In this episode of Mind Your Wedding Business, Kevin Dennis sits down with Daniel Linares of DLE Event Group to talk about one of the biggest challenges wedding professionals face: learning how to delegate effectively without sacrificing quality, creativity, or control.

For many business owners, letting go feels uncomfortable. Daniel shares why that hesitation often comes down to mindset, not capability, and how the “who, not how” approach can help you move from doing everything yourself to building a business that can grow beyond you.

Kevin and Daniel break down the fears that hold people back, like perfectionism and control, and why pushing through that discomfort is often where real growth happens. They also share practical ways to start delegating, from identifying what tasks to offload first to testing team members and building simple systems that support consistency.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed or stuck doing everything yourself, this episode will help you shift your mindset, simplify your approach, and start letting go with more confidence.

Daniel Linares is the founder of DLE Event Group, a New York-based entertainment company specializing in high-energy wedding experiences and hybrid DJ-band productions. Beyond producing elevated events, Daniel is also an entrepreneur and mentor who helps wedding professionals build sustainable, premium businesses rooted in clarity, intention, and exceptional client experience. Whether speaking to engaged couples or wedding pros, Daniel is passionate about helping people design experiences and businesses that feel as good as they look.

Highlights

• Why most wedding pros struggle to delegate (and what’s really holding them back)

• The “dancing bear” analogy and what it reveals about your business

• How mindset (not strategy) is often the biggest barrier to growth

• What “who, not how” means and how to apply it in your business

• The biggest mistakes people make when hiring or delegating

• How to identify what tasks to delegate first using a simple framework

• Why delegation is about buying back your time, not just scaling your business

Connect with Daniel:

Website

Instagram

Facebook

LinkedIn

Connect with DLE Event Group:

Website

Instagram

Facebook

Referenced Books:

Everything Is Figureoutable

Buy Back Your Time: Get Unstuck, Reclaim Your Freedom, and Build Your Empire

Who Not How: The Formula to Achieve Bigger Goals Through Accelerating Teamwork

Connect with Kevin:

Wedding IQ

Fantasy Sound

Instagram

YouTube

TikTok

LinkedIn

All right, folks, welcome to another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business. I'm here with Daniel Linares, and he's the owner and founder of the DLE Event Group. So Daniel, welcome to the show.

Hey Kevin, thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

I am excited to have you as well. So Daniel, can you tell everyone a little bit about yourself and how we got you here today?

Absolutely. born and raised, boy from Queens, New York. New York City is where our company is based out of. always came from a performance background and went to a high school called Frank Sinatra School of the Arts. Music has always been.

Well, that sounds fancy.

Founded by Tony Bennett. used to see Tony Bennett all the time. He lived into his own, I think mid to upper 90s. He just passed away in the last couple of years, I believe. ⁓ Did you?

No way!

I did an event with him one time. Yeah, no, it was the most incredible.

Yeah, it was a surprise to the guest and he came out in San Francisco and saying I left my heart in San Francisco to everyone. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Naturally, I was gonna guess that when you said San Francisco, I'm like he probably sang that song No,

just just a sweet guy but like high school and even middle school like I was in a boy band with like four other guys back when the the NSYNC, backstreet, you know B2k, boys to men so like music was just always a part of of my world and and You know fast forward it was like first event I ever did was in high school one of the

Mm-hmm.

⁓

One of the people in school asked if I could do it, because I had a home studio. And they're like, you have a home studio where you're recording people. ⁓ Could you DJ an event? We're like, yeah, sure. And bought some equipment and did my first event. And just zoom forward, I just continued to be curious. like, wait, I could actually take this thing that started out as a hobby of playing music and create a legitimate business. And that's just been for.

Just very blessed to have been curious and throughout my journey, just seek out the masters of like, how can I figure this out of people that have really figured it out for themselves in their business? so just performance creative turned entrepreneur.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's an amazing story. All right, so we're going to jump right into here. So what did your business look like before you started delegating effectively?

Yeah, so there's this analogy that I heard at some point where you're the dancing bear at the circus if you don't have the help around you. And you know, it pretty much came down to every time we performed, I was the dancing bear and we would produce. And when I wasn't dancing and wasn't performing because we run an events company, we're doing entertainment for weddings.

Mm-hmm.

we weren't making money. And so it started to get to the point where like, how can I stop being the dancing bear? Not for just performance, but like the dancing bear for admin, the dancing bear for planning, for conversations with clients, for when leads come in, getting in touch with those people. Like, so the analogy dancing bear is just you're just wearing all the hats for all the different components of the business.

Mm-hmm.

And yeah, it kind of got to the point where, okay, well, I don't want this to be the case forever. How can I begin to think about letting go? And letting go is the hardest piece of any business owner, any entrepreneur. Cause look, it's your baby, it's your business, your reputation, putting it in the hands of somebody else. It's scary. As a matter of fact, it's, I was in a room,

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Tony Robbins, an event called Business Mastery, and all business owners who were in the room. I'll never forget him asking, how many of you have not let go and have grown your business because you're scared that nobody else can do it the way you do it and therefore you've never made the move? 5,000 people were in the room, Kevin, and like 90, 95 % of hands went up. And I realized having learned more at that event,

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Wow.

