E114: Why You Must Delegate Before You're "Ready"

Struggling to grow because you're doing everything yourself? In this episode of the Kitchen Table Dreams podcast, host Kimberly Houston challenges the toxic myth that you have to wait until you hit six figures to get help. Spoiler: That’s backward—and it's holding you back.

Drawing on lessons from her Hello7 coach certification, Kimberly breaks down the Recipe for Delegation—from setting up SOPs to knowing what’s truly yours to do. She unpacks how role clarity, trust, and creative delegation (yes, even bartering or AI!) can unlock time, focus, and growth—starting now.

🎧 Whether you’re building a business or just trying to breathe again, this one’s a must-listen.

What You'll Learn:
• The mindset shift that makes or breaks your growth
• What tasks you should NEVER delegate—and what you absolutely should
• Real-world tips for delegating on a budget, or even for free
• How personal and business delegation go hand-in-hand

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Myth of Doing It All Alone
• 3:22 The Importance of Delegation
• 5:49 Creative Solutions for Delegation
• 8:44 Delegation in Personal Life
• 11:17 Making Today Day One

Transcript

Kimberly Houston (00:01.45)
What if I told you that doing it all by yourself is not a badge of honor and that as an entrepreneur, you actually shouldn't even want to? Welcome back to Kitchen Table Dreams podcast. I am your host, Kimberly Houston. And there is something I have to get off my chest. One of the things that and there were a list of things that I encountered over the last

10 months in the Hello7 coach certification that I wanted to bring to the forefront. And one of those things is the idea that you have to be at a certain level in business before you begin to delegate things. And I want to clear up some misconceptions. So if you are listening today, thank you so much for tuning in. If you know someone who needs to hear this episode, please make sure

you share it with them and then also make sure that you are subscribed to the podcast so that you know when we drop something new every week. So let's jump into this. We've been on a recipe series, right? And so today is going to be the recipe for delegation. The idea that we are supposed to work in silo, the idea that we're supposed to work alone and do it all until we make our first six figures and then we can hire out is a lot.

It is not real. It is a fallacy. And honestly, it's kind of impossible. So let's talk about some things that we could outsource, some things that we could delegate. One, SOPs. So your standard operating procedures manual. If you want to bring somebody else inside of your business, but you don't have a clear path for them to be able to do the thing, that's a problem. So we need to create an SOP that tells them

what it is they're supposed to be doing. In going with that role clarity, role clarity helps us understand who is responsible for what and why, right? So for example, if I give a task, like we're gonna work on editing some videos for YouTube, if the person that I give that to doesn't fully understand, like that's their job.

Kimberly Houston (02:29.272)
That is all they do as opposed to every single week they do something different. If they know that they do our YouTube editing every single week, that is role clarity. And that role clarity means that they are the one who is responsible for getting that YouTube video edited in up, right? Whereas if you as the business owner, as the leader are all over the place and you're giving out different tasks every week, there is no role clarity.

If you just give people what I like to call a throwaway task, something you don't want to do but it needs to be done so you just throw it at somebody else, there is no way for them to have real clarity. They also cannot become proficient in that thing, right? So it is important that when we bring people into our businesses, not only do we have a clear SLP that they can go to resource to figure out what they're supposed to be doing.

but that we also have role clarity and you clearly define what they should and should not be doing in the business. I want to say another ingredient to this would be trust, right? No like and trust with your team. No like and trust with your forward-facing audience. If the people who come on board with you are unhappy, the people who are forward-facing will know. It's going to show up in the work, right? And so we want to make sure that we are

crossing all of our T's and dotting all of our I's when it comes to trust, we want people to be able to trust us. Now, how does this look in real life? So every day I look at my daily schedule and decide what can be delegated. Like what can I give to someone else? There are some things in my business, like let's say recording the podcast. I cannot outsource that. It's my podcast.

It's my thoughts. It's my brain. I can't outsource it, but I can't outsource the editing of it. I can't outsource the blog post that goes along with it. I can outsource maybe pulling together something to go with that episode, but I cannot outsource the actual sitting down and recording of an episode. So what things are CEO tasks? What things do you...

Kimberly Houston (04:50.144)
as the business owner have to do? And then what are things you're doing that you don't have to do? So I don't have to create the Canva graphics for the podcast episode that will go on Pinterest. That can be delegated with the template. But again, I still have to record the podcast. So when you're thinking about things, every week I go through my full list of things. And then I decide what things are Kimberly's tasks, what things...

