# 47: When to Automate, Delegate, and Create Systems

Everything that's on your plate, in case anyone hasn't heard of it, it is do, decide, delegate, or delete. That's kind of like how you remember it. It's like a 4, like a square, 4 squares.

Hey, coach, my name is Lindsey and I'm here to help heart-centered women like you build the money-making coaching business of their dreams. I've been coaching since 2019 and this pod is about So much more than building your business. It's about using your gifts to build a life and business you're 100% obsessed with. I went from working 50+ hours a week as a first grade teacher to building a sustainable business that replaced my job salary and gave me back 30+ hours a week of my time. Tune in to join the ride and learn from other coaches and experts along the way. All right. Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. So excited to have you all here. If you are a returning listener, welcome back.

Back.

If you're a new listener, welcome to the Aligned Coach Podcast. This is your go-to stop for guest trainings, expert interviews, solos by me, all the good things about growing a business that you're obsessed with and living a life that you love and not losing yourself in the process. So today we have an awesome guest here with us. We have Emma Farrick. Emma is all about creating systems in your business so that you can actually enjoy life in business. And I think that her expertise today is going to serve a lot of us, myself included. I think that's like the best part of having this podcast is that I get to learn so much and talk to such phenomenal experts and just like people that are so freaking good at their craft. So welcome on, Emma. I am so excited for today's talk.

Thank you, Lindsay. I'm so excited to talk with you and help your guests and your— well, not your guests, but your listeners and your network.

Yeah, yeah.

They're all guests. You're all guests. Welcome to my home.

Yeah, they're all part of the community.

Exactly. All right, Emma. So let's go ahead and dive in. Tell us a little bit about what it is that you do. I think that like, gosh, the word systems gets such a bad rap, you know, and operations and like, especially us creators, we are just so creative driven and, and we just want to create the offers and do the fun stuff. And, and sometimes like the word systems feels really like daunting and intimidating to us. So tell us a little bit about what it is that you do and how do you help and how do you serve us online creators?

Yeah. So I feel like systems does have this, you know, ambiguity, like there's ambiguity behind it. People feel very overwhelmed when they hear systems and a lot of entrepreneurs, especially creative entrepreneurs and coaches and service providers, just feel like, you know, my brain doesn't work like that, or I don't have to set that up right now. It's not important until I'm bigger, until I'm booked out. Um, and I really like to talk to my clients and my, my audience and say, you know, that's not always the case. You should definitely be thinking about systems from the get-go because when you're not, when you're building your business, that's when you should be setting up those foundations so that when you start to hit that momentum, because it will happen. Everything just starts to click almost, it feels almost overnight, but it's usually, it's all this work you've been putting in. So helping women or small agencies build their systems in a way that will help them scale, reduce the burnout. So a lot of what I go through with my clients is helping them not only put in the tech, but helping them see see where they can delegate in a better way. Because a lot of people, when they're so into the day-to-day, they need someone third party to help them just see everything that's going on and give them just like suggestions on where to delegate, how to delegate, the easiest way to delegate things. And, but with my, my framework, we always look at automating as much as we can first before we are handing off the delegation because, you know, you don't want to be— from a culture standpoint for your organization, you don't want to be handing off tasks that you could easily, easily automate because those aren't the value-add, is what I call the value-add task. And the people working for you aren't going to be wanting to do the mundane things all the time. So you want them to do things that are actually adding value, actually allowing them to use their creativity, and what actually is going to move your business forward.

So what is a value-add task and what does that mean exactly?

So I— a value-add task in def— like, by definition, in operations is anything in the process that is adding value to your end client. So for product-based businesses, it looks a little bit different. There's a little bit more value-add tasks behind the scenes because of the logistics. For service-based businesses, um, a lot of people just think the value-add is client-facing, which is true, but there's still behind-the-scenes value-adds that you can be doing and automating that people think have to be manual, or they just don't know a better way. Um, so just like little things like upleveling your client experience, providing them with, you know, that onboarding for service providers, especially providing them with that guidance. If you want to show up as an expert, like providing them that guidance from the get-go and giving them that confidence that booking with you is the right way because you're going to lead them. You have— you've done this before. You have your onboarding, you know, is beautifully done. But value-add doesn't always mean having to do it manually because you can automate some of those value adds. But there's some value adds that just, it's like weighing where, where can we automate and where do we need that human touch? Yeah, basically.

