Stop Being the Bottleneck in Your Business

In this episode of More Than Just Task Management, we address a challenge nearly every growing business owner faces: knowing when to stop doing it all yourself and how to do it without losing control.

Too many founders find themselves still knee-deep in sales calls, marketing campaigns, and daily ops long after they’ve hired a team.

Why?

Because letting go is hard. But it’s also essential if you want to scale.

We break down:

• Why holding onto too much control can strangle your business growth
• How to start letting go without compromising quality or oversight
• What “removing yourself” really means (hint: you still lead, you just don’t micromanage)
• The three distinct roles every business owner plays and why you need to evolve
• A real-life story about how one day off turned into a record-breaking night
• The mindset shift that unlocks freedom, scale, and trust in your team

Whether you’re hiring your first team member or leading a team of 60, this episode is a powerful reminder that stepping back doesn’t mean giving up, it means leveling up. And speaking of leveling up, our Empower360 Leadership Coaching is how you can step up into the leader you are meant to be in 6 months or less.

Transcript for “When (and How) to Remove Yourself From Sales, Marketing & Ops”

The transcript below was automatically generated. Please ignore any errors or inconsistencies in the text.

Anna Angelova   0:05
Happy Friday and welcome to another new episode of More Than Just Task Management, your favorite favorite daily podcast where we help you build a thriving business. I’m Anna Angelova, business coaching consultant and co-host of this podcast and as usual together.
With me, I have Shoris Minisvand, my fellow co-host and business consultant.

Jores Minasvand   0:30
Hey Anna, how is Saturday, Friday? Beautiful, sunny, sunny Friday.
What is the topic for today?

Anna Angelova   0:40
The topic for today is when to remove yourself from sales, marketing, operations and All these kind of things. I’m leaving. That’s it. Yeah, you wish, you wish. And this comes because one of the things we see over and over when we.

Jores Minasvand   0:49
I’m leaving. That’s it. Bye.

Anna Angelova   0:59
We talk with our prospects and with customers. It’s like they are amazing, like they’ve built something great. They’re fantastic at what they do and a lot of them, they have teams now, like they have people that have hired someone for marketing, they’ve hired salespeople.
They’ve hired even operations managers and yet these business owners are still doing everything. They’re still helping with absolutely everything and instead of working a few hours here and there to to manage and lead the business.
They do still do everything, still wear All the hats, even when they’ve hired someone to do the work. And it’s it’s a huge problem. It’s a huge problem. And of course there’s so many factors in there with.
The natural tendency for us, I guess when we start a business, it’s our baby. Of course we don’t want to hand it to someone else and be like, yeah, yeah, here you go. So there are a lot of things playing and also the other thing, of course.
Is we’ve mentioned this before, so know that you’re not the only one. Very few business owners have ever been taught how to lead, how to manage and how to lead. And these are different things. It’s one thing to be good at what you do. It’s one to think to be a good consultant.
Or a coach like us. And here is like a promotional time. It’s one thing to be a great lawyer, a great plumber, like a fantastic.
Gardner or All these kind of things. It’s one thing for you to be good at the trade itself, but it’s a completely different thing to manage a business, especially once you start having people to manage people. And then a third thing, completely distinct thing when it comes to.
Leading a business and again, these All these factors lead to so many business owners out there and you might be one of these business owners where you told that, oh, now that I have a team, I’ll be able to work less and then suddenly you’re actually working more.
And you know, you know that you need to get out that you that you need to step away. But when like the this is one another question that we we’ve here. When do I know that it’s time for me to remove myself from from these different positions and this All these roles?
And I would say that, yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead.