Am I the only person that can do it versus what are the other tasks that can be split among other people? Okay. So that's the first thing. The other thing I want to bring up is this. People were telling me that they could not afford to have help in their business. They couldn't afford to delegate anything. And I would like to offer a refrain. You can't afford not to. Here's what happens when you don't delegate things. You...

are trying to do everything in the, there are things that you are not proficient at that you are still doing. And those things are eating up all your time and killing your creativity when it could be used in other places. Now, if money is an issue and you cannot afford to financially invest in another person to help you, there's a couple of things you can do. Number one, you can use AI.

There are several ways you can use it. You can use it for brain dumping. You can use it for staff meetings. You can use it for creating reports, for taking transcripts of things and giving you summaries. It can help you write emails. It can do so many things that will help you gain some time back so that you can focus on those things that you really need to show up for. That's one. Two, you can barter things out.

So there may be people who are proficient and very, very good at systems management or in working with Canva or in creating spreadsheets. They're really great with administrative tasks. And maybe that person can do an administrative task for you for maybe five hours a week in exchange for something else. It could be in exchange for.

Kimberly Houston (07:11.822)
coaching, could be in exchange for you doing something that will help them out in their business. Like you just never know until you have those conversations with people. And I can tell you from experience, I have had paid help in my business. I have had unpaid help in my business. And by unpaid help, I mean there was no reciprocal anything going on. Like I didn't have to show up for them.

outside of whatever the task was I needed them to do. Then there were times where this was a barter situation. So they're working for me for five hours a week and then I'm coaching them, right? And so there are ways for you to figure this out. When I had the bakery and people were helping me like maybe package up a really large order or something like that.

Maybe they got a discount on their next cake or I did a cake for them for free. There are ways for you to get the help that you need. But if you continue to carry around the thought and the idea that you can't delegate things in your business because you can't afford it, you are doing yourself a disservice. And I would ask you to take the time to come up with creative ways to be able to delegate some things in your life.

Another thing that I look at when I am looking every day, when I look at my to-do list on what can I delegate, that's not just in my business. It's also in my household things. So if it's a super, super busy day, can I outsource dinner? Can I give that to someone else within my home or am I meal prepping for the week ahead?

I know that for the next couple of weeks, I'll be on the road. And there are some things that still need to take place in my home, in my absence. And those things are going to require me to meal prep ahead of time so that people in my home can have the things that they need to have. But then there are some things that I'm not meal prepping and people can feed themselves, right? So you have to start looking at what can be delegated. Can you give...

Kimberly Houston (09:37.086)
a task like grocery pickup instead of going to the grocery store to shop. Can you do a grocery pickup? Can you have groceries delivered? All of these conveniences that were magically given to us during COVID did not disappear. So what of those things can you begin to incorporate into your life? I'll be honest and tell you, I have not gone back into the grocery store to shop. I have not gone back into the grocery store to shop.

That is just not something I would like to do again. COVID changed that for me, right? Now, have I had to go through some trial and error to figure out what stores are best to shop from? If there are certain times I can shop at these stores, if there are certain things I need to purchase for them, right? But again, it's been five years. And so now I have this down to a science. My produce and my meat come from one place and everything else comes from somewhere else because I know that the quality is going to be different.

but I'm still not getting out my car and going in a store, right? So I've bought back so much of my time by outsourcing a household chore, which is going grocery shopping. And now I can do that just by picking things up when it's convenient for me. It gives me a time to decompress and unwind when I'm in the car, things of the sort. What are ways that you can delegate things in your personal and your professional life?

to someone else in order for you to show up as your best self. So just to rewind this delegation conversation, even if you don't have the financial means to outsource things, you can find creative ways to do so. I would implore you to ask ChatGPT or Claude, Claude.ai, what are some creative ways that I can delegate some task in my business.

particularly the ones that don't require you to be there, right? Are there schedules you can implement? Are there some reoccurring tasks that you can set up? Are there templates you can be using in your business that will allow you to delegate these things out to other people where it still shows up in your voice with the same level of enthusiasm that you would have when you were doing things, only you're not the one who has to do it, right?

Kimberly Houston (12:04.618)
I think that when we get to the point as entrepreneurs that we understand at some point that small business, that startup business is supposed to come something so much bigger. And instead of waiting on one day to get there, I would encourage you to make today day one that you make the decision to do things differently.

And hopefully, you'll start with more delegation. Until next time, friends, stay sweet.