Staying Paid

Have You Shared The Wheel Today?

Posted on April 18th, 2008 in Breaking Fear, Business, Creation Station, Empowerment, General

When you’re used to handling all of the details, it can be hard to step back and let someone take over, even in small ways. The problem compounds itself when your business partner has the same skills you do. Flash forward to my particular scenario: I can’t seem to let go of the damn wheel and let someone else do things that will only push this business forward.

Joshua is, hands down, one of the most talented technicians I’ve run into in a long, long time. We’ve known each other for about five years or so, haven’t seen each other face to face in 3 years. We stay connected thanks to myFaves free calling, Gmail, and five years of finishing each other’s sentences. He’s not too shabby at writing copy either. I’m thankful that I get to run an exciting business with my best friend.

I’m a good techie in my own right — I code, I dig into the guts of computers, I record and edit video, I install scripts, I make webpages and I debug server problems. My shell script-fu is rusty, but I could still hack my way through any problem on that frontier.

For me, the problem is that I’m fairly skillful in both areas — writing copy as well as digging through tech stuff. I never thought I’d be thankful for being adept with code until I started reading other marketers needing help with tech stuff that I thought everyone knew! Sounds like a product ;)

Right now Joshua and I divide our business tasks into two main parts — sales and the back end. I do everything in sales and operations, while he handles all of our technical stuff. On a typical day, this means that Joshua is installing scripts, backing up databases, making custom additions to code we’re working on for websites, evaluating which tech things we need to invest in next…you get the idea.

On my end, I talk to our clients — if an advertiser wants space on our sites, they talk to me. If we’ve got a great idea to enter another niche, I generate about 90% of the copy (Joshua generally edits the bulk of what I write) and have Joshua look at it. It’s good to have a marketer and a tech together; Joshua’s skepticism is tough to slice through, so he picks through “holes” in my copy quite well.

I haven’t been working with Joshua very long — since August 2006. The hardest part is still letting go of the wheel. It’s not really a trust issue, as I would tear off a limb for the guy — it’s a fear issue, and that’s why it’s important to get to the root of it.

I still get caught in the “sharing the workload means you can’t handle it all” wave. I’m a tech too, I can do what Joshua does, and giving up and letting him do it implies that I’m less. The funny part is that I learned that he often feels the same way — he can write copy and he can  whip together some really cool articles.

Today, though, he let me in on some insight that I think really helps one nip this in the bud: just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you’re actually deriving any joy from doing that. For him, his joy stems from being head down in code, solving a problem. For me, there’s no other place in the world I’d rather be than writing copy. It’s just the way I feel right now. That was the reason why I left a comfortable job to be in the trenches, because communicating with all of you really is my passion.

So, from one entrepreneur to another, wherever you are: share the wheel. If both of you are trying to drive at the same time, the project will go nowhere. Our projects are running infinitely better now that I’m writing copy and he’s slinging code.

Have you shared the wheel lately? Is it easy for you, or is it more of an uphill battle?