You know you need help because the work is everywhere.
There are messages waiting, invoices to prepare and appointments to confirm. Bringing someone in seems like the obvious next step. Then they arrive, and much of your day is spent explaining, correcting and finding things for them.
Now two people are busy. You are still carrying the work.
This does not mean hiring was a mistake or that the new person lacks ability. It may mean you have handed over tasks whose instructions, information and decision rules still live entirely with you.
Consider a simple request: follow up with customers. Which customers? About what? Where is the current list? What was promised? Can the person confirm a date, or must they ask you first? What counts as a completed follow-up?
An experienced person may recognise what is missing and help organise it. That is work too. It needs time and an agreed responsibility. It cannot always happen invisibly between answering messages and completing everything else.
Before adding support, look at one task you intend to hand over. Describe how it begins, what information it needs and how someone will know it is finished. Make clear which decisions belong to the person doing it and which require you.
You may discover that the task is straightforward once the information is available. You may discover that it includes several different responsibilities that need to be separated. You may also discover that some of the work no longer needs to happen at all.
This is preparation for useful help. It is especially valuable when your resources are limited and every paid hour matters.
You do not need a complete manual before someone can begin. Start with enough clarity to make one recurring task manageable, then improve the instructions through actual use. The person doing the work will often see gaps you have stopped noticing.
There are businesses that simply have more work than their team can reasonably complete. They may need additional capacity urgently. Even then, clarity helps that capacity become effective sooner.
Sage provides practical administrative and customer support. A useful starting conversation is about the work itself: what needs doing, where the information is and what a successful handover would allow you to stop carrying.