Overwhelmed Business Owner? How to Tell It's Time to Get Help
Last updated . Every number on this page was checked October 2, 2026.
An overwhelmed business owner, on this page, is an owner with more work coming in than one person's hours can hold. If that's you, the tasks keep piling up, your days are full, and you aren't sure what to hand off or who to hand it to. This page covers the workload: how to tell a busy season from a capacity problem, and which kind of help fits each one. It doesn't cover health or stress, and it gives no advice on either. A busy season has an end date, and short-term help covers it. A capacity problem has no end date, and it calls for lasting help: a hire, a contractor or an outside team.
This page is a plain reading of the rules. It isn't legal or tax advice.
Why do small business owners get overwhelmed?
No official source read for this page measures why small business owners get overwhelmed. Two official sources do show the setting. Most small businesses have no employees. And among firms that do have employees, hiring or retaining qualified staff was the second most commonly reported operational challenge in the Federal Reserve Banks' 2025 Small Business Credit Survey.
- Most small businesses have no employees. The SBA Office of Advocacy counted 36,207,130 small businesses in the US in its February 2026 report. Of those, 82.3 percent, or 29,811,495 firms, have no employees. The count rests on Census Bureau data for 2022, and "small" means fewer than 500 employees. No employees doesn't mean no help. A firm can still use contractors.
- Hiring or retaining qualified staff ranked second among the operational challenges firms reported in one survey. In the Federal Reserve Banks' 2025 Small Business Credit Survey of firms with 1 to 499 employees, hiring or retaining qualified staff was the second most commonly reported operational challenge, after reaching customers and growing sales. The survey ran from September 3 to November 14, 2025, and drew 6,525 responses. It isn't a random sample.
The list below is a set of questions to ask yourself. It isn't a finding.
- Is client work growing faster than your hours?
- Are small tasks piling up: updates, fixes, edits and follow-ups?
- Are you the only one who knows how each job gets done?
- Is office work, such as email, invoices and scheduling, eating the time you set aside for client work?
Where can an overwhelmed business owner get help?
An overwhelmed business owner can get help from four places: an employee, a contractor, a virtual assistant or an outside team. Each one takes a different kind of work off your desk.
- An employee, part time or full time. One person whose work you direct. This fits work that needs someone on hand, such as answering the office phone.
- A contractor. A worker who isn't your employee. The label isn't yours to pick: the IRS and the Texas Workforce Commission each have a test for who counts as a contractor. For the test, see independent contractor vs employee test. Not legal or tax advice. Ask your accountant.
- A virtual assistant. On this page, that's a person who helps from another place, with tasks such as office work and follow-ups.
- An outside team. A company with its own staff that takes tasks from you and sends back finished work. This fits production work.
Jeremy Kenerson runs DeskTeam360, the company behind this site. His view is that, for small businesses, entrepreneurs and agencies, a first hire is most often a contractor, not an employee. That's one owner's view. This page has no statistic for it.
For options other than a hire, see alternatives to hiring an employee. For a hire next to an outside team, see outsourcing vs hiring.
Is it a busy season or a capacity problem?
Extra work with an end date is a busy season, and extra work with no end date is a capacity problem.
Signs of a busy season:
- The extra work is tied to one launch, one client project or one time of year.
- You can name the date it ends.
- Before it started, the work fit in your week.
Signs of a capacity problem:
- You're behind, and no date on the calendar fixes it.
- You're turning work away, or you're slow to answer new leads.
- The same kinds of tasks keep waiting on you.
- When you take a day off, the work stops.
One sign alone doesn't settle it. If most of the second list fits, this page calls it a capacity problem.
DeskTeam360 runs this site. The next step it offers from this page is DeskTeam360's Ultimate Task Delegation Template, which comes with a video walkthrough.
Get the Task Delegation Template
The button opens DeskTeam360's Task Delegation Template page.
What kind of help fits which problem?