It's the beliefs of what we believe is the world we live and it's the business that we have. And I started to realize, wait, the people that were growing and started to actually let go were the ones that were taking the calculated risk, but then getting to a point of like normalization. When you find the right people, it's like, my gosh, I should have done that a long time ago.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

And so the whole letting go of business, like delegation, it's really what has set me free in a lot of the different areas of my business.

So was that, so that moment with Tony Robbins, was that that specific moment where you realized I can't keep doing everything myself or was there another moment that happened or?

It was definitely one of the moments. And I feel like I'll call it the who game. Like the who game is the delegating, the letting go, the finding, the support around you. There's just been levels to the who game that, you know, there's this book that was pretty pivotal in this area called Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy. And the essence of the book is stop.

Okay.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

trying to figure out all the how yourself and doing all the how yourself, find great who's to help you do all the how for your business. And that book was just like another level of the who game, right? There's always new levels of wisdom in things that we understand or have figured out, but there's always these more levels of the sensei, the levels of the, you know, the black belt, but then there's the, you know, the, the,

Mmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

the second level, third degree, fourth degree back. So like there's all these levels on how to think of it. The way I think of levels and delegation is like, sure, there's the full-timer, which is probably the most intimidating. Let's get somebody full-time and pay them full salaries. Somebody that's really good. It's very expensive. Like all that is a little overwhelming. Then there's the part-timer, but then there's also full-timers overseas that can help you that are not quite as expensive for creatives that maybe

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Maybe that's a better investment, but there's also micro specialists, I like to call them, or freelancers, people that you could find that have an area of specialty to help you with the thing. Like you don't need to be an expert in all the things. Who's the expert that can help you with, maybe it's search engine optimization or optimizing your, you know, building your website or, you know, I was, I was coaching somebody who runs an event company on the West coast. I'm on the East coast in New York. And he's like, I,

Mm-hmm.

No.

Mm-hmm.

I just spent two hours redesigning a portion, a page on my website. said, you need to stop doing that. And then he's, he told me that days later, he's like, Dan, I was thinking about what you said and you're right. I'm like, yeah. I mean, and his, circumstances are, he hasn't let go of anything. Like he's been in business 25 years. He hasn't let go of anything. And so the who game it's, it's a scary one, but entrepreneurs need to realize

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

that with growth, there's going to be fear, there's going to be uncertainty, and there's going to be discomfort. A lot of people stay away from the fear. A lot of people stay away from the uncertainty. A lot of people stay away from the discomfort, which is why they never let go of areas of the business that they should, and they stay there for the entire existence of the business. I'll even put my dad in this category. Immigrant from Colombia, moved to New York when he was seven, worked very hard, became a dentist. And I'm very blessed to...

Yeah.

to his journey. And he's got a couple people around him, but he's never hired the other dentist. He's always just been him. He had an office in a part of Queens that was closed five days a week. It was only open one or two days a week. And then he had another office that was open three or four days a week. And like, he just was stuck in that dancing bear because he didn't want to let go. And so for me, it's been such a passion of letting go and learning.

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

So it's like, that one didn't work. What wisdom can I learn from this? And so letting go and delegation has been a big game changer for me.

Yeah.

It's always very interesting to me because in the wedding industry, we're, you know, we kind of frown upon the people that do the DIY, you know, and, and, but yet we do a lot of DIY ourselves in our own business, you know, exactly with what you said about the, the gentleman working on his webpage, when he could hire a web designer and that would free up his time to probably be more creative and do more of your, what you're passionate about. So it just very interesting to me how.

a lot of us in the industry get stuck with whatever that is. And lot of times it's multiple things from, you know, it could be as simple as you have an office, you clean it yourself, or instead of hiring a service, or there's so many, you know, an accountant, you name it, SEO, like what you said, but that's where I think a lot of us in the wedding industry, just afraid of letting, I don't know if it's afraid of letting go, or a fear of.

paying for it. I don't know where that comes from. Do you have any thoughts on that?

people just think that if they're going to do it themselves, that it's going to get done the right way every time. And, well, if it gets done the right way every time, then there won't be an error. And then my client won't see the error. And so it's like this inner dialogue. Another thing I've learned through my personal development journey, Kevin, is like growth and like progress. Because some people want to grow and some people want to stay where they're at. That's OK.

Mmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

the person that I was just referring to who I'm who's in one of my groups, I'm coaching on the West Coast. He said, I got to find somebody to take my bookkeeping off of my plate. I'm like, yeah. And web design and this and this. I have probably two dozen freelancers, two dozen that I don't pay full time that are not these exorbitantly priced people that I'm paying.

Mm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

$100 an hour, $200 an hour, $500 an hour, you can find really great people at very affordable rates to help delegate your bookkeeping, to help delegate your web design, to help delegate certain parts of the business. ⁓ Here's where I was going with the previous thought. 80 % of growth and progress and hitting new heights in your business is mindset.

Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

is

your belief systems, is what you've been conditioned to believe, is what your parents or your friend group or what you've learned throughout your journey has conditioned you to believe. And 20 % is strategy. 20 % is the tactics. People think it's, I got to learn the next strategy and then I'll be able to grow the business. Sure, that's a little bit more incremental, but when you can...

Mm-hmm. Wow. Wow.

Think about your thinking and unlearn the 80 % of the programming that might be keeping you where you're at. And I'm not saying programming is a negative thing. Sometimes you're programmed to be really happy and to be really, you know, abundant thinking and, sometimes you're programmed to be more scarcity thinking. well, if I hire somebody, the business is going to tank and it's going to fail, right? That's a scarcity thought that's holding you back from, from actually doing what will likely set you free if you do it the right way.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so sometimes wedding pros in particular are like seeking the next growth strategy when it's sometimes what is the inner story I'm telling myself? What's that inner narrative that is not serving me in what I'm truly trying to build for my

business.

Yeah, I mean we talked a little bit about fear a little bit about that kind of hesitation So what fears or hesitations did you have around letting go before you started letting go?

It's not perfect. I think there's a lot of perfectionists in the creative world of weddings, right? There's perfectionists, like the florist that needs to get it done perfectly and their hand needs to touch every piece, every centerpiece. So like waiting for perfect or the right time is not now, it's in the future at some imaginary not now time. And so I think perfection keeps a lot of people frozen.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And I've learned imperfect action. When you feel 75 % good enough or it feels 82 % ready. Do it. You know, like let's use the web design example. well, I like using Squarespace to redesign my own site. It's easy. And you know, you look back, you're like, wow, I just spent four hours doing something and it's not the best use of your time. You should be using your time on things that are going.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

to grow the business or things that fills you up. Now, web design might fill you up. And if you're happy doing web design, OK. If you're happy where your business is, great. If you're happy where your personal life is, great. If it's all balanced, I'm not talking to that exact person. You figured it out, fantastic. Do what you love. But if you're treading water and you're doing too many things across the board and you're treading water and, you know,

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

you're kind of getting overwhelmed with doing too much and you see it and it feels like there's no end in sight. That's who I'm talking to.

Yeah, it's kind of funny interesting you say like everyone kind of gets fulfilled for different things and it me think of immediately think of this story I Met a gentleman through the local chamber of commerce here ⁓ Super rich owns tons of like apartment complexes and all that kind of stuff but one of his favorite things to do was to go collect all the money from the laundromats in his and he he just loved collecting all the change and it was just

And I'm like, don't you have someone that could do that for you? And he's like, no, that's one of my favorite things to do. that's so everyone's going to, like you said, to fill up their bucket or their cup or whatever it is, everyone's going to it's going to be different for everyone. So that's yeah.

Sure, mean, I guess

getting, you get dopamine hits when you're like pulling the quarters out of the machines, you know, it's like, yeah, fantastic. But yeah, sometimes you're spending your time to your point, picking up the quarters when, boy, if you spent your time over here doing these activities, like what are the one, two, three primary levers that if you only focused on those things are gonna help you build your business to where you're trying to get to.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Right? So some people are trying to do more events or some people are trying to do less events, but charge more. Right? So the beauty of our world, especially if you're an owner is like, you could choose of like, what do want the business to look like? The business that got you to where you are right now. Beautiful. It's a blessing, but what do you want it to be a year from now? What do you want it to be two years from now? How about three years from now? And it's those growth, future growth decisions that are going to be uncomfortable.

Yeah.

and it's going to require a new pathway of thinking. And so that's, think, where you're continuing to reinvent yourself is not an easy thing to do over and over. But when you can embrace it and realize that it's in that discomfort, it's in those butterflies that you have inside of your stomach when you're doing and trying new things or hiring new people, that's usually where the most of where the growth lies.

Yeah, I know. There's so many layers to the onion when it comes to this. It's amazing. So what are some most common mistakes you see when winning pros try to delegate?

That's a great question. I would say the first one is.

they don't know how that person can help them be successful in the role. They just say, hey, you know what? I need somebody to help me as an admin in the business. So maybe they're helping with email. Maybe virtual assistant or executive assistant is a very popular initial hire. So you can free up some of that time. ⁓ But I think they hire somebody and they're just like, help me be successful. And they get stuck with trying to teach everything to the person.

Mm-hmm.

Hehehehehe

and so it's like, initially it's a little, you're just a little sloppy and it doesn't make sense. And you'll, this doesn't work. I'm spending more time teaching this person than I am being freed up. So I'm just going to like, let the person go. It wasn't a fit. it's not for me. Delegating and hiring people. It's not for me. I'm just going to keep it the way it's been and, and stay in that zone. the, the proper thing to do is to realize like you're going to learn and get wisdom.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And, and initially, especially if it's your first time getting somebody or somebody new in a role, there's going to be a little bit of bumps in the role, but just be open to iterate, be open for iterations. Okay. How can I help you be successful or how can I help you help me be successful in what I'm bringing you on for? You know, the best people to hire are people that have already done similar things or have helped others in similar ways.

Mm-hmm.

