How to Know When It’s Time to Get Help in Your Business
There’s this thing that happens around the £200k mark. You start feeling it creeping up on you. You’re handling everything — the sales calls, the invoicing, the client management, the admin, maybe even some of the delivery work too. And it all seemed fine when you were smaller. But now? Now you’re working 14-hour days and still feeling like you’re dropping balls.
That’s usually the moment someone asks me: “How do I know if I actually need help?”
Here’s the honest answer — you probably already know. The fact that you’re asking means something’s shifted. But let me give you some clearer markers so you stop second-guessing yourself.
The first sign is time. If you’re spending more than 10 hours a week on non-revenue-generating work, that’s your signal. I’m talking about admin, scheduling, chasing invoices, data entry, customer queries that could be handled differently. These things are invisible time thieves. They don’t feel like “work” the way client delivery does, so you just absorb them. But they’re absolutely killing your productivity.
Ask yourself this: what would you do with five extra hours a week? If the answer is “take on more clients” or “actually grow”, then you need help. If the answer is “sleep”, we need to talk about that too, but that’s a different conversation.
The second sign is consistency. Are you dropping things regularly? Missing follow-ups, forgetting to send quotes, letting emails pile up? When you’re flying by the seat of your pants, mistakes start to accumulate. Your clients might not complain immediately, but they notice. And you definitely feel it. That sense of never being quite on top of things? That’s your business telling you it’s outgrown what you alone can handle.
The third sign is emotion. Are you frustrated? Resentful about the work? Dreading Monday mornings? When you find yourself thinking “I hate doing this” repeatedly — and it’s not about the thing you actually set up your business to do — that’s a signal. You didn’t start a business to be miserable doing admin work. You started it to deliver something brilliant to people who need it.
The fourth sign is growth plateauing. You’re stuck at the same revenue level month after month, or growth is coming only from you doing more, not from building anything sustainable. This usually means you’re at maximum capacity. You can’t take on more work without either sacrificing quality or burning out.
Here’s what I want to challenge you on though: you’re probably waiting for the “perfect” moment to get help. You’re waiting until you’ve got enough money, or until things are really desperate, or until you’ve tried every productivity hack on the internet. Stop waiting.
Getting help doesn’t have to mean hiring a full-time employee or a fancy agency. It could be outsourcing a specific task. It could be bringing someone in for 10 hours a week. It could be a freelancer handling one particular area. It could be an external person who acts as a sounding board and helps you get organised. The form it takes depends on what you actually need.
But here’s the thing nobody tells you: getting help is an investment that pays for itself. I’ve seen business owners free up 6 hours a week by getting someone to handle invoicing and follow-ups. What did they do with those 6 hours? Landed three new clients. Done the maths? That’s money in the bank.
The hardest part isn’t realising you need help. It’s actually pulling the trigger and getting it. Because it means admitting you can’t do everything yourself. And if you’re like most business owners, that feels like failure somehow.
It’s not. It’s actually the first smart thing you’ve done in a while.
So here’s my question for you: what’s the one thing in your business right now that, if someone else handled it, would change everything? That’s where you start.