Let’s get real, you’re not going to build a million-dollar business while spending your time on $10/hour tasks.
In this no-fluff, heart-to-heart episode, Danielle breaks down the true cost of doing it all yourself, especially the low-value to-dos that keep you “busy” but not profitable, and shares the action steps you need to buy back your time, start delegating, and finally lead your business like the CEO you are.
Key Takeaways:
- You Can’t Scale Doing Everything Yourself: Low-value tasks might feel productive, but they’re keeping you stuck and small. You need to step out of the weeds to grow.
- CEO Work is Strategic, Not Busywork: Your most valuable contributions come from visioning, leading, analyzing financials, and making key decisions, not juggling a constant stream of admin tasks.
- Delegation Isn’t a Luxury—It’s a Business Strategy: Even if you start small, outsourcing or automating frees up hours you can reinvest in revenue-generating work.
- Knowing Your Numbers Helps You Hire Confidently: Understanding your financials lets you forecast, set targets, and build a team even on a smaller budget.
- Done is Better Than Perfect: Let go of the belief that no one else can do it like you. Delegation is a skill, and progress beats perfection every time.
Topics Discussed:
(00:30 – 01:22) Why $10/Hour Tasks are Holding You Back from Building a Million-Dollar Business
(01:27 – 02:38) What Real CEO Work Looks Like (and What It Doesn’t)
(02:41 – 03:20) The Actual Cost of Doing Everything Yourself in Time and Revenue
(03:21 – 05:31) Small, Realistic Ways to Start Delegating Right Away
(05:32 – 07:05) Your Role as a CEO and How to Use Your Numbers Strategically
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Episode Transcript
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;25;23
Danielle Hayden
Let's get real, you will never build a million business doing $10 an hour tasks. Welcome back to Business by the Books, the podcast for business owners who are ready to stop playing small and start using their numbers to lead like a real CEO. I'm your host, Danielle Hayden, reformed corporate CFO and CEO of Kickstart Accounting and your straight talking business bestie when it comes to financial strategy.
00;00;25;25 - 00;01;01;10
Danielle Hayden
In today's episode, we're having a heart to heart. Seriously, you guys, a heart to heart. A real conversation about the real cost of doing it yourself, especially the low value tasks that keep you air quote “busy” but not profitable. Every week I have the amazing opportunity to talk to smart, capable women who are stuck in the same cycle: doing their own bookkeeping, managing their own inbox, scheduling social media posts, running to target for office supplies, answering every single email themselves.
00;01;01;13 - 00;01;27;02
Danielle Hayden
And guess what? They're exhausted. They can't pay themselves enough, and their business, it's not growing because they're spending their time like an employee, not like a CEO. And so here's the hard truth for you today, if you are doing $10 an hour work, you are running a $10 an hour business. So what does this mean for you? What do you do about it?
00;01;27;04 - 00;01;51;01
Danielle Hayden
What is the CEO work? This isn't about being too good for the admin tasks. This isn't about not being able to make coffee at the coffee station. This is about knowing what only you can do as a business owner, and then it's protecting your energy to do just that CEO work. It is setting the vision and goals for your business,
00;01;51;04 - 00;02;28;17
Danielle Hayden
reviewing your financials, reviewing your profit strategy, building and understanding your budget, analyzing your budget to actual numbers, building relationships and visibility, making decisions that literally only you can make about your business, doing the reflection only you can do and leading your team and driving your culture. Everything else, it's that $10 an hour work. So I want you to ask yourself, what is the true value of your time?
00;02;28;19 - 00;02;52;02
Danielle Hayden
What is your hourly rate as a visionary and leader of your business? Because your business will only grow to the level you are willing to let go. So let's talk about the numbers, okay? If you spend four hours a week of admin, three hours on social media, two hours fighting with your bookkeeper, and five hours doing client work that you should have delegated,
00;02;52;04 - 00;03;21;01
Danielle Hayden
you've just lost 14 hours that you could have used on a strategy session, raising prices, analyzing your profit margins, understanding your budget, hosting a strategy session, talking to your team. Those 14 hours could have gotten thousands of dollars in revenue. Instead, you saved yourself a couple hundred bucks. You are not saving money by doing it yourself. You are delaying your growth.