So like, you know, one of the roles we have in our, company is what's called an SDR, a sales development representative. And like they are supporting all prospects in getting contacted immediately in making sure that they're getting what they need. Did they get the email that we sent them or they get in the proper quote? So their job is to help sales ultimately get to the finish line or make sure prospects are, are their sole role is revenue generation support.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And so, you know, that role in and of itself has been a huge unlock for us. And it was just constant iterations, constantly getting better in what can we do to improve? What can we do to improve? And that would be my advice to people is like, don't go into it thinking it's going to be perfect from the get-go. It's like, give yourself some grace. Okay. What happened? What maybe didn't work? How can we improve it for next time?

Yeah. Yeah.

Because it's usually not the fault of the team member. It's usually the fault of the owner that did not set proper expectations of how something can be successful. And even if you did set proper expectations, it takes sometimes a little bit of learning and iterations for it to really cement inside of somebody's mind of how to get it better for next time.

Mm-hmm.

It's like there's going to be lot of pain points along the way and you just got to learn to overcome them, you know, and just get through it. I think it's a big thing. So.

You have to be okay

with, this person may make a couple of errors. It's not going to change the world or your company's not going to sink to the bottom of the ocean, you know, because of a couple of errors. Be okay with it, but make sure that you have a system in place so that you can give proper feedback that you could, you know, minimize the downside for next time. And, and the growth is in the, the growth is in the iterations and just realize that

Mm-hmm.

No.

That's how you're going to grow is when there is some discomfort is when some of the team members are not doing something exactly the way it needs to be. It's going to make you a better founder.

Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. All right, so we're kind of talking about like afraid of losing control and all that different kind of thing. So what are people actually afraid of losing when delegating? Like control, is it quality? Is it maybe identity? know, like something people recognize this certain business with a certain person. You know, what do you think it is?

You know, being afraid of delegating, think is just the fear of the unknown. It's like, what is more known is I already know how to do all this, so I'm not going to delegate it. And what is more known is, oh, well, I've been successful for X amount of years doing it my way. So if I just continue to do it in my way, I'm not going to have any stress and I'm going to just be calm, cool, and collected for the unforeseeable future. And I think comfort...

Mm-hmm.

is what we're taught in school in some ways. It's like, if you study, if you do really good on tests, then you'll be a good student and you'll get really high grades and you'll go on to be successful and certainty, certainty, certainty, certainty, certainty, comfort, comfort, comfort, comfort. I think that is a little bit anti what it takes to be a business owner is like, let's be okay with

the unknown, let's be okay with the discomfort of letting something go. But you have to have the abundance frame of mind of like looking at it from a positive frame from the get go. And even when things don't go to plan or somebody has a bit of an error or mistake, not the scarcity frame of mind of, I should have just done this myself. Okay. How can we do better for next time? What was the system that me as the owner

should have had in a position in a different way. And now look, sometimes it's not the right fit. They may mess up the second time, the third time. Okay, what's the abundance frame of mind for the person who maybe wasn't a right fit? Okay, well, I need to do a better job vetting. Like here's an example on what people can do to maybe know whether or not it may be a good fit in a collaboration. Here's what you could do. Let's just say somebody you want to help you out.

Mm-hmm.

Create a mini project for them to do, pay them for it, and make it related to the role. So let's say, hey, I'll pay you for two days. I'll give you, you just negotiate whatever that might look like. You pay them for two days. And then you try to consolidate all the potential things that they would potentially be doing in these little micro projects. So if it's somebody that is helping in a sales capacity, you want to find a great salesperson. OK, well.

Maybe they could actually call a few leads that have come in recently and give it a shot and see if they could lead them along in the sales process. Or how would they respond to an email? That's one of the tasks. And so like try to consolidate all the potential things and just see how they are. Give them minimal direction to see how they're naturally wired to see if they'd be successful in the role. So like there's ways of easing into it.

Mm.

Yeah.

Instead

of going for the long-term marriage and you pay somebody full-time and and you know all these things like date them a little bit with a sample project with with learning to see if it'll work and then you'll kind of know and sometimes we'll even do this with like three or five people Kevin it's like okay let's do three or five sample small commitments and see you know like mess things up like make sure

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Like we won't even include the right password for a login because it's like, they even going into it? You know, like what's their attention to detail? So like there's, there's little ways to throw, to test people out and give them this, like this initial test. And instead of just one, you could try multiple. So there's a number of ways to do that.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's really good advice right there because I think a lot of people, like you said, you're not going for the long-term commitment right out the gate. You're easing your way into it. And then that might, as the business owner, ease the stress that goes with letting go of some of this stuff. how do you maintain your creative vision brand standards when handing off the work?

That's right. That's right. That's right.

It's a good question.

Yeah.

You know, I think as a visionary, as an owner,

the future of the business

might have what five years ago looked nothing like. So like, for example, like we're all in different phases of life. My wife and I had a little guy, Luca, 21 months ago next week. Thank you. And we're expecting another in October. And it's like, okay, well, this stage of my life is very different than it was even five years ago. And then 10 years ago before that. And it's like,

No, congratulations. ⁓

Yeah.