Short-term help fits a busy season, and lasting help fits a capacity problem. Which lasting help fits depends on the work that's piling up. The table matches four kinds of work to the first-hire options on this site's cost worksheet, with the monthly figures the worksheet has for each.
| What's piling up | A sign | Option to look at first | The monthly figure this site has for it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Office work that fills part of your week | The phone, the calendar and the inbox eat your mornings | An employee or a contractor, part time: one person, part of the week | As an employee in Texas: $2,048.29 a month for a part-time administrative assistant working 20 hours a week (this site's assumption) at the middle (median) wage, in wages plus employer taxes and before benefits. As a contractor: about $2,000 a month is what Jeremy Kenerson, in his own hiring, has paid a part-time contractor |
| One steady role that fills the whole week | The same job waits for you every day | An employee or a contractor, full time: one person, full time | As an employee in Texas: $4,073.18 a month for a full-time administrative assistant at the middle (median) wage, in wages plus employer taxes and before benefits. As a contractor: about $4,000 a month is what Jeremy Kenerson, in his own hiring, has paid a full-time remote contractor based in the US |
| Full-time work that doesn't depend on your office hours | Tasks you can hand over in writing and check the next day | Outsource overseas: one person, full time, outside the US | No market rate: this site couldn't find two solid published sources for one. About $1,500 a month is what Jeremy Kenerson, in his own hiring, has paid a full-time overseas contractor |
| Production work across several skills | Website updates, graphics, video edits and email builds keep waiting | Insourcing with DeskTeam360: a flat-rate team that works on 1 task at a time | $1,497, the published price of DeskTeam360's Entrepreneur plan as of October 2026 |
How to read the table:
- The employee figures. Both are for one job, which BLS calls Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive. Each one is a middle wage plus employer taxes, before benefits (BLS wages for May 2025, tax rates for 2026). A middle wage means a real hire can cost less or more than the figure.
- The contractor figures. They're one owner's numbers, what Jeremy Kenerson has paid contractors in his own hiring, and they aren't market rates. An employee figure and a contractor figure aren't like for like, and this page doesn't say one path costs less. Which path a worker is on is decided by an IRS test and a Texas Workforce Commission test.
- A team isn't a hire. A hire is one person, and a DeskTeam360 plan is a team on 1 task at a time. A team can't cover every first-hire job: it won't answer your office phone.
- What's left out. The first hire cost page says what each figure leaves out, and shows the math.
Two cases sit outside the table:
- A busy season. Help with an end date fits: extra hours for the season, or one of the options other than a full-time hire.
- The running of the work is the problem. Tasks get done, but nobody tracks who does what by when. For someone to run the work for you, see hire a project manager.
Then check the money. For what an office assistant costs, see cost to hire an assistant. For the money test before a hire, see can I afford to hire an employee.
Here's how one agency founder got production work off the desk. Sidecar Marketing Solutions is a marketing agency that opened in 2012 and works for solo owners and small firms. Its founder leaned on several contractors, each for a special job, and found that setup cut off and siloed. Similar services the founder had used before didn't deliver. The founder met Jeremy Kenerson in fall 2022, at a summit held by Duct Tape Marketing, and became a DeskTeam360 client in January 2023. The first task was a homepage. The founder supplied the sketch and the copy, and the team built it. Since then the team has done some design, but most of its work is building pages and parts of pages for the agency's clients. The founder reports more time for plans and growth. The founder also reports "saving thousands of dollars a month", without having to hire a specialist for each kind of work. That's the founder's own report. It isn't a promise for your business.
"With DeskTeam360, I’ve Been Able To Actually Delegate Instead Of Doing Everything Myself."
Sidecar Marketing Solutions
More on budget and other options
DeskTeam360's Ultimate Task Delegation Template is this site's next step from here. The template comes with a video walkthrough.
Get the Task Delegation Template
The button opens DeskTeam360's Task Delegation Template page.
Sources
- US Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy, Frequently Asked Questions About Small Business, February 2026
- Federal Reserve Banks, 2026 Report on Employer Firms: Findings from the 2025 Small Business Credit Survey, published March 3, 2026
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025 Occupation Profiles, Texas, job 43-6014
- IRS Topic 751, Social Security and Medicare, IRS Topic 759, federal unemployment tax and Texas Workforce Commission, unemployment tax rates, for the 2026 tax rates in the two employee figures
- IRS, independent contractor (self-employed) or employee and IRS Topic 762, independent contractor vs. employee
- Texas Workforce Commission, classifying employees and independent contractors
- Jeremy Kenerson, owner statements on his own hiring of contractors and his view on first hires, October 2, 2026
- This site's search for an overseas market rate, October 2, 2026. It found no two solid published sources
- DeskTeam360's published price and its home page, where it calls its model insourcing (deskteam360.com), read October 2, 2026
- DeskTeam360, questionnaire answer on the Task Delegation Template
- DeskTeam360 case study, Sidecar Marketing Solutions (deskteam360.com/case-studies)
- This site's cost worksheet, shown on its first hire cost page
All checked October 2, 2026.
This site isn't connected to the State of Texas or any government agency.
What changed
- October 2, 2026: First version of this page.