Control Freak? How To Delegate Like A Pro 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 a 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 yourself is a recipe for disaster or at the very least, just a thing very small. Now here’s what the great Carnegie has 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 tasks 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, scheduled appointments, client intake forms, and customer service, and even helped 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 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 a 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 organized 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 a 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. Now if you like this video, hit that little like button. Ding, ding, ding, and of course share it with all your friends in the social interwebs.

‍

Thank you so much for watching one more thing if you’re not yet on my newsletter list, you need to come on over to marieforleo.com go on the upper-right hand corner put your name and email in I’m gonna send you even more awesome tips for your business and your life. Thank you so much for watching and I’ll continue next time.