You know, we're like building a business that's like mostly remote. So like our events business, our wedding and production business is mostly remote. So like we have a location in Midtown New York City, but we said, all right, let's design the business to be more remote so that, and honestly, the pandemic is helpful in what was helpful in that respect. ⁓ And so I would say vision-wise,

Yeah, yeah, it has. Yeah.

The beauty of vision is you can just create whatever you possibly want in the future. And it depends on the stage of life that you're in. like for me, one of the things I'm passionate about is how can I get as many things out of my area of responsibility into somebody else on the team so that the day to day of the team is not in my area of responsibility and it's in the area of responsibility of others around.

And so things like planning calls with couples or project management, all the different projects that are moving forward. We just shot a marketing video two weeks ago in a studio and just getting really great who's to bring things to the finish line. And I think the secret is, Kevin, you just need to articulate what success looks like in a project so you can hand it off. So for example, we're doing a wedding in Prague.

Okay.

in May in Czech Republic. We're not in Europe a lot, but somehow a American groom in Germany found us in the US, his bride to be is from the Ukraine and Czech Republic was this like perfect ⁓ place in between. And so, we have a way of articulating with clarity, what are all the things that need to be successful in order for our Prague logistics to be smooth?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And there's a tool that I have is called the focus catalyst where it's like, what does success look like for, okay, we need lodging. ⁓ That needs to be successful. We need flights. We need to make sure visa requirements. So you just think through the entire project in advance, write it all out, and then you could just pass it off to a team member that can go on and execute it. There's this thing called 108010 that I really love. think it might've come from Dan Martell or somebody like that

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

And it's like you as the leader are involved in the first 10 % of the direction of what a project might need to be. But then somebody else is doing the other 80 % heavy lifting, the forward momentum, the progress, the setting up calls, et cetera, booking hotels or flights and what have you. And then the last 10%, you're maybe involved to just finalize and solidify things in that way. And so.

That Prague example, there's a document I filled out. I sent it to my personal assistant and he took care of like 90 % of it, like 90 % of it. And so I think for people that are like, or how do I let go? You just want to map out the success of a project or the success of an area. Let's say it's like you're onboarding, like map it all out so that somebody can follow it and record some videos, a loom video or, Hey, here's how you do this.

Mm-hmm.

And here's where you know you're doing a good job. Create resources that set them up for success. And so that's just a little bit of how I've been able to let go more and more is I'm thinking through the entire piece and they'll only come to me if there's any like major challenges or obstacles.

Yeah, and that's a good place to be in with

everything.

So is there, Daniel, in your business, like systems, processes, software that has helped you create and ensure consistency across your entire team?

Yeah, that's a good question Kevin. I think for a while I was like, is there the perfect software that's gonna change it all for me? Correct, correct, correct. And it's like, I used to look up. What's the software? Is it ClickUp? Is it Monday? Is it Asana? Is it Basecamp? Is it, right? Like, is it Trainual? Like there's software called Trainual where you could like document everything and people.

No, there's never no no no. Yeah, there is not. Yeah, no. Yeah. I went down that road. I went down that road. So I know what you're talking about. And I can't. Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah.

Yep, yep, yep.

track internal team members' progress on their training. It is expensive. And do you need Trainual for, you know, if you're a small business? Probably not, probably not. ⁓ You're right, it's probably like three to five grand a year or something crazy like that. Or like 500 bucks a month maybe, something like

And that's expensive, that one. Yeah.

No. No.

Oh, it was, it was, it was, it was, yeah,

it was, was around that number. Yeah. So for, no, no.

I'm like, small business doesn't need that for a training, you know, training software. So honestly,

Kevin, the way I think about this, we're using Google Sheets for, you know, for articulating a part of the business. So for example, is this, this analogy of, you think of a relay race, usually for people, if you just think of the Olympics, for example, where you're just like one runner is passing the baton to another.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

And in a relay race, each person has their area of responsibility, and then they pass the baton to the next person who's got the next area of responsibility. And so the way I think about systematizing parts of the business is like a baton. And so use onboarding, for example. So somebody hires us. That's got a sequence of things that happen, and in what order, and how to do it. But then when

Mm-hmm.

the payment is made and the client commits, the baton gets handed to the person in charge of onboarding. Now, maybe for you, whoever's watching this, maybe it's you doing both or you have somebody that's doing both, but it's still an area of responsibility in the business. So it's almost like a domino that when the payment is made, the domino of, okay, what are the sequence of events that now happen for onboarding to be successful? So what happens first when somebody onboards? ⁓ well.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

We take this email template and start filling it in. Hey, payment was received in this amount. You invite them to our online planning environment. So it's all these sequence of events. And for us, we have it inside of a Google Sheet. ⁓ You could technically have them in separate tabs, like from lead gen and prospecting to sales process to onboarding to planning and sort of beyond. So you could have separate tabs or you could just have it all in one document.

Mm.

and maybe colorize like the different sections. Don't complicate it. Like to your point, Kevin, it's like, we're all like the train. I need train you all in order to be organized in my planning. Like for me, and yes, we use monday.com for some project management and stuff. Yes, there's some software we use HubSpot for sales and marketing and sure. But sometimes trying to find the right tool is the bottleneck in what's holding you back.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

I really agree.