Got it. Got it. Yeah. I think that's so true. I know it. I know that for myself included, like, and we were just talking about this, um, like before we started recording, which is why we had to go ahead and hit record. Um, but like, like this year has just been a huge, like a huge year of growth. And like, I am coming up on that point to where I'm like, okay, like, and I have an assistant, I have an executive assistant who I delegate very well to, she's amazing. Like, I could not function without her help. And we have a really good system. And then even beyond that, I'm like, okay, like, where else can I automate? Like, where else can I just make things feel more seamless, right? Like for my clients and for myself, you know, because there is a lot of day-to-day stuff that's happening. You know, just checking in here, go going to social media, doing the marketing, doing client fulfillment, doing sales calls, like all of those things. So it's like, okay, where are like these tiny processes that I can make more seamless where it doesn't take like, like my muscle, like my personal muscle to make it happen. So, you know, I feel like that's kind of like the place that I'm in right now is like, okay, is it hiring another team member? Like that's something that I'm exploring is like, well, do I need to hire like a, like a COO or, you know, an OBM or something? Or is it like you said, like automating, finding some systems that I can put in place? So yeah, like how does one make that decision, Emma? How do we make that decision?

That's a question I get with a lot of my clients or potential clients. Just, they're like, I think I need an OBM. And that's why on discovery calls, we'll all like go through that process with them. And that's why I've created specific offers that are intensive style or VIP day style. So that, you know, if you are in that position where you're like, I just need some help setting things up, but I don't need the month-to-month support. Like, once this stuff is set up, we can— like, the team could function or the agency could function. Um, so really looking at where, where do you want your business to go? So having your vision, having your goals like outlined at least for a year. I would say anything past a year kind of gets too far out there. It's like good to have those goals, but you don't want to get too down in the weeds on those kinds of goals. But where do you want your business to, to go? Mapping out everything that's on your plate, um, an exercise I walk a lot of my clients through, especially on in our strategy intensives, is, um, uh, the Eisenhower model. So everything that's on your plate, it's— in case anyone hasn't heard of it, it is Do, decide, delegate, or delete. That's kind of like how you remember it. It's like a 4, um, like a square, yeah, chart. You dump everything out on there. And in the delegate piece, I call it delegate and automate with my clients because that's where we're going to decide that stuff that needs to happen, but you maybe don't have the time or you It's not as like as urgent for you to do that kind of stuff, especially as people are stepping into their CEO role. Like what are things that you could delegate or automate? So that's the score we mostly look at, but the dos are the most important things. Like these happen, need to happen to generate the money. So what, how do we like work those into our ideal schedule? Like things like sales calls, you know, what do you want your role to look like? Because some people, I see CEOs, they love doing the content. They love mapping that out. Some people just want to hand it off. Some people don't want to do their sales calls, some people do. So it really depends on like what you want your role as a CEO to look like first before you can start mapping out everyone else's roles to support you in that. Um, then decide is anything like bigger projects that you don't have urgency for, but like, oh, I really want to launch this course, or oh, I really want to launch this podcast. Let's put that on the decide plate and figure out when and how to fit that in. And some pieces of that might go into the delegate or the automate of like, I can have some, my VA do this, or I can have a, um, a social media manager. So the delegate and the automate piece is going to be your biggest deciding factor is do you need someone long-term or do you need short-term support in these tasks that you have right now? Because like, if you won't need an OBM, those tasks are gonna be more ongoing. You know, you need someone to help. You want or need someone in between you and the rest of your team to help manage things. That's usually where I see a lot of people hiring on OBMs, or they want someone to help build their team and help them hire out usually is what I see for OBM clients, because they need someone to be more of the oversight of the project manager. They need someone helping set up their systems more on a long-term and like engagement because they know their business is going to keep growing and evolving and they have multiple offers or multiple streams of income that they need help managing. Someone who might need something more short-term and just need a few systems in place is if you're not really at, like, I hate using numbers as like the marker because sometimes people are different, but like pre-six figures is usually where I see people coming into my intensives or my VIP days where they just need help getting that, like, getting that organization because their brain doesn't work in that way to help them hit like the $10K like months and you know going beyond that like, um, burnt out feeling so they can do more of the decide projects to help them grow because right now they're really good at booking out their services, they're really good at like serving their client, but they're feeling so overwhelmed and they don't know how to even bring someone on at that point to help them because they don't have the written processes or the recorded processes in place. And they just are, or they just are afraid of the tech because they don't have the time to even look into it, which is a huge problem for people. And there's some people who are like, I'm good with tech. I just don't want to do this right now. Like, I want to focus on my sales calls. But I guess that's how you would decide if you need something more short-term versus long-term. That's kind of a longer answer. But it's something actionable.

Yeah, that was so thorough.