Jores Minasvand   3:41
It.
It’s all about trust and control. Like you said, I built this baby. If I give it to somebody else, they’re going to **** the bed. They’re going to throw, you know, they’re going to break it. It’s my baby. But it’s all about if you bring. Remember, we have had a few sessions. If you haven’t heard it, go back and.
Listen to it. We talk about who you hire and how to hire. If you hire the right person and you’re not getting 150% out of them, that’s on you. And how you get 150% out of them is to enable them.
Trust them and lead by example. Slowly step aside. When it’s time, step in without judgment. Help move forward. Teach them how to move forward. Step back. Step in. Help them move forward. Step back. Within three months, you are.
Build so many of these now. I had a call this morning and I was upset or yesterday and I was upset because I’ve built so many of these with with where replaced that I am. They’re not poaching them. I’m like, I’m not what is this? I I need kickbacks.
Why are you poaching my people? So it’s it’s also a skill. But again, like 2 days ago I let one person go. I called and I said not a fit out the door. Brought two people that I knew over the weekend. They solved the problem.
So if you’re bringing your part, if you listen to our podcast yesterday, bring your passion and your values. Apply that to the hire the right people and then you need to. The next step is to enable them.
Trust them. Monitor them. Don’t stand in their way. Just monitor it. And monitoring doesn’t mean 5 minutes. Every 5 minutes you call them. Look at the conversation and jump in when you need to step back.
Monitor, monitor, jump in when you need to. Within three to six months you will build.
Leaders that will not only lead what you have today, they will also enable your business to scale up. Because when you move, remove yourself, how much water can you put in or beer can you put in one glass?
Only a leader, only a pint. If you have five people, five people, those five people, you’ll have 5 pints of beer. But then what can you you can do is you can turn those people to yourself where they can become leaders who build leaders.
So I think I mentioned this a few times in our podcast. Seven years ago when I started, I managed four people and there were four of us. Five of us. I managed four people. Seven years down the road, there are sixty of us. I still manage four people.
And that’s how you do it. Because now people that I’ve built as leaders, they’re building leaders, literally. So it’s it’s move yourself out of the way. The right way doesn’t mean you lose control, doesn’t mean you lose. One of the most important part of your business is your finances.
We talked to one of our clients and we were talking about automation and the first reaction from one of her advisors was, oh, is she going to lose control? No, you’re you’re still monitoring your finances, but everything is automated.
Giving the reins to other people to manage doesn’t mean you lose control. And there are certain things that are still you are the decision maker, but you’re not in the way. So it’s a very distinct difference in in standing in the way you are the bottleneck or you remove yourself and you you still.
Monitor how things are going.