And like

simple, simple is the way to start. And sure, might we have train you all in the future because it makes sense with the way our business is growing and operating. It's possible. But right now we have a really thorough Google sheet that is spread out into different sections. And, you know, as we've progressed and iterated on that, I've recorded videos on here's how you do this and.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

you know, as we get new people involved, ⁓ can you take care of this for us? The info on how to do it is inside of our Google Sheets. So like that's an example I think that people should think about is just think of it like a baton and all the different sections of, let's say the customer journey from prospect all the way through after the wedding and maybe asking for referrals, right? Like how can you think through all of it? And then it becomes easier to let go.

Yeah.

to come, yeah.

Yeah, and it's a hard process to get to, but once you get it, I think then that's the secret sauce because then that's where you can really start, you know, feeling comfortable letting go because you have a process in place. It's easy for people to follow along, have a system. And the other thing too is what you're doing right now may not be what's going to work for you two, three, five years from now. You know, that's the other thing. There may be the new version of

whatever software that comes out. Something else great may come out in the next. That's the great thing about all this tech. I live in the world of tech out here in California. so it's always the new shiny object over there. And I'm like, that might be better. No, it's probably not better because we have a process in place that works. Why do I keep looking for something else?

And honestly, I completely agree. Sometimes people are also maybe not wired to be the systems people. How do I do this? How do I take it out of my head? As a matter of fact, I'm not naturally wired in that way. Like I'm not the sit back, build an entire system. Like that's not my natural thing that lights me up. As a matter of fact, it's a little bit on the complicated side or I need people around me to like pull it out of me. Cause I'm like, you know, I'd rather be.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

you know, talking to clients or, you know, make building relationships like that sort of stuff. So like sometimes it's not you back to the book I recommended the beginning who, not how sometimes it's not, how can you be better at thinking about systems? Sometimes it's, there a freelancer that can help, you know, help push me into the right direction of a framework that can help me, you know, best do this. Some of you might've heard of the software loom.

Mm-hmm.

where you can record a video and then send it off to somebody to communicate something. It skips a meeting, right? ⁓ Loom has a SOP and like a workflow AI. If you use Loom AI, you could record a video and say, hey, so in this video, I'm gonna talk about how to do XYZ. And you talk about it with as much detail and specificity as you can. And then bam, you can just literally output a textual based SOP.

Yeah.

and then link the video to it and boom, it's done. like AI is helping a lot in that respect, but I also like leaning to experts to shrink my learning curve on how I should do something correctly the first time, even though it may take iterations anyway, but like I like to lean to people for their expertise, particularly in things like this. like, can you just like, it looks like you have really great reviews on Upwork.

Yeah.

which is a freelance website or on Fiverr for helping people build systems. Can you suggest based on my current workflow, based on the software that I use, you know, get some advice, like look for the master, stop trying to do everything yourself, like find people you can lean to, lean to somebody in that you might know a vendor, a collaboration person that you've worked with before and ask them like, Hey, I'm trying to figure this thing out. It's a bit of a stuck point for me and my business. Can you help?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Like being resourceful and asking is so underrated.

Yeah, I agree. So just being have a you got to have a little bit of humility when you do that, you know, like you don't know everything, you know, and that's even even when you let go like one of one of your employees might go, you know what, that's a better way of doing it than I used to do it. That's smart. You know, like it's kind of but it's also there's like a reward for yourself when you find, you know, like just I could think of like stuff that the guys in the warehouse like I

I had my certain way of doing things and now it's developed over years to work better for them out there because they're the ones out there doing it. So it's like, that's a great idea. Let's implement that. Let's implement this. so that's where you never know when you let go, that's where the next great idea might come from as well. So yeah.

Like sometimes

just the ability to think we've heard this how some people just like book a day or two like entrepreneurs feel like what's his name from Berkshire Hathaway like Warren Buffett like he used to just book away book time away to just think to just think instead of being in the day to day like all the time and you know treading water and you're doing your web design you're doing your bookkeeping and go go go pause and what do I really really want

So, yeah.

Yeah.

No.

There's this exercise that I love. It's like, it's called like future news story. It's like if a reporter is interviewing you and writing an article about your business and life three years from now, and you could change the time. It could be a year from now, three years from now. I like three years because it's not five or 10, which is like so far away, but it's also not one. So it's like just far enough to give yourself permission to dream a little bit. And future news story is if you could wave a magic wand.

Yeah.

No. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

in both your personal life and your business with no limits, what would you want it to look like? And you have, you know, you could use Claude, use ChatGPT to help you kind of expedite this process. But like I say personally and professionally, because it's like, I don't care if your business is doing great and your personal life is falling apart. Like you need to make sure your personal life is a priority because when that is properly dialed in, when that's a priority,

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

and you're intentional about the professional side as well. That's when you just have a balance in life, which work-life balance, think is a myth. It's like a choice of like, what is the balance and what is going to take more priority this time of year and that sort of stuff. But that's how I like to think about. And then you reverse engineer, okay, well, it may be scary. All these things I want to happen in the future that this fictional

reporter wrote about me, hey, you know, so, Daniel was able to achieve this over the last, right? And then you're like, all right, if this is to be true, then I start to think in like this waterfall effect. If this is to be true, what is, what are all the projects related to that three year? And if the three year projects are all mapped out, what is the things in the next 12 months that I need to do? And then what are the things in the next quarter in order for the year to be true?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And so just planning and vision and future is, honestly believe what it's all about for people that are continuing to reinvent themselves in ways that are intentional, that ways that are in line with like who they want their future life and business to look like, not staying stuck in where you're at forever. And that's where just thinking alone is, is really important.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, there's, I went to a WIPA meeting one time and the speaker was talking about they would go on like a work retreat with their employees, but they would not conduct or do any kind of sales. It was all about like looking at their processes or there was a project that they would work on, just scheduling time to get all that stuff done where the day-to-day stuff gets in the way. And I've always been intrigued to do that. I have not yet done it, but it's been intriguing to me because

Like you said, and then their reward was we get to so much, we get to go get happy hour. Or like our goal, they start in the morning with, they gotta get through X, Y, and Z. therefore if they get through that, they get to go do some fun thing at night. And if they don't get through it, they don't get the reward kind of thing. And it was an interesting concept to me, and kind of on the same line as thinking. it just, because I think we get in the day to day and we just.

the stuff that we've been wanting to get done just never gets done.

Yeah, honestly, like the whole like autopilot of business or life and like some, some, sometimes businesses get to that point. Owners get to that point. my gosh. I am overwhelmed. I'm working too much. I missed all of the engagements for my kids because I'm so busy doing X, Y, Z. I didn't let go. Like, what does it matter? Like what matters for me at this stage of my life, Kevin is I want to make sure that the business supports the life that I.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

I designing for my family, right? Like that's what it's all about when ⁓ not you running your own business that just keeps you trapped inside of it, but a business that can grow and thrive and you get great people plugged in and you fit their dreams and their goals and their aspirations inside of your business, dreams, goals, aspirations. That's how you can build a company that can grow and run.

Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mostly without you as a founder. It's not it's not easy but you just have to be willing to To go through the motions of a lot of what we've discussed here today

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, and

you're and you're you know, you personally are only three to five years away from having a lot of kick kid activities where you know like Balancing that and making sure you know, like I coach little league baseball. It's a passion of mine I always joke if I could quit I quit my job I would I would become a full-time Little league coach and I'd be happy but you know I'm saying but but you got to have all that kind of stuff But you have to be able to have that balance and you know, but it but it's a choice. It is 100 %

choice.

That's right. And

so anybody who's watching this and you maybe are overwhelmed or like there's just too much going on, like book a day for yourself to just think like, this might be a ⁓ vast concept for many, because they're so busy. Everybody's so busy with lots of things. Like book yourself a half day somewhere. Like go to the beach or, you know, go hang out in ⁓ in just a cool environment in whatever city you're in.

Yep.

and just think like, all right, like, what do I really want? And then what do I have to do to try to make some of these things real? You know, be OK with not having a clue, like not knowing for one bit how to do certain pieces. When you can start with specificity to to articulate what you want your future to be like, I'd love to be able to travel these many times a year. Like, how could that be possible? Marie Forleo wrote a book titled

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

book with a title that I completely agree with. Everything is figureoutable is her book title. And I truly believe that just because we don't know the current way of thinking on how to create what we really want doesn't mean it can't be true. Back to the mindset piece, you just need to be curious. You need to be resourceful and you need to find great people around you that help support what you're trying to create for yourself.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. All right. So someone might be feeling very overwhelmed right now listening to us talk about all this great stuff. So what's the first thing they should do to just start the delegation process?

Yeah. Do a task or activity inventory, whatever you'd like to call it. You know, what are you doing every week, every day? And this could be over seven days, over 14 days. But just think about like all the individual tasks that you're doing or you need delegated and just map it out. a dump, call it an activity inventory, whatever you want to call it.

Mm-hmm.

Build it out into one list. The software doesn't matter. Just write it on paper or something like a digital list. Map it all out. Once you have that list, smile and say, okay, I've made progress. I have it all written down. Now, there's a number of next kind of moves. Now it's like, what is the immediate one that pops out to you of like, oh my gosh, bookkeeping. This needs to be delegated. Okay, I don't enjoy bookkeeping.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

As a matter of fact, it's least energizing thing that is on this list. So you might look at it immediately and say, OK, these are the ones that can almost be instant. But what I would say is put it into four different categories.

What are the four areas? One of them is like what you dread.