Like, I love that 4 square thing, like do, decide, delegate/automate, or delete. Like, what are the things that I'm doing that I can just like delete, you know? I have recently like made the decision. I'm like, I'm deleting several of the apps off of my phone that like I don't need there. I do not need those notifications coming through. I don't need my Stripe account on my phone. There's no reason for that app to be there. Like, I'm gonna delete it, you know? Um, or like deleting tasks, like, like looking in those Facebook groups that you're never really going to want, you know, you've never gotten a client from there before. Like, why are you in this Facebook group? That's just an example, you know?

Um, but like, just, that's a good example though, because people will waste time for it. Yeah. Sorry. My daughter just walked in. Oh yeah. No. Um, that, I think that's a good point because a lot of people will waste time putting in effort where there's no return on investment because they're not tracking anything.

Yeah.

So that's another thing we'll look at is KPIs. Like, how are you— are you tracking where you're getting your leads from? Are you tracking that? Which it seems so like, I don't need to do that. But once you start, it'll help you harness your energy a little bit better into, okay, where can I strategically spend my time?

Yeah.

Yeah, 100%. I meant to ask you this in the beginning of our call, Emma, where can people go like creep you while they're listening to this podcast?

Oh yeah, we did say we were going to talk about that first, but then we got so excited.

I totally just like jumped right in. It's cool.

Yeah, no, my website is elfoperations.com. You can find me on Instagram at elf_operations or on Facebook. My Facebook page is Elf Operations as well, or I have a group From Overwhelmed to Optimized, and it's, um, the link will be below for the Facebook group. But that's all free content in the Facebook group, and guest speakers come in, and, um, it's where I host just like little things for the people.

Awesome, I love it, I love it. Elf Operations. A lot of our listeners, um, find this on Instagram, so they're probably going to go creep your Instagram. But I think that like, I've been trying to remember to swap that up to the beginning of our interviews Because I know that like whenever I'm listening to like someone that I love listening to, I'm like, damn, this thing, this girl really knows her stuff, you know? I'm like, let me go creep her really quick while I'm listening or whatever. So thank you for sharing that with us. That was a nice pattern interrupt for you all. For you all listening.

Yeah.

Okay, cool. So tell us, Emma, when— what do you call yourself? Like, what are you specifically like a systems What do you call yourself?

I'm, I'm an operations and systems strategist. So I usually consult or provide just, or I can provide implementation pieces as well.

Okay. Operations and systems, operations, operations and systems strategist. I love it. I love it. Emma, how did, how did you get into this role? How did you get into this?

So pre-entrepreneur life, I had a corporate corporate job and I actually got a degree in operations management, which was all product-based though in college. And it was all focused on that. So I worked in a manufacturing plant straight out of college. I was a project scheduler slash assistant project manager for our one big large product line that we had. So I did that for 2 years out of college, and during that time I had had my first daughter. So it was stressful for me to work full-time and be a single mom because I went through, um, an issue with domestic violence, you know. So if there's people listening who can relate to that, that I usually just like— that's why I bring it up, because people can relate or maybe are struggling with that. Um, but I decided, you know, I need something to supplement income. I found the world of online VAs, online businesses, and I absolutely loved it because I didn't want to sacrifice more time with my daughter because I was working 40 hours a week. The commute was an hour each way. You know, I didn't want to have to keep paying for childcare. Um, so I started my VA business while I was working full-time. And then during the pandemic, I decided to take my business full-time because I was having to still go into work in person while my daughter didn't have daycare. My, well, now my fiancé, he wasn't my fiancé at the time, um, was staying home with her and it was, uh, it just was killing and draining to me. So I took the skills that I had and applied them to the online space because there, you know, was a gap and a need for it. And I knew if I had more time, I could, help more women instead of being miserable and wasting my energy going to a full-time job that was not serving me at all.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I hear, I hear your little one. How old is your little one in the background?

She is 3 right now and we have baby number 2 on the way.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Yeah, I have a 3-year-old son and he's like a handful and I have a 5-year-old daughter. But the 3-year-old, whoo, gives me a run for my money.

It's that age, the teenager age.

Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what it is. Yeah. I think that so many of our listeners can, can relate to that. As far as wanting to really get their time back, as wanting, like wanting to make an impact. I freaking love like the online entrepreneur space because there are so many amazing women lifting up other women.. And you don't see that in the corporate world, right? Like you don't see that even like I was a teacher by trade. And while I did have some amazing coworkers, like I just didn't see, there was a lot of like kind of tearing each other down or passive-aggressive. And you know, there's some of that of course in the online space, but I would say for the most part, like the coaches that I've worked with, the people I've met along the way are there to lift each other up. And it's, it's like literally one of my favorite things about what we do, you know, and meeting, meeting us, you know, us two seeing each other today and meeting each other and just impacting so many people through this podcast or through our Facebook groups and things like that. It's literally the best job ever.

