Control Freak?
Learn How To Delegate in 5 Steps
Es “Q” y”A” Martes!
Ay!
That was my rendition of some Spanglish.
Q: Francesa writes: “I have an online business and it’s expanding
and I want to learn how to work with a virtual assistant.
Here is my conflict: I am little controlling when it comes to my work and I want to do
everything myself.
With that said, how do I transition from being a control freak to trusting my virtual assistant.
How do I strategize which task to assign and how do I learn the skill of delegation?”
Awesome question Francesca!
Very good Q.
A: So Francesca, we’re gonna A your Q really hard and really good right now.
First thing I want you to know is that one of the most common questions that I get asked
about growing a business is about delegation which is very important because many entrepreneurs
are control freaks so you are not alone.
But as you know, doing it all your self is a recipe for disaster or at very least, just
a thing very small.
Now here’s what the great Carnegie has a to say about that and it’s a Tweetable!
“No person will make a great business who wants to do it all herself or get all the
credit” Andrew Carnegie.
SO here is my recipe for delegating all your way to success:
#1.
You wanna make a list of all the task that you do to keep the ship running.
That means that everything that you do that has to get done to keep the business afloat
needs to get written down.
#2.
You wanna isolate a chunk of tasks that someone else can do for you.
Now the easiest place to look for these are admin related and customer service.
For example, when I hired my first assistant, that’s exactly what I had her do.
Work with the calendars, schedule appointments, client intake forms, customer service, and
even helping me publish my newsletter.
#3.
You wanna create step-by-step instructions for each task.
So whether those are written instructions or you do video trainings using something
like screen flow you wanna get the step-by-step process down.
The goal here is to create a process, a repeatable system that anyone could follow to help you
run your business.
Just in case the first person you hire doesn’t work out or let’s say she does work out
and you promote your assistant and you have to hire someone else you’re gonna have training
materials in place so the next person can know exactly what to do.
#4.
You need to train them and give them feedback.
So here’s something really important, you don’t want to assume your they’re going
to do it correctly the first time out of the gate.
You’re gonna need some hand holding and some overseeing and expect some mistakes.
So here is an example, let’s say you’re having your assistant handle your e-mails.
You can have her CC you with all the communications.
You’re kind of overseeing her language, how she’s responding to people, your tweets
and make some adjustments to make sure she’s communicating on point with your brand.
If you got an assistant working with you on larger project, make sure you encourage them
to come back to you throughout the process, make feedback, make sure you’re on the right
track, all that kind of stuff.
And just know that training someone new can take you two weeks to six months or even more
depending on the complexity of what you want them to do for you.
#5.
You need to set clear expectations, this one is so important.
Never give anyone an assignment without giving them a clear deadline.
It is so, so helpful.
Now once you start with one assistant, you are probably gonna grow more so you’re gonna
need some type of tool that will help you stay organize and keep all your deadlines,
your communications, your projects, and your files in one place.
A great project management tool that we use in our company is called Basecamp.
Bottom line is learning how to delegate is essential for every entrepreneur to learn
especially in the beginning when you’re control freak so these five steps will get
you started.
Now, I’m gonna delegate a task to you.
So tell me your feedback, I wanna know do you have any tips for delegation especially
when you’re first starting out, have any good do’s and don’ts to share?
Leave me a comment below or even better, leave me a video response.
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Thank you so much for watching
and I’ll continue next time.