Delegation
You're in 22 client sessions a week and every proposal, follow-up, and intake flows through you. Revenue is your hours × your rate. Delegation is the core skill for scaling: moving tasks to others (team, contractors, or automation) so you're not the only one who can deliver, sell, or decide. Many domain experts resist because they believe only they can do it right—and that belief is the ceiling.
Same output, different hands. A coach who runs 20 sessions herself caps at ~$16k/month at $200/session. When she trains an associate to run 12 of those sessions using a clear flow and a quality gate (she reviews complex cases), she's in 8 sessions—the high-touch or strategic ones—and revenue can grow without 20 more hours from her. A consultant who writes every report can delegate the first draft to someone following an SOP; she does the review and client conversation. Delegation is redistribution: you keep the parts only you can do; you hand off the rest.
Start with low-value, high-repeat tasks. Keep strategy, key relationships, and the close until you've written them down.
What to delegate first
Calendar, drafts, and follow-up. These repeat every week and don't require your unique judgment once the pattern is clear. A VA can run scheduling with a simple rule set. An associate can write the first draft of proposals if you've documented how you position and what you include. You do the close and the sign-off. Freeing 5–8 hours here is often the first win.
Intake and routine delivery. Once you've defined what "good" looks like (structure, tone, key steps), someone else can run the intake call or the standard workshop. You step in for the complex case, the key relationship, or the final quality check. Service standardization makes this possible—without it, every handoff is a re-explanation.
What breaks
Delegating the wrong things first. Handing off the "easy" client call without a script leads to inconsistent messages. Handing off the close before you've documented how you sell means the associate is guessing. Delegate the work that repeats in a known way. Keep strategy, key relationships, and the bar until you've captured how you do them in documentation or an SOP.
No quality gate. If work goes straight to the client without a checkpoint, you'll be tempted to take it back or redo it. Define one place where you (or a designated lead) review before it ships. That gate is what makes delegation safe.