Take from that list into one category, what do you dread? Stuff that you really should be delegating almost immediately. Then the other categories, it's like stuff that you're kind of competent in, but you don't really enjoy. Then another category is things that you're very good at. And then the last category is the stuff you really, really love, the stuff that fills you up.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And so the stuff that you love are probably things that you're not going to let go of or let go of towards the end after you delegate everything else. And so take that long list, put it into four categories. Just think of it as like what you really don't enjoy at all and then what you love over here. And then just put some prioritization across the other ones. Also, if you think of Yelp, you can put some dollar sign values.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Well,

yeah. Yeah, you probably could.

attached to some of these. So

like, OK, once you have them in the four areas of what you really dread and what you love and everything in between, what is maybe $1 sign delegatable? That, my gosh, the web designer thing, for example. We have a really great web designer that helps us every week, all kinds of change, all kinds of iterations that's overseas.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

think we pay him $15 an hour and he only bills us for two hours this week or five hours this week or what have you, depending on what we're doing. And boom, that's done. I never have to think about a webpage ever again. And I have somebody who's actually managing that person, making sure that whatever we're trying to do, like we're continuing to grow with search engine stuff. And so we're just building more pages and this and that and the third.

Yeah. Competent.

Mm-hmm.

So maybe something like web design is a single dollar sign. Then there's maybe something that is like bookkeeping. Maybe it's two or three dollar signs. OK, maybe you could find somebody for $25 an hour or $30 an hour or $50 an hour, and you only need them for X amount of hours a month. ⁓ And so once you start to map out these certain areas, start to delegate the single dollar sign and the areas in dread first.

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

And it doesn't

need to be a full-timer. You can find somebody to only do the one thing. And this is where it could become a game changer for you. Honestly, Kevin, the big thing for most people is they don't know how to even process their own thinking is how can I organize my own thinking activity inventory, process it into four different zones of priority, put a dollar sign assignment to it, and then start getting rid of.

Yeah.

Yeah.

what you dread the most initially. And then little by little, you could start letting go of everything. ⁓ Dan Martell wrote a book called, Buy Back Your Time. And in the book, he says, don't hire to grow your business, hire to buy back your time.

Hmm.

And I completely agree with that. Buy back your time around all the things you dread. Buy back your time about all the things that you're okay with. Buy back your time for all the things that are things you're pretty good at so that you could only focus on the things that you love. That's where it gets really special.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Love. Yeah.

I love it. advice. All right. We're going to wrap up here. We're getting to the time. ⁓ what's one piece of advice you will give someone who feels like they can't let go?

most of your thoughts about what's complicated and overwhelming and scary and intimidating, 90 % of that overwhelm is self-induced. And 90 % of what will actually be the case is all imaginary. It's all imaginary. So what you're thinking right now about this big Mount Everest in order to let go of things, of the complexity, and I've never done it, it's so 90 % of that is...

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

your own created

limitations. It's all fictional. It's literally all fictional. And so if you could realize like, oh my gosh, all the overwhelm and the little anxiety, a little stress, the little this. First of all, that should not be indication to for you to retreat into safety zone and to not even think about it. Because if you're staying in safety zone, that's usually not growth. It should be an indication when you're getting those feelings.

Yeah.

to say, okay, you know what? Some of those feelings are just trying to protect me, but are they all valid or is it just something that I've never tried before? if I try it, if I embrace the discomfort, might there be growth and might there be something not nearly as complicated as I think? And the answer is yes. I produced this massive marketing thing two weeks ago for our hybrid DJ band. We do...

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

live DJ, live band productions, we specialize in hybrid combinations. And now I'm coaching myself about some of the things that I'm sharing with you right here, which is, I remember looking, once we had it all done, it took two or three weeks to get done, but it took forever to finally get emotion. Finally, we got an emotion. Then I look back, I'm like, in my head, it was 90 % more complicated than it actually was.

Yeah.

And so that's what I'd say to people is.

If it feels scary and, oh my gosh, I should never do this. This is ridiculous. This is not me. I've never done this. We've never done this. This is not who we are, blah, blah, blah. Whatever self-talk you have inside of you, whatever that is, it's usually 90 % self-induced and it's 100 % fiction.

Hmm.

So what does that mean? Just push forward, it's gonna be uncomfortable. But in the discomfort is where all the growth is. We've heard it many ways from many people and it is 100 % true. And you could normalize the discomfort and recognize that that's actually growth in disguise.

Mm-hmm.

you'll be able to continue to create the future in the business that you want.

I love it. Great advice. All right. I can't thank you enough. This has been a great episode and I think people are going to look back and just have a little bit of a couple of mind blown moments, you know, just like the aha. We really, I need to do that. Yes. Great advice. So I can't thank you enough for being here today. How will folks get in contact with you, find you, learn more about you.

Thank you.

Yeah, you know, let's connect on, Instagram. I'm on Instagram, Daniel T Linares and I'm also at daniellinares.com and, you know, I'm just blessed to have been able to share some value with all your listeners. Kevin. I'm like, I honestly leave them put on this earth to serve and to help people and to pour in and add value where I can. ⁓ usually the last person that goes to sleep at a networking event, cause I'm just like up talking to people. How can I help you? Like what's, what's, what's a struggle? What's a challenge? So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If

anybody has any questions or wants any help with anything, reach out. Happy to help.

All right, I love it. All right. And we'll have all of Daniel's information in the email blast that goes out, as well as we'll go through and pull a couple of those books for you guys as well that he mentioned in the episode as well, because I think it'd be valuable for everyone. So folks, we can't thank you enough for being here today. We want to remind our listeners to subscribe, hit the like button, and we'll see you guys next time on another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business. Thanks.

Bye.