opinion

Business & the Blonde: Finding a Balance

Before I started attending the industry conventions, most of my travel was limited to one annual road trip with “The Blonde.” We drove a lot, did a lot of fun and adventurous things, and of course we fought a lot. My laptop was common on these trips and I would check in once or twice a day to handle email and issues with my advertising network, JuicyAds. Most times we would be gone two weeks and it was difficult to unplug for that time and let the company run. I was all JuicyAds had for many years, and I look back now and wonder how I ever handled every single job at the company. Long days and nights programming, doing sales, support, live help, marketing, accounting, banking, and every other thing that needed to be done. The July 2013 XBIZ World Presidential Suite article that dubbed me “Mr. Super Hands On” was not kidding. Things are different now that we have a few dozen employees.

I love what I do every day and that is extremely hard to let go of. Breaking free of this cycle was beyond a struggle. I read books about business, delegation, outsourcing, productivity, and learned far too much and solved very little. It wasn’t until I broke down several years ago, and realized that I simply could not do it all that I finally hired another programmer to lighten my load. It was a huge step, but it didn’t seem to matter how many new people I hired, the workload was always there, I still wasn’t delegating enough.

The one thing I love more than my company is traveling, and that’s how I finally learned how to delegate.

Around this time “The Blonde” gave me an ultimatum to work less, spend more time with her, or my marriage would be over. When you love someone, you do what you gotta do. However, by cutting back my work, the only thing I succeeded in doing was creating a backlog of work. It made little difference to her happiness that I was available to spend more time with her, because her focus simply shifted to the fact we were now personally making less money as the company increased expenses. Basic business economics eluded her, but greed did not.

Being the spouse of an entrepreneur is never easy, but I realized the problem with my marriage and the happiness of my spouse wasn’t how much I worked or how much money I made. Happiness comes from within, and the bottom line was, she was just an unhappy person. When my relationship ended, I ran away from everything I knew and started traveling — a lot. The one thing I love more than my company is traveling, and that’s how I finally learned how to delegate.

I hated being at home, and I loved being anywhere else. When I was at home, my interest in work had been changed, I was now rebuilding my life. I didn’t have the time or the energy for the workload I had put on myself for so many years, but I attended almost every convention I possibly could, visited employees, clients and friends around the globe. This travel period in my life pushed me to hire people I trusted, because I simply had no other choice. If I was in Amsterdam and the Internet had a bad connection or something needed to be fixed and I was otherwise “incapacitated” then I needed to get someone to help, plain and simple. Letting go of those things you simply don’t need to do, was the next step.

Most control freaks will give tasks to someone and try to tell them exactly how to do it. By the time you’ve explained something to someone (and how to do it) often its quicker to have done it yourself anyway. This is where the whole “if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself” paradigm comes from. That’s a fail. The most effective way to delegate is to actually give them a goal and let them figure it out for themselves.

While off in some corner of the globe, I would always find myself doing these repetitive tasks which always took longer on a laptop. While trying to save time I finally started asking myself “how can I avoid ever having to do this again?” and then would systematically draw out a process of how I had been accomplishing the task. This blueprint would then be delegated to the most capable employee and I’d never have to do it again.

Then there was prioritization. As an owner who is still hands on, there are tasks that simply need to be completed by the boss. Anything that wasn’t time sensitive and didn’t need me to make the decisions or execute the plan, was delegated. Whatever was left, I worked my ass off every day to complete and to try and stay on top of things while out of the office. Focusing on one thing (rather than evil multitasking things) is absolutely critical.

The best thing about traveling that helped me to delegate and saved my life was having a deadline. Its far too easy to get comfortable working in my home office. My next flight became my deadline. It didn’t matter where I was going, my office wasn’t going with me (this also forced me towards a paperless office). Completing projects and delegating while facing a deadline was one of the best things about traveling regularly. When I got back, I was slammed busy but productive. Traveling was the unexpected motivation that truly saved my life balance.

Juicy Jay is CEO and founder of JuicyAds.com. Follow Jay and JuicyAds via Twitter @juicyads.

Related:  

Copyright © 2025 Adnet Media. All Rights Reserved. XBIZ is a trademark of Adnet Media.
Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited.

More Articles

profile

WIA Profile: Reba Rocket

As chief operating officer and chief marketing officer of Takedown Piracy, long at the forefront of intellectual property protection in adult entertainment, Rocket is dedicated to safeguarding the livelihoods of content creators and producers while fostering a more ethical and sustainable industry.

Women In Adult ·
opinion

Protecting Content Ownership Rights When Using AI

In today’s digital age, content producers have more tools at their disposal than ever before. Among these tools, artificial intelligence (AI) content generation has emerged as a game changer, enabling creators to produce high-quality content quickly and efficiently.

Corey D. Silverstein ·
opinion

How Payment Orchestration Can Help Your Business

An emerging payment solution is making waves in the merchant world: the payment orchestration platform (POP). It’s quickly gaining traction as a powerful tool for managing online payments — but questions abound.

Cathy Beardsley ·
opinion

Fine-Tuning Refund and Cancellation Policies

For adult websites, managing refunds and cancellations isn’t just about customer service. It’s a crucial factor in maintaining compliance with the regulations of payment processors and payment networks such as Visa and Mastercard.

Jonathan Corona ·
profile

WIA Profile: Laurel Bencomo

Born in Cambridge, England but raised in Spain, Laurel Bencomo initially chose to study business at the University of Barcelona simply because it felt familiar — both of her parents are entrepreneurs. She went on to earn a master’s degree in sales and marketing management at the EADA Business School, while working in events for a group of restaurants in Barcelona.

Women In Adult ·
profile

Gregory Dorcel on Building Upon His Brand's Signature Legacy

“Whether reflected in the storyline or the cast or even the locations, the entertainment we deliver is based on fantasy,” he elaborates. “Our business is not, and never has been, reality. People who are buying our content aren’t expecting reality, or direct contact with stars like you can have with OnlyFans,” he says.

Jeff Dana ·
opinion

How to Turn Card Brand Compliance Into Effective Marketing

In the adult sector, compliance is often treated as a gauntlet of mandatory checkboxes. While it’s true that those boxes need to be ticked and regulations must be followed, sites that view compliance strictly as a chore risk missing out on a bigger opportunity.

Jonathan Corona ·
opinion

A Look at the Latest AI Tools for Online Safety

One of the defining challenges for adult businesses is helping to combat the proliferation of illegal or nonconsensual content, as well as preventing minors from accessing inappropriate or harmful material — all the more so because companies or sites unable or unwilling to do so may expose themselves to significant penalties and put their users at risk.

Gavin Worrall ·
opinion

Know When to Drop Domains You Don't Need

Do you own too many domains? If so, you’re not alone. Like other things we accumulate, every registered domain means something to us. Sometimes a domain represents a dream project we have always wanted to do but have never quite gotten around to.

Juicy Jay ·
opinion

Understanding 'Indemnification' in Business Contracts

Clients frequently tell me that they didn’t understand — or sometimes, even read — certain portions of a contract because those sections appeared to be just “standard legalese.” They are referring, of course, to the specialized language used in legal documents, including contracts.

Corey D. Silverstein ·
Show More