Anna Angelova   7:46
Joke aside, what you’re saying that how you’re managing 4 people and now they’re 16, you’re still managing 4 people and reminded me of a conversation I had recently with someone that ultimately aren’t All businesses pyramid structures so.
Anyway, joke aside, absolutely. And I would actually say that like when to remove yourself from sales, marketing, operations and All these kind of things yesterday or last year. Like for some of you it was like last year was the time when you you had to you were supposed to remove yourself and you didn’t so.
I would go and say tomorrow, remove yourself. Even today, actually. Why not today? It’s Friday. It’s a beautiful Friday. Take the day off. Take the day off and you would be surprised at the way your team will step up. And I had.
A very interesting conversation with the other podcast we are starting True North, Grit and Grace, the podcast that we are starting. I had a conversation with a fellow business owner and he took.
Sometime off last year when his son was born and he was saying that the team stepped up. He was out of office and they stepped up. They took responsibility, they did the job and he came back and things are so much better now.
So this is one thing you can try actually if you if you are willing to test it, take a few days off and and just see the way that your team steps up when you are not in the office, whether you have a real office or proverbial office and.
Otherwise I completely agree with Woodoris what you were saying that of course like you don’t just throw someone in in in the water and like you go away. Of course it’s it’s a process where.
In the beginning you’re wearing All the hats. You are everything and everyone in the business. And I highly recommend when you are thinking about your first hire, if you haven’t hired anyone yet or your next hire, like one of the things that you can think about in terms of who you hire is.
Of course, who bring the most value for the company? And this might be related to the function that you hate the most, function that you dislike the most. There are people who are great at sales, and if you are the one of those business owners, you enjoy sales, you’re great at sales.
You’re great at marketing and all these kind of things. You might actually remove yourself from other parts, like you might remove yourself from operations or some of the financial parts. And I’m repeating this again so we’re clear that removing yourself doesn’t mean that you give up control. It doesn’t mean that you give up oversight.
It means that you are not the bottleneck. It means that you’re not doing everything yourself. It means that you’re not checking absolutely everything that people do. Yes, you verify things, you make things sure that the team is moving in the right direction, but ultimately someone else is doing most of the work. So depending on.
What you’re good at. If you’re great at sales, you might want to sell yourself out of throwing the trash first, right? And and then sell yourself out of the the filing your taxes. Sell yourself out of some of.
Of these things and even some of the operational part. Now if you’re on the other side and you absolutely hate the sales part and you’re not good at marketing and all these kind of things, then maybe the first people you hire are for marketing and sales.
And whichever way you are, however you have chosen to build your team, the important thing is that the moment someone steps in to to to fill in a certain position within your company, within your team.
This is the moment when you start removing yourself and what you said. I think 3 months is more than enough. Sure, as you mentioned, like 3 months is more than enough for you to be able to completely remove yourself out of the picture from from like have this person completely own that position three months and usually.
Three months is the probation period even right at the so. So ultimately within three months of hiring someone to take over you, you should be out of removed out of debt.
Of course, again, depending on what the position is and what it is, removing yourself out of it doesn’t mean that you don’t have weekly calls, doesn’t mean that you don’t have monthly check-ins, doesn’t mean that you’re not reviewing reports and things like this. You’re still doing this. What it means is that you’re not spending.
3 hours a day or five hours a day doing marketing or sales or whatever it is. So yeah, I would say take a day off the day and see how the team does and commit to removing yourself in the next three months actually if you are.
If you if you already have a team that can establish team, you should be able to remove yourself even faster. Because if this is an established team and they have already been doing things, you should be able to remove yourself even faster. Within a couple of weeks you should be able to.
Transition everything and really just be there as the manager and the person who leads, not doing and mentally meddling with teams.

Jores Minasvand   13:45
100% agree, 100% agree. It’s.
Years ago I again not aging myself. I’m older than dinosaurs. I used to consult dinosaurs, but I went to a seminar with Tony Robbins in late 1990s.
And a few things that I took out of that seminar have stuck with me for the past 30-40 years.
We are good at some things that you mentioned this over and over, and I love it. Anna, when you say it, we are good at some things. We’re not good at other things. Hire people to manage you for things that are not you’re not good at, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
You don’t have as a business owner, you don’t have to manage everyone. You can hire people who manage you or when we say you, they manage your entire sales team.
And they report directly to you. Hire people who manage your operations. You still have all the intellectual property about the product or the service. You’re still the creative one who comes up with these different products. You’re still the the face of the company that talks to the customers and build this.
Amazing relationships that brings millions of dollars a year. But there’s no shame or there’s no absolute. There’s 100% value on hiring people to manage you on the things that you’re not good at. I cannot say it any simpler than this. It’s like.
But if you don’t you, that’s when you become the bottleneck if you don’t do this.

Anna Angelova   15:28
Yeah. And this actually reminds me that if you don’t have a team yet and you’re thinking like when, when can you get yourself out of doing everything, checking your finances and making sure that you’re actually the place where you can.
Hire someone, whether part-time or full-time or outsource something that your finances can tell you if you are at a place where you can start hiring, start outsourcing, start getting help, ultimately outside help.
And what you were saying, Joris also reminded me also that I don’t remember who said this, but ultimately the idea was that if you, if you know more about sales than your sales expert like your sales manager, then you have the wrong person.
Like if you know more about marketing than your marketing person, then you have the wrong person. Like if you know more about finances that you’re than your financial advisor, CFO, whoever it is, then you have the wrong person. So so spot on.
Dead.
How you remove yourself and when you remove yourself is ultimately when you have a person who can do this.
And you just enable them, you empower them. And like you said, Joris, you can still in seven years from now, you can still manage a team of four or five people and yet your company can have 100 people.
And isn’t this one of the beautiful things about building your own business? And isn’t this what you really want to be able to take a vacation, go, go away and knowing that you come back and you have a company and I know some of the business owners we talk with and.
Some of the people we talk with actually like they reach a level where they almost don’t work for the business, like they almost don’t like a few leadership meetings here and there, a little bit of oversight and that’s it. Otherwise it it’s a bit of fun and leisure activities.
Charity, giving back to society and the craziest of craziest start-out businesses. It’s like, OK, this one is done. Let’s move to the next one. So This is why you’re building a business. Commit today. Take the day off. This is my challenge for you. Take today off.
It’s a beautiful summer Friday in the North Hemisphere. Not sure how the winter is like in the South Hemisphere, but it’s summer. Take the day off. Go to ride your Harley.
Go enjoy the beach, go for a hike, sleeping, whatever it is, and see what your team does. And then from next week, start getting yourself out of it. This is your sign to remove yourself.

