9-steps to effective delegation

Hey everybody. I hope you are having a fantastic, productive week. Now, in today's episode of the Agency Accelerator podcast, I am talking everything to do with delegation. Now this is an important topic, whether you are a one person agency or you have a team of 20 plus. So super practical tips today as ever and let's get on with the show. Accelerate your agency's profitable growth with tools, tips and value added interviews with your host agency owner and and coach, Rob DaCosta. So I hope you're having a productive week. Now, in order to have a productive week, you really need to make sure that you are delegating many of the tasks that other people can do for you, freeing up your time so that you can focus on the things that you are really great at doing. And that's what today's episode is all about. About delegation. Now this can seem like a dry topic or even one that you think you know everything about already. However, I'm sure I'm going to provide you with a bit of food for thought and hopefully some tips that you can start implementing immediately that will have a significant impact. So one of the things that I talk a lot about is being stuck on the client service Hamster Wheel of Doom, which is definitely a phrase that I need to trademark because when I say it, people tend to laugh and they totally get what I'm talking about. Now of course, in order to get off the client service Hamster Wheel of Doom, there's a whole bunch of things that you need to do with which I am not going to go into today, such as over servicing and getting clients to understand the scope of work that you deliver and so on. But what one of the ways that is going to support you to get off the client service Hamster Wheel of Doom is delegating more of that work to other people. So I want to start off by talking about the concept of a notional hourly rate. Because this will help you start to think about should I be doing this task or, or should I be delegating it somebody else? And the concept of a notional hourly rate is pretty simple really, which is just to say, what is an hour of your time worth? And then when you are doing tasks, is that task worth your hourly rate or more? Or is it worth less than your hourly rate? And of course, if it's worth less than your hourly rate, you really should be thinking of a way of delegating it to other people. Now if you're listening to this and you are a one person agency or a freelancer, you might be Thinking, yeah, Rob, that's great theory, but, but I actually don't have anyone to delegate to. And so when we're thinking about delegating, we're not always just talking about having a team that you can delegate to in house, but we're thinking about using a virtual team, such as having a virtual assistant. And we are also thinking about, can we automate these tasks? So I'm sure you've heard of the four Ds before that I think Eisenhower coined. And this is kind of a test on the task that you're doing. So can I ditch this task? No. Okay, so can I delegate this task? No. Okay, so can I defer this task? No. Okay, so I need to do it. So you always want to be looking at all your tasks, using those 4Ds to work out whether you can do it, whether you can delegate it, whether you need to do it now or can you do it later. That will really help you prioritize. And I've added a fifth element to this, which is can I automate this task? Because there's so many amazing tools and apps about these days that can actually help us automate those mundane, repetitive tasks that we do. And so if you can use those tools, then you should be. So when we're thinking about delegating, it doesn't have to be to an in house team, it can be to a virtual assistant, it can be to other freelancers that you use. And you also want to be thinking, can I automate some of these tasks? And a good example of that is using an email marketing system that automates your email sequences. So if someone downloads from your website, they get a sequence of emails, but based on the date that they downloaded, it automatically sent to them because you've written them once, put them in place, and now they just run on autopilot. So think about your notional hourly rate and once you've worked that out, then use that as a benchmark to judge tasks by. And you really need to have an honest conversation with yourself if you're doing a task that is worth less than your hourly rate. And of course, what we do is we tell ourselves stories. So I just want to spend a couple of moments talking about why we don't delegate, even if there were resources or people to delegate to. So let's see if you can relate to any of these kind of stories that we tell ourselves, such as, oh, I just haven't got time to delegate this, it's just quicker to do it myself. And so of course we don't delegate. Or how about, well, I could delegate, but they won't do it as well as me, they won't do it as fast as me, they won't do it as thoroughly as me. Or I've tried to delegate this before and they always screw it up. So I'm not going to delegate it this time. And those are all just stories that we tell ourselves that keep us stuck in a place of taking on all this extra work, doing work that's worth less than our notional hourly rate, and of course, ultimately working long hours and being stuck on the client service hamster wheel of doom. So if you can relate to any of those kind of stories, then you really need to start challenging yourself to say, hang on a second, you know, it will. They will never do it as well as me if I don't train them and show them how to do it. And that kind of leads me onto my very favorite expression, which you guys will know I use quite a lot, which is slowing down to speed up. And if there were ever a good example of slowing down to speed