Gill Moakes 0:00
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the heads together Podcast. I'm so happy you're here with me again, I really appreciate it. As I'm recording this, we've just come out of Easter. And in the UK, we usually have rubbish weather. At Easter, I can count on one hand the number of times we've had really good Easter weather. But this year, it has been fantastic. If you're like me, and you are in a post a barbecue fog of overindulgence, then do what I've just done and pour yourself like a peppermint tea, something like that something nice and healthy. And let's get into this week's episode. Welcome, welcome to the heads together Podcast. I'm Gill Moakes. And I am obsessed with cutting through the noise when it comes to growing your business each week via intimate coaching conversations and inspirational stories. I share what it really takes to get the results you want, in a way that feels right to you. I am all about attracting higher ticket opportunities, building authentic relationships, and creating the abundant full fat version of your dream business. I mean, how many of us have even away creating a light version of what we really well. The thing is, I honestly believe when you're outstanding at what you do, there is no limit to what you can achieve. So are you ready to put our heads together and make it happen? Let's go.
This is all for my control freaks out there. Okay, I see you. In fact, I want you my second business was actually owning a virtual solutions agency. What that meant was that I would clients would come to me and I had a bank of virtual assistants, which I would then place with the appropriate clients, which was great. That was an easy, easy part. However, as the business grew, and I had more and more need for assistance myself to run the business, I suddenly found out that in all of its full irony, I was terrible at delegating, all of these clients were coming to me because they really needed to delegate stuff in their businesses. And I would effortlessly, you know, place VAs with these people on online business managers with these clients, who would do just a brilliant job. But when it came to my own business, I just I literally found it impossible to outsource anything. I think it's because I found it impossible to trust anyone to do a task as well as I could do it. So I was such I still am, to a certain extent a bit of a perfectionist. And it was like I just couldn't turn a blind eye to anything that wasn't 100% Right? 100% perfect, exactly how I would have done it, you know, no margin of error whatsoever. And the truth is, like growing a business like that, and really finding it hard to it to get help and support. That is exhausting. You know, it's frustrating. And it's actually really limiting. And I really paid a price for that I probably got pretty close to a bit of burnout when I was running that business because I was just doing all of the admin behind the