Jores Minasvand   18:36
The best advice I’ve heard. The best advice I’ve ever heard. Take one day off, see what happens. Then take two days off, three days off. You’ll see. Oh my God, this can actually run. And I’ll tell a story later when you’re done. I know we have. If you have time, I’ll tell a story.

Anna Angelova   18:36
Hey.

Jores Minasvand   18:55
But from 40 years ago. But what happened to me with a bar? You want to tell the story? So I was, I think, 20 or 21. I lived in. I backpacked through Europe for three years. I went to North North. I lived in Norway, Sweden, Denmark.
All of that goes to the grave with me, what I did there then.
At the towards the end of my stay, I thought, oh, I’m going to just going to go to Spain. I’m going to stay there for a few months and then I’m going to go to Canada where my brother is, my parents come. I went to Spain and I was there for a year and a half. I was bartending in a bar in Palma de Mallorca in an area called Magaluf.
So I started learning. The owner was in his 50s. I was like 1920 and I just started learning. I learned everything and then after a while the owner was pretty smart. He noticed how I was managing it and he.
He started coming in late and then going early. So instead of being there like 1415 hours with me, he would spend like four or five hours. And then he came to me one day, he said if I hire, he had not been on a vacation for almost 17 years.
He was just, he was the only one. His kids were young. They were in a boarding school in Italy. They were, they were goofballs. They were one of them was 16, one of them was 17. Anyways, he said. If I hire you help, can you run the the?
By yourself for a month. I want to go on vacation in Europe with my friends. I said sure. For me it make no difference. He came and they didn’t get anyways, so on average we used to make.
About, I don’t know, about 1015 thousand pesos a night on average. Saturday night was the highest that we ever made in the highest of the season. It was about, I don’t know, we made about 27 to 30,000 pesos. Sunday was the lowest.
Day because everybody was hungover or leaving the island or whatever. So he said I’m going to leave on Sunday on the lowest day so you’re not under pressure. I’m like, OK, so Sunday morning he gets in the car, he off he goes to vacation. I go to the bar. I open it at 3:00 PM as usual, prepare everything.
I come, close it back down. 8:00 PM I go in, I open up. By 5:00 AMI went back to the to the condo that I lived next to the the owners and I left the money on the table and I went to sleep.
And then by 9:00 AM I hear a knock on my door and I wake up and it’s the owner’s wife. He comes to me and I left a note. I said the the bar is empty. We need everything.
The sale of on a Sunday night was 37,000 pesos.
He when he came back, he told me he had never made a 37,000 night pesos.
Imagine what happened in the month that he was away. I made more money in that one month than he did in six months or eight months.
When he came back, he was the Lord. He was calling in. He actually called me one time one night and he said what is happening? I said I don’t know. So he removed himself because I was a young guy. I changed the music. I put the young music on and people started coming in. He was.
Floored. When he came back, he offered me and said I will buy another bigger place. You become partner, you run it and I’ll like help you. He was. It was like he removed himself. All of a sudden his sales went up.
4000%.
Just by removing himself, just by going on vacation, just by trusting me.