00;03;21;06 - 00;03;46;26
Danielle Hayden
So I have a challenge for you today. I want you to start buying back your time this week. And maybe you start small. Maybe it's hire a VA. Maybe it's paying somebody to mow your lawn. Your kids to empty your dishwasher. Hand off your bookkeeping. Hello, Kickstart Accounting! Use scheduling tools and automation. Or create an SOP so someone can repeat what you do for you.
00;03;46;27 - 00;04;11;01
Danielle Hayden
The goal is not perfection, right? We are not going to get this perfect right now, but it's progress today. Maybe you can let go of the idea that no one else can do it like you or that you need to be the one to do it in order to understand it. Done is better than perfect, and delegation is a skill you can learn.
00;04;11;04 - 00;04;33;18
Danielle Hayden
Now, when I started to hire here at Kickstart Accounting, I knew that I wanted to hire for the tasks that I hated the most, not the ones that I thought that I could afford. So as we think about what can we afford to hire? Who can we afford to pay in our business to take tasks off your plate so that you can do the high level visionary work in your business?
00;04;33;20 - 00;04;56;18
Danielle Hayden
Because you may be thinking, I'm not ready to hire. I don't have the cash. I'm not sure I can afford it. I'm scared. And this is why you need to know your numbers. At Kickstart, we help our clients forecast the expenses before they hire team members. We set goal breakeven targets before we invest in new initiatives.
00;04;56;21 - 00;05;22;22
Danielle Hayden
We create budgets and spending plans that include support staff. You don't need a full-time team to start doing everything in your business. You just need a strategy. So here's your call to action: I want you to list out everything that you did last week, and highlight the tasks that only you can do. Now the rest? We're going to delegate it.
00;05;22;25 - 00;05;49;13
Danielle Hayden
I want you to choose one task that you can let go of right now. Inbox. Management. Bookkeeping. Canva posts. Just get started. Then I want you to decide what you'll do with that time. Book a client call. Build out a strategy. Create revenue. I want to leave you with one last example of this: What I see happen with some incredible CEOs and business owners,
00;05;49;15 - 00;06;19;11
Danielle Hayden
they spend so much time doing the bookkeeping. They're in QuickBooks trying to figure it all out. Decide what expenses go where. They have no idea if that's even right. They've spent so much time. They're angry and they're frustrated. When they're done, they slammed the laptop shut and they walk away thinking the bookkeeping, it's done. Here's the problem with that strategy is that your job as a business owner, as a CEO, it just started.
00;06;19;17 - 00;06;51;11
Danielle Hayden
Your job was never to open QuickBooks. It wasn't to do the bookkeeping. Your job as a CEO is to look at the numbers, to reflect on them, to think about the business strategy behind the numbers, to decide what's working, what's not working, what you're going to use to grow your business. If you're spending your time in the weeds doing the tasks, you don't have the time or energy to spend time on the real CEO tasks:
00;06;51;11 - 00;07;22;27
Danielle Hayden
Reviewing, reflecting, and using your numbers to make business decisions. Million dollar businesses, they're not built on burnout. We are allowed to put in boundaries in our business. If you're ready to stop spinning and start scaling, I want you to book a call with the Kickstart Accounting Team. We'll help you build a business that runs on strategy, on numbers, confidence, not stress.
00;07;23;00 - 00;08;05;13
Danielle Hayden
I hope you enjoyed today's episode of Business by the Books. Don't forget to hit like and subscribe! This is the number one way we can help other entrepreneurs find this podcast because here at Kickstart Accounting, Inc., it is our mission to help entrepreneurs understand their numbers, get access to this information, and grow and thrive in their business. So please help me, help other entrepreneurs understand their numbers so they can finally grow and thrive.