up, it is delegating effectively. Because of course, when I'm delegating to somebody, when I'm showing somebody, when I'm training somebody, when I'm. When I'm checking in on somebody, at first, of course, you're going to use the time that you took to do the task yourself, and now you're going to allocate that time to training somebody else. So in the short term, you are probably not winning back any time. But in the medium to long term, you've slowed down at the beginning to speed up further down the line. Because if you've trained and showed somebody effectively, and if you delegated effectively, then ultimately they will take the task off your hands and they will free your time up to do tasks that are worth your notional hourly rate. And you will be motivating and managing and developing your team, as well as a sort of secondary benefit to that. I've been as guilty as anybody at doing this and hogging tasks because I think I can do them better myself or I think I can do it quicker. But I realize in the end, you know, it just gets you stuck in the same place. You get bored of doing those same tasks and you don't give yourself a chance to grow either personally or in your agency. So. So there's a hundred reasons why we should be delegating. And if you can relate to any of those things that stop us, then you need to start putting some changes in place. So you need to start thinking about who can I find that can support me. So having a virtual assistant that can do more than just reconfirm your appointments is a great example of finding someone else that can do some of this work. So let me share a good example of this, and that is I have a VA who has experience with editing podcasts. And whilst I love recording the podcasts and getting feedback from you guys, I can't say I love as much the time it takes to edit a podcast. And to be honest, one podcast episode could take between one to two hours to edit. So that is a task that is definitely lower than my notional hourly rate. That doesn't mean it's below me, it just means I could use that one to two hours to do something more effective. That probably is something that only I can do. So delegating it to my VA who now edits my podcast is fantastic. And I end up winning back two or three hours per week because of it. So you want to think about the places that you can delegate and obviously if you've got an in house team, you want to make sure that you're delegating really effectively to them so you're getting them to perform at the top of their game. But if you don't have an in house team, then start thinking about how you can use virtual assistants or specialists to do things like managing Facebook ads or freelancers who can take on certain aspects of client work. So there are always ways of delegating. You just need to get out of your own way and stop believing the stories that you tell yourself that stops you from delegating. Okay, so now I've shared that with you. Let me share with you sort of nine best practice tips to delegate and you kind of. I'll put a link to my ebook in the show Notes which drills into these in a little bit more detail. So you don't need to write these down. But let's just talk about if you want to successfully delegate and if you want someone to do the job that that you're asking them to do and do it really well, then you need to make sure you are always implementing these nine steps when you delegate. And you'll think through these very quickly once you get used to it. But in the first instance, you almost want to use this as a checklist. So the first thing you need to be able to do when you want to delegate a task is to clearly define it. And of course that sounds obvious, right? It's like, well, of course I can ask someone to do it. But if you can't say out loud exactly what you want someone to do, then you're going to almost expect your team member to be a mind reader because you understand it inherently inside of you, but you haven't articulated it clearly. So you need to be able to define really clearly what the task is and what success looks like in delivering that task. And then once you've done that, you want to be able to select the right individual or team member to, to deliver that. So obviously, if you've got a larger team in house, you can look at who has capacity, who has the right skills, but if you don't have that in, in house, then you need to find that person externally, like I say, a VA or a freelancer that can work with you and support you. So that's number two, selecting the right individual or team to take on the task. Number three is to assess their ability or what training or support they will need to, to be able to do that task. So what you don't want to do is just assume that they have the skills already and you don't need to do anything. You just need to tell them that of course, might be the case, but you also need to think, do they have all the training they need? What support will they need from me? Do they have the right ability level? So that's something you're going to want to check in, and that's number three. Number four is to give the task that you're delegating some context. So you want to explain to somebody the reasons why you're asking them to do something, because if they understand how it fits in the bigger picture and why they're being asked to do it, they're much more likely to be motivated and to deliver it on time. And I just want to pause here at point four and tell you a quick story to highlight this. So I had a client many, many years ago that actually wasn't an agency. They ran some care homes, which incidentally just reminds you that when you have a clear niche, it doesn't stop you taking on clients outside of that niche if you think you can do a good job for them. Anyway, back to my point. So they had