Yeah, there's so much fun. It's such a competition mindset versus I feel like on the online space, it's such an abundance and there's like a teamwork sense. Yeah, in the online space, which I absolutely love. And I love working with more women because in my corporate job, it was I was, um, the only female on our team, uh, for the longest time. So it's just nice to work with people who understand, you know, the struggle of trying to balance everything. And that's why I love helping other women get out of the constant hustle mindset, or, you know, I have to be doing this, or I have to be doing that to make sales. So like, what can we do to get you to where you want to be versus always struggling and feeling burnt out.

Yep, absolutely. 100%. I love what you said earlier about, like, you didn't really— you said, I don't really like to put the numbers on it. But a lot of times, like, what you see is like whenever coaches or online-based entrepreneurs are trying to get over that $10K per month threshold is they're like, okay, there's a cap on my time. And I'm feeling burnout. And they're like, why can't I get past this threshold? What's happening here? You know? And so So what it, what it seems like in your experience is that you see that, hey, they're not delegating or they're not automating or they're not really sure how to pull those pieces together.

Is that right? Yeah. I, yeah, I would, I, I say $10K because that's just what the data, like from experience of who I've worked with. I mean, I've worked with some people who are at the $5K to $8K, like they're just kind of struggling and they feel like they're at capacity and they know they could work with more people, but they're just not sure. How to make it happen. But yeah, the systems and the hiring out, I also see that a lot where it's just preached to them, just hire, just hire. It'll make your, it'll free up your time, you know, it'll make things better for you. But then they don't have anything set up in the right way. And hiring ends up taking more time away from the sales and the business growth instead, because they're like spending all this time, handholding or onboarding the contractor. And they could have, you know, automated or made things simpler.

Okay, Emma. So if we could, like, if you could tell your clients or the listeners who are listening right now, and they're like, wow, like, I really need to get some like systemization going on. I really need to like get my, my, my life together. What are like 3 things that most coaches, because most of our audience is coaches, like 3 things that they could like automate or like really get a system set up for like pretty quickly? Like what would you recommend the first 3 things be?

So for coaches, because I know coaches and service providers, it's very different, not like their target audience, but the systems that they need to help free up their time. So for any, any person, any entrepreneur, I would say get yourself a marketing or a project management tool. My go-to is ClickUp. That's my favorite. Just because you can house your, your business at any stage. And when you're bootstrapping or you need to be more cost-effective, it is the, in my opinion, the cheapest option for the most value, because it will also grow with you as you build into an agency or until you have a team. So getting a project management tool in place so that you can track not only your business tasks, but I always say like, I like to think whole picture. So personal tasks as well, because the less you have like taking up your mental energy, the more like I put everything in the project management tool in its space. I assign a due date or I tag myself. Even just to manage yourself, like start managing yourself there with that kind of system so that you're, you're able to free up that mental energy for things that are not, oh, I have to remember to do this, or, oh, I need to remember to do that. Just put it in there, let it go. And then you can start thinking more bigger picture and how you can get it done. So project management tool, ClickUp-wise. Then for lead gen/onboarding is usually where, if you're on the, in the coaching space, one-on-one, you're going to need to help you scale that and take on more people. So for lead gen, you can actually do like lead gen, not lead gen, but lead tracking in ClickUp. If you're not using something like ActiveCampaign or, you know, growing your email list, depends on what stage you're in. So I say ActiveCampaign if you are trying to grow your email list that helps you track your leads, but you can also track your leads in ClickUp. Making sure that you're following up and capitalizing and having a— even if it starts out manual, you can work into automated, but having a way to track and follow up yourself, like creating that more of a— more of a— I'm trying to think of the word. Sorry. You're— it's, it's making you— like, it's pulling you. It's not, it's not like You're being, you're pulling into the next stage basically is how they word it. Where you're following up, it's not a remember, like on you to remember. It's just in the system. The system will pull you to the next step. Yeah. Follow up. That's how I'm trying to work it. But that is what I would say, either ClickUp or ActiveCampaign for your lead tracking. Then for your onboarding piece, if you're still doing one-on-one, cause I know group coaching is a little bit different. You're usually going to have some recorded content. You might need like a course or a teaching platform for that. But for leads and management, I recommend Dubsado, or if that's a little bit overwhelming, I also recommend HoneyBook for people that will help automate your onboarding and your scheduling and your invoicing. All together, which in my opinion is the most value for what you're going to pay for. If you're like, again, bootstrapping or have to be a little bit more cost aware.

