Why does growth start to feel heavier the harder you work — even when the revenue is real and the team has grown?

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In this episode of the Delegated Task Podcast, host Jesse Hoss sits down with Chris Buckingham, founder of Solve CXO, to dig into one of the most common and painful stages of business ownership: the messy middle. Chris spent over a decade running an IT company in the Fargo-Moorhead area — learning hard lessons about taxes, trust, delegation, and what it actually takes to build something worth selling. After exiting that company and stepping back into the world of business operations, he now works side-by-side with founders and executives who are strong at their craft but buried in decisions, broken processes, and a business that still runs entirely through them.

Together, Jesse and Chris unpack why being the expert in your business can quietly become the biggest thing holding it back, what it actually means to delegate authority instead of just tasks, and how the owners who get stuck the longest are often the ones working the hardest. Chris shares how he used fractional leadership, scorecards, and intentional systems to unlock his own team — and how he now helps other owner-operators do the same.

This episode also gets into the difference between a lifestyle business and a scalable one, why documenting your processes is the boring work that actually sets you free, and what it looks like to identify the single biggest constraint inside your business and build a plan to remove it.

If you are a Fargo-area business owner who feels like everything still runs through you, this episode was made for you.

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Action Item: Figure Out What You Should Stop Doing

Most business owners do not stall because they are lazy. They stall because they are doing too many things that should not be on their plate at all. This week, try this:

- Write down every task you handled in the last seven days — even the small stuff

- Mark anything that someone else could have done with the right tools, training, or trust

- Pick the one task you hate the most or that drains you the fastest — that is your first delegation target

- Set a 30-day deadline to get it off your plate, whether that means hiring a VA, bringing on a contractor, or handing it to someone already on your team

You do not have to delegate everything at once. Start with one hour a week. Once you get comfortable with one thing off your plate, the next one gets easier. The goal is not to do less — it is to do the right things.

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Connect with Chris Buckingham:

Website: https://solvecxo.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisbuckingham

Business Breakthrough Program: https://solvecxo.com

Connect with Jesse:

Website: https://delegatedtask.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesse-hoss-✅-635b61276/

Email: info@delegatedtask.com

Thank you for listening to the show, your support means so much!

-Jesse Hoss