you will understand that people’s opinions of you have nothing to do with you, and everything to do with whatever they are experiencing at the time (if you don’t understand this now, you will.  I’ll explain in another post about perception).

3.  People skills become VERY important. Most people aren’t trained in understanding others’ personal style, filters, values and perspective.  Therefore, communication breakdown occurs more often as teams grow and you need more people around you to handle daily activities.  It is imperative that you become a student of people and behavior to be able to hire the right staff, understand their needs and get people to their most productive level.  Once of the biggest mistakes people make when hiring people to work for them is the “warm body” approach.  They take a person with a certain skillset and try to make them do a job they aren’t good at, and then wonder why it isn’t working.  Proactive understanding of people matching to skillsets is a must.

4.  You MUST become a better leader. When more demands are placed on you as you grow, the general tendency is to be like a rat in a cage, trying to run faster and faster on the wheel. Worry that things won’t get done, anxiety over whether people are actually doing the work, when will it get done cause many sleepless nights for fast-growing business owners.

Recently, I was hired by a small business owner to help with this exact issue.  She was working almost 20 hour days, losing sleep over details and she had people she wanted to work with to build a team but didn’t know how.  We restructured her time, I taught her communication and people skills, but most of all, I taught her how to let go without losing control.  As a result, we engaged a team of 5 amazing people to help her.  She reclaimed 47 hours per month.  Doing things right, she hit ALL of her revenue goals within 30 days.

I tell you this because as a small business owner, you don’t always get to see what the big companies do to develop their people.  Big companies spend millions on leadership training, communication training and the like just to help people get along and be more productive and have better performance overall.  Small business owners struggle, not knowing that a different way is so close.

5.  You will learn to say “No”.  Decision-making skills are imperative in helping you deal with success.  Information, requests, communication will all increase, and your ability to say no to time-wasters, distraction, guilt, frustration and overwhelm will become a skill you’ll wish you had a long time ago.  Your goals will become more clear, and so your ability to weed out potentially unproductive opportunities will be heightened as you truly go to that next level.

While there are many other things that go along with sudden success, these are some of the most important.  When your focus turns inward to making yourself a better leader, communicator, influencer and visionary, your entire world will change.  Your success will be sweet, exciting and manageable.

To get started, download the free audio program called The 13 Vital Traits of Super Effective People.  It will open your eyes to getting started on the calm road of success.

It’s a brand new day. You wake up after a great night’s sleep and get ready for work. You have objectives to meet, deadlines approaching and meetings scheduled which will make for a very full day. After a quick breakfast and a cup of your favorite morning beverage, you head to work.

Then your day goes haywire.

Traffic jams make you cranky. Nothing on the news you wish to hear. The parking lot is full and it is hot outside. You finally make it to the office, already tired and sweaty from the commute. You walk in to find your employees, the same ones who are supposed to be helping you move forward, stuck in permanent water-cooler chatter. They scurry back to work just as you arrive.

Mistakes, apologies, Internet surfing and just plain goofing off are ruining your productivity and the productivity and profitability of your company. In short, you have C.R.A.P. – Confusion, Resistance, Apathy and Procrastination in the driver’s seat. It’s time for a new approach to getting things done!

Before we go any further, let’s get real here for a minute. Do you really believe that people come to work saying to themselves “I wonder how I can mess up this company and get paid for it?” Probably not. Down deep, every human being wants to be a part of something they can be proud of. The rampant “what’s in it for me” apathetic approach to work cannot be tolerated. At the same time, it’s an almost insurmountable job for an organization or individual to be responsible for changing the attitude of every employee individually. While simple steps can be taken to reprimand bad employees, the root of the problem must be addressed as an organization before real change is to take place.

The root of the solution to the problem is a simple formula called F.A.S.T. In short, your employees need to have the right Focus, take the right Action, have the right Systems, and be on the right Team in order to provide your company with the most profitable return on investment.

So how does this formula work? Let’s take a look:

1. The Right Focus – Bad employee behavior is rampant when employees or managers are isolated and do not know the “bigger picture.” People need to know what is expected of them and why. With downsizing happening, many employees have taken on the job of others and have lost sight of this original focus. They are unsure how their job fits in with the company objectives, which can lead to resistance and procrastination.

   Additionally, employees need to know the actual requirements of their job and what is considered success. For example, a bank teller may be required to process a particular type of transaction in a specified amount of time, or may be required to process x number of customers in an hour. This sets a guideline for both employees and management/leadership of the organization by which success or failure can be measured.

2. The Right Action - Time productivity is a primary component of success, yet we are all bombarded with daily distractions, interruptions and “can you just fit this in now?” requests. Ill-equipped to handle the ever-increasing amount of information, email and phone messages, many employees are simply overwhelmed by the amount of work required and goof off because they can’t handle it all.

   In order to set people up for success, allow them to have an hour a day of “focus time” where they are not allowed to be interrupted. They will use this time to tackle those high priority items on their list of tasks to complete. This promotes a feeling of accomplishment and success and demotes the frustration of having too much to do.

3. The Right Systems – Take a look at how things are being done – do employees take the simplest and cleanest route to accomplishment or are they stuck in the process maze? The harder it is to get things done, the more your employees are apt to be confused, nervous or just plain resistant to going through the pre-established systems.

   It may be time to do an internal systems check. Ask your employees which systems make it difficult to do their job in an efficient and timely manner. Prioritize those which are most often reported, and fix it. Create new and more streamlined systems that do the work with less effort, and employees will step up to be more productive.

4. The Right Team – We all know how important it is to have the right person for the job, and the right team to make it happen. Yet all too often, people are asked to step into doing jobs that have been vacated with disastrous results. Simple tasks to some people may be daunting to others, which leads to decline of the organization.

   It may be time for an internal individual audit of each of your team members. Schedule a private interview with each one and ask them what they believe they contribute to the team, what is working for them and what is not working for them. Then ask them what they need to be completely successful in their position. The results may shock you, and when you take corrective action, they will also take corrective action, and profitability (not to mention productivity) will grow to new heights.

People have always been, and probably will always be the single most important asset to any organization. At the same time, those same people can be the biggest problem in any organization. By putting this formula into place, you will immediately see where you or your organization can create a structure that enhances both employee happiness and productivity which eliminates confusion, resistance, apathy and procrastination – and all those wasted trips to the water cooler.

Stephanie Frank works with organizations who want to improve people performance and pump up their power to profit. She is the author of the best-selling book, The Accidental Millionaire and founder of The Success IQ University, specializing in personal success, productivity and leadership education. For a FREE audio program “The 13 Vital Traits of Super Effective People, go here: http://www.FreeSuccessTrainingAudio.com