The Snowplow Guy Who Had It Figured Out
I walked into a client’s office unannounced one morning. It was 10 AM, and there he was—feet up on the desk, cowboy hat tipped over his face, looking like he was taking a nap. When I laughed and said, “You look busy,” he didn’t miss a beat: “I am busy. I’ve got a meeting at one o’clock.”
This man sold snowplows for a living. His business was thriving. And he had learned the one thing that separates business owners who scale from those who stay stuck: how to let go.
Most business owners I work with are the opposite. They’re running 50, 60, 70-hour weeks. Some days I’m at my desk by 5 AM and don’t get home until nearly 11 PM. And here’s what I’ve learned after working with over 2,000 clients: the biggest business growth bottleneck in most companies isn’t the market, the product, or the competition.
It’s the owner who can’t let go.
The Bottleneck You Don’t See
When I started LINX Consulting, I thought I had to do everything myself. That’s the videotape that played in my head—here’s how a business should run, and it requires me at the center of every decision.
The problem? I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
I spent 20 hours one weekend wrestling with an Excel spreadsheet. Twenty hours. At some point, I finally admitted defeat: “I need to let someone who’s better at this handle it.” That realization—that moment of surrender—is where growth begins. (I talk more about the true cost of these tasks in The $10K Task That Cost Me Everything.)
For most owners, the hardest things to delegate fall into two categories: finances (because of trust and control issues) and client relationships (because we’ve built them personally). I get it. When you hand over the books, someone else sees every paycheck, every expense, every decision you’ve made. When you hand over a client, you risk the relationship you’ve nurtured for years. But delegation for business owners isn’t about abandoning responsibility—it’s about multiplying your impact.
The Real Cost of Holding On
Here’s what nobody tells you about doing everything yourself: it’s not just exhausting—it’s expensive.
We’re saying no to opportunities every single day right now. And it’s killing us. I’m frustrated by it constantly. We simply can’t get to everything, and that means revenue left on the table, relationships not built, growth not captured. According to Small Business Administration research, businesses where owners delegate effectively grow 20% faster than those where founders try to do everything.
When I’m stuck in an Excel spreadsheet, I’m not thinking about what more LINX Consulting could offer the world. I’m not thinking about new product lines, new service offerings, or how we could better serve our clients. Working IN the business costs you the ability to work ON the business.
The company I started building and the company we’re building now are completely different. That shift only happened because I stopped being in the weeds and started seeing the bigger picture.
The Lawn Guy Lesson: ROI of Letting Go
I keep coming back to this simple example when helping business owners overcome their fear of delegation: lawn care.
A crew does my yard for $75 every ten days. I used to spend every Saturday doing it myself. When I did the math—the time, the energy, the opportunity cost—paying someone else wasn’t an expense. It was an investment with an overwhelming return.
I had this exact conversation with a client last week. He’s doing all his own social media and said, “I can’t afford to hire that out.” So I asked him: “What do you make on a new contract?” About $10,000 to $15,000, he said. “And if you had proper social media running, how many new contracts would you land?” He figured four or five.
Let’s do the math. A virtual assistant for social media costs maybe $12,000 a year. The return? $50,000 in new business.
He thought he couldn’t afford to delegate. The truth? He couldn’t afford not to. This is the mindset shift every entrepreneur needs when scaling a small business.
The Surprise No One Warns You About
Here’s what surprised me most when I started delegating: I got busier, not less busy. At least at first.
When it’s just you, your only bottleneck is your own time. But when you hire one person, two people, five people—suddenly they’re all waiting on you. You don’t get the return on investment if they’re stuck waiting for your input. Harvard Business Review calls this the “delegation paradox”—you must invest time to save time.
Some days I’m on the phone with staff for six hours straight before I can even start my own work. It’s 2 PM and I’m just getting going. This is where business owner burnout becomes a real risk if you don’t push through the transition period.
But here’s the other surprise: when you look up after a few months, you realize how far you’ve come. We’ve done six times the work I could have done alone. The company I thought I was building—a little stick figure—has become a masterpiece I never imagined.
Yes, it’s been harder than I expected. But it’s also been more rewarding than I dreamed.
The Question That Changes Everything
If you’re a business owner who believes you have to do it all, I have a challenge for you.
Tonight, look in the mirror and say: “I can do this better than anybody else on the planet.”
If you can honestly say that—keep doing it yourself.
But you can’t. Nobody can. Not Elon Musk, not anyone. Can you imagine Elon Musk as a sales guy? Of course not. So what makes you think you can be everything to your business?
The real question isn’t “Can I afford to delegate?” It’s this: Do I want this business to be 100% about me, or 100% not about me?
When you choose “not about me,” everything changes. You start finding people who are better than you at each piece of the puzzle. You let the pilots fly the airplane. You let the IT people handle security. You let the marketers do marketing.
And eventually? You become the snowplow guy with his feet up at 10 AM—not because you’re lazy, but because you built something that doesn’t need you in the weeds anymore.
That’s not giving up control. That’s gaining freedom.