Yeah. Those are so good. So top 3 things to start thinking about to automate or like systemize would be project management, such as like ClickUp, also like Asana, right?

Yeah. Asana is another good one. It just gets expensive. Expensive from what I've seen when you're trying to onboard contractors.

Got it. Got it. Okay. So definitely something to kind of manage our projects. Lead tracking. So that would be like managing your leads, like an ActiveCampaign or also in ClickUp. So having them go through like a pipeline, right? So say, okay, after 2 weeks, follow up, after a month, follow up or whatever, you know, whatever your process looks like, having that pipeline laid out. So it's not just like subjective and based on your emotions. And then you're like, oh, what am I doing? Right?

Or in a note, like in a note in your phone, which is good. Like you're keeping track of it. But what's getting you back into the note to remember to do that? Nothing. It's not going to send you a notification, which I've seen a lot of people do. And they lose a lot of leads that way.

Yeah, such a good point. Such a good point. And so like these things, like not systemizing, are like literally costing us money, right? Like literally leaving money on the table. Yeah, so good. And then the last, the third thing, the third thing would be like onboarding. So letting that be through Dubsado or HoneyBook where you can send your invoices there, put your client stuff in there. Also scheduling like a welcome email, like with course logins and things like that. So that's already ready to go and you don't have to go do it. And like, I know that like most platforms you can like integrate, integrate it like with your ActiveCampaign or like with your ConvertKit, right? So that it just automatically Sends them the welcome email, right?

Right. With, and that's, well, the nice thing with HoneyBook and Dubsado is you can just send out an email through there, like an auto-generated. If it's like a one-to-one, I wouldn't use it for sending broadcasts or anything. That's where ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign would come more into play. So if you're going to send them a more targeted sequence, that's where you would go. Cause I always get that question. Like, where do I start using one system? And when do I stop using the other? Like, what do I manage and what? So that's why I always say like putting your step, laying your steps out first is going to help you see where you need to be or like where each step will happen in what system. Yeah. Because if you can't, like, that's the hard part with online businesses and especially coaching or, you know, marketing agencies. I see it's everything so abstract in a sense because you're not, it's not like you're providing a concrete product for anybody. Um, so the steps are more, uh, in your head than they are— like, you can't see it like when you can see a production line, when you're seeing a physical product like being built. So you having that process mapped out in writing is so beneficial, and a lot of aha moments will happen for you when you do that. People are like, I just don't want to waste the time. And I'm like, Well, you're going to keep wasting time if you don't start doing that, because then you're just kind of doing trial and error or you're going to miss steps or it's not going to be as great of a client experience, which if you want high ticket clients, you need to provide a high ticket experience for them.

Absolutely. Oh, say it again. Say it again.

Yes.

High ticket, high value. Oh my God.

Yes.

Um, thank you so much for this. I feel like this has been so informative, Emma. I know that so many of the coaches, the service providers, the VAs, even, even the people who are the ones that are doing the things, like they can even start putting in these processes and these types of automations in their business, you know, to take things off of their plate. Like I'm sure that you have plenty of processes in your own business, right?

Yeah, that is kind of where I moved more into the operations space in doing this because I was able to hit $8K to $10K months just still being by myself in my business. And I want to help other people do that. Without feeling the pressure of having to hire out a team. Yeah, because systems are so crucial in doing that for you. Um, so I love helping other people feel like they can hit $10K months without working over 40 hours a week and/or the pressure of building out their team.

Yeah, yeah. Oh my God, that's so good. Helping them hit $10K months without building up the team and without working 40 hours a A week. Yeah. So good. So good. All right, Emma, thank you so much for coming on today. We will put the links for you all to connect with Emma in the show notes. Leave us a review, send us a message, let us know what you want more of. I love to get your feedback from these episodes. So definitely feel free to shoot me a DM over on Instagram. You can send it to @thealignedcoachpodcast or to me personally @lindsay.bodeo. Emma, would you accept DMs from listeners?

Oh my gosh. Yes, of course. I love chatting with people about business, about life, just balancing business and life, anything.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Perfect. Awesome. So you all connect with us. Let us know what was your favorite part? What questions do you have? And we will see you all in the next episode. Thank you so much, Emma.

So good. Thank you. Thank you guys. Yeah.

All right. Bye everyone. See you in the next episode.