Anna Angelova   23:15
Yes, and this is what’s possible for your business. So take the day off in whatever way you want to take it off, whatever your heart desires, take the day off and see what your team is capable of. Because I am sure that at least one of the people in your team is Azureus.
And you will see that rising star and you probably already know you’ll see and you already know. So thank you for sharing this amazing story and it’s such a great example of what happens. And as I mentioned in one of the first episodes of True N Britain Grace, our.
New podcast where we are interviewing Canadian business owners. A business owner shares how he went off and he came back and things were better. So definitely this is your sign to remove yourself.
From all these parts of the business where you are the bottleneck, where you already have people who are doing things for you and.
If you are still not sure how to do this, if you are struggling with this, reach out. We do have leadership and business coaching as well and I’ll add a link so you can explore it if you want to book a call with us and see if if this is something that.
We can help you with because again the do you want? Well, I don’t know if you get the 4400,000 or whatever 4000 increase, but chances are that your team might be able to two X3X10X.
Makes your business if you remove yourself and stop being the bottleneck.
And I know no one wants to hear that, oh, I’m the bottleneck, but this is the thing that at some point, I think we’ve discussed this before as well. You build the business to where it is. You are still the business owner at some point. Your next step to scaling, your next step to 10Xing might be for you.
You to just be the business owner, might be for you to actually hire a CEO, someone who can get your business from where it is right now to 10X. And that’s perfectly OK. That’s perfectly OK. So again, if, if.
There’s some things around this and you have fuel resistance. A little bit of coaching might be useful to help you figure things out. So I’ll leave the link in in the in the description of the episode so you can book a call with us and chat a little bit about and see how you can move forward and.
Break that ceiling and remove yourself and have a thriving business that allows you to live your dream life.

Jores Minasvand   26:04
We love it, love it, love this session. I hope, I hope, I hope people listen to this and take advantage of this. We have so much wealth of like knowledge and experience that we’d love to share, but makes a difference in people’s lives. And it’s so eye opening. It is so eye opening.
It’s unbelievable. And when you are, you have to spend 10-15 years, the clutter of your that weight of your business that has been built on you and you don’t know that you can get out of your way and all of a sudden you wake up and you do it. It’s like, wow, it’s unbelievable.
It’s unbelievable. Anyways, hopefully we’ll can share and make difference in in in few people’s lives and that’s our goal, right? That’s our passion and and and vision for Canada and and the world actually and actually our.

Anna Angelova   26:54
Actually you are all of.

Jores Minasvand   26:55
All of our listen, most of our listeners are out of Canada, but that’s a different story.

Anna Angelova   27:02
Oh yes, it’s it is a vision for.
North America for sure, like North America for sure, because like small mid-sized businesses, but even in Europe actually, if you think about it, I know you travel a lot in Europe. Small businesses are part of every single economy and they have been like historically.
Everything was small businesses. Historically you would be born in the the family of the Miller and you will become the the next Miller and then or or or I haven’t listened to.
Historical novels in a while, like blacksmith writer. He would be the blacksmith and your kids would be blacksmith. And then in some cases, if the husband dies, the wife would take over the business. But anyway, going a little bit on a tangent, it’s Friday and I know it’s become a little bit of a long episode, but I vow.
The story you share, Joris, and even if it inspires one business owner to take the day off, get on your Harley.
And just ride and just enjoy this beautiful July Friday and see what your team does without you. Then we’ve done our job.

Jores Minasvand   28:26
Love it. Thank you and I enjoyed your day.

Anna Angelova   28:26
OK.
Thanks, Joris. And we’ll be back tomorrow with a little bit of a recap of the past couple of weeks and taking ownership, accountability, responsibility and sharing a little bit about what’s going on and wrapping up a short week and.
Yeah, come back tomorrow to hear some behind the scenes stories. What should I see?

Jores Minasvand   28:54
Hush hush secrets.

Anna Angelova   28:56
Oh yeah, sure. We’re humans. Oops. Spilled. Spilled the secret, the beans.

Jores Minasvand   29:02
Oops.
OK. Bye Anna.

Anna Angelova   29:08
But it is.a