How an Assistant Will Help you with These Killer Strategic Coach Principles

• August 16, 2023

Dan Sullivan is the Founder of The Strategic Coach Inc. and the creator of The Strategic Coach® Program. With tens of thousands of entrepreneurs having gone through the Strategic Coach program over the past 30 years, Dan is one of the world’s foremost experts on entrepreneurship in action and a true champion of entrepreneurs worldwide. His teachings have helped me in ways beyond description.

It’s safe to say he understands the life of an entrepreneur—and knows the importance of growth, productivity, and work-life balance. This is why he also fully understands the value and impact an assistant can have on a business (especially for entrepreneurs).

According to Dan, “The best investment in your own productivity, bar none, is a direct assistant who will handle your schedule and hundreds of other small but important details that clutter up your life and mind—and when added up cost you hours of your time.”

Here are three of my favorite Strategic Coach principles that can help you understand the true value of your time—and how an assistant can free up your time so you can focus on growing your business.

Unique Ability®

Unique Ability® refers to a combination of things that you enjoy, drive a lot of value for your business, and are fairly unique to you as an individual (things not everyone has the ability to do). Unique Ability® is about identifying what you excel at and leveraging those strengths to achieve exponential results and personal fulfillment.

Dan’s teachings stress that entrepreneurs and business leaders should be spending most of their time focused on Unique Ability® activities and less time on tasks that are outside of those abilities. This will lead to an increase in productivity and innovation—which ultimately leads to growth.

However, finding the time to focus on these activities can feel impossible—but it can be easily achieved by hiring an assistant to take on the day-to-day tasks that are taking up your time to free you up to achieve those goals.

Who Not How™

Shift your perspective from solving challenges to finding the right individuals who can address them—allowing you to focus on Unique Ability® activities.

To embrace Unique Ability®, assembling a capable team and mastering the art of delegation is pivotal. Delegating tasks that don’t harmonize with your strengths grants you the freedom to concentrate on impactful activities—those that genuinely drive growth.

This is where your team—and especially an assistant—becomes indispensable. As Dan Sullivan aptly questioned,

"What are YOU trying to accomplish? Do you have Whos in your life that give you the perspectives, resources, and ability to go beyond what you could do alone? Or are you keeping your goals so small to make them easier to accomplish them on your own?"

Hiring an assistant will enable you to kick-start your success by immediately releasing you from figuring out how to do anything that is not within your unique ability. You’ll then be able to channel your efforts where your expertise truly shines, providing real value to your business.

10x Is Easier Than 2x: How World-Class Entrepreneurs Achieve More By Doing Less

I recently read 10x Is Easier Than 2x: How World-Class Entrepreneurs Achieve More By Doing Less, by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy.

The book explains that if you want to 2x your business, you need more resources and more effort. But if you want to 10x your business, you need to think differently about your business. It’s absolutely crucial to implement Unique Ability® and Who Not HowTM principles to succeed. And in order to focus on those principles, you need an assistant.

In essence, “10x Is Easier Than 2x” encourages a shift in mindset, pushing entrepreneurs to break free from the limitations of incremental thinking and embrace their unique abilities. To start the 10x process, you need the time to think about strategic changes in your business, and you won’t have that time if you are doing work that an assistant should be doing.

Focusing on your unique abilities, hiring an assistant to take on time-consuming, lower-value tasks, and shifting your mindset for 10x growth can lead to transformative results in your businesses and life.

Jack Daly, one of the leading sales trainers and speakers in the world, says