home managers that had to produce a report every Friday. And there was one home manager that consistently failed to deliver the report on time. And it never was really to the quality. But the problem was that they never really explained the context, which was, we need to get the reports completed on a Friday so the area manager can collate all those reports into one report and get it to their managing director by six o'. Clock. And and there were certain things that those reports had to contain which this person kept failing to do. So they failed to deliver the report on time and they failed to deliver it to the quality level. And that is a good example of delegating a task but not giving a clear context or a clear reason why. And if they did that, there was more chance, not guaranteeing it of course, but there was more chance that that person would actually get the report delivered on time. So point four is to explain the reasons and help that person see how the task you're asking them to do for fits in the bigger picture and why they are being asked to do it. Number five is to state the required results and outcomes. So this might again sound an obvious one, but this is a perfect example of if you make assumptions then they're bound to find the gray area. So you want to be explicit about what good looks like and show them an example of the outcome or explain it. So if it's a report, are they producing a one page summary or a ten page report? So you want to show them and explain what good looks like so they know exactly what they are expected to deliver. That's point five. Point six is to consider what resources they may need to help them deliver this piece of task. So is that access to systems, information, people, clients, whatever it is, if they need access to those resources, make sure that you enable it to happen. That's point six. Point seven is to agree a specific deadline and I want you to be super clear and anal about this. Not end of the week, but 5:30pm on Friday. Because again, if we go back to my example of the care homes when the manager was saying get it done by the end of the week, well that person might have thought, well I work till 7 o' clock so I'll do it then. But actually the area manager needed to get the collated report over to the MD by 6 o'. Clock. So you want to be super specific by 5:30pm on Friday. That's point seven. Point eight is to check in with them, support and communicate. So if I'm asking you to do a task on Monday and I want it delivered by Friday, then I need to make a note in my diary to check in with you on Wednesday or Thursday around about the halfway point and check they've started it, check how they're getting on, be that person that is enabling them to be successful rather than waiting for them to fail. That's point eight. Which is support and communicate. And finally, point nine is kind of closing the loop. So give them some feedback on the results. So when they've delivered that task, give them feedback, whether that be great feedback and saying well done or whether that being more constructive feedback saying, actually, you missed the point a bit. This is what I really wanted, but it's a great way to close the loop and for people to learn and develop. Now, I know those nine points sound like a lot, but as you get more skilled at doing this, you will just think through them very, very quickly. And what I encourage my clients to do is print this off, but put it somewhere so that they can delegate being the best practice manager possible. So if the person still fails to deliver it, it's not because they haven't delegated it badly. And let's face it, so many managers delegate badly. They say things off the cuff, they don't think this through, they don't apply these nine points, and then they get frustrated when the person who was doing the task doesn't deliver it to their expected level. Somehow they thought that telepathy or osmosis existed because they understood what they wanted, therefore the other person should. And of course that is a recipe for disaster. So make sure you apply these nine things. As I said in the show notes, I'm going to put a link to my delegation ebook and you can print this list off and put it somewhere and make sure that you are the best practice manager possible. And remember, this applies whether you're delegating to a team in house or to a virtual team. In fact, if you have a virtual team, you, you really want to be treating them just like they were an employee and a team member. And it's when we don't treat them, we kind of keep them at arm's length because we don't see them, but we don't treat them the same as a team member that we end up, it just doesn't work out and we end up failing. So you want to not only be a best practice delegator, but you also want to manage these people just like they were team members. So just remember that when you are an effective delegator, you are going to free up a lot of your time to do the things that only you can do. This enables you to focus on your superpowers. As I say it, you know, the things that you are really great at doing that probably no one else can do. And they will be things like running your agency, thinking about the future of your agency, doing business development. That's marketing and sales and client retention, and not so much about client delivery and all the minutiae that we can easily get sucked into that take up so much of our time. But they are below our notional hourly rate, so I hope you found that useful. And if you did, please make sure you hit subscribe. Please share the episode with your colleagues, and I'd love you to leave a review, especially on Apple podcasts. But other than that, hope you have a fantastic weekend and I'll be back with you next week with our next guest interview.