If you’re anything like most business owners I work with, your to-do list is overflowing.
There’s no shortage of work to be done - just not enough hours in the day to do it.
So here’s a tough question:
Are you spending your time on the right things?
Because at a certain point in your growth journey, the game changes.
It’s no longer about how hard you work, how many emails you answer, or how many fires you put out.
It’s about what you focus on.
And if you’re serious about scaling, there are really only two things that should dominate your calendar every single week:
👉 Strategy
👉 People
That’s it.
Everything else? Admin, day-to-day delivery, customer problems...they can (and should) be handled by others.
Your job as the business owner is to focus on:
- Where the business is going
- What needs to change to get it there
- And who you need around you to make it happen
Let’s talk about the who for a second.
You’ve probably heard the phrase:
“A players hire A players. B players hire C players.”
And it’s true.
When you start recruiting better, everything changes.
The energy shifts. The standards rise. The results improve.
Why?
Because people propagate.
Bring in an “A player” and they naturally raise the bar for everyone else.
They challenge the norm. They bring their own high-calibre network.
They become culture setters. Performance magnets. Growth engines.
But here’s the kicker:
You won’t attract “A players” if you’re too busy being the entire engine of your business.
If you’re buried in the weeds, reactive instead of proactive, lurching from task to task - there’s no space for strategy or leadership.
And that’s where growth quietly dies.
So ask yourself:
- How much time this week have I spent thinking about the future of my business?
- When was the last time I focused on hiring someone who’s genuinely better than me at something?
- Am I building a business that depends on me, or one that scales beyond me?
The hardest shift is going from where you are now… to where you need to be.
But that transition only happens when you decide to spend time today working on tomorrow.
Start small:
- Block time each week for strategic thinking
- Start building your future team, even if you’re not hiring yet
- Let go of the stuff you should’ve delegated months ago
You can’t build a better business by staying buried in the old one.
It starts with focus.
And it starts with you.
To building smarter,
James
P.S. Want a list of what I believe every business owner should do each week to actually move the business forward? I’ve got one, Just drop an email to james@thejamesmartin.co.uk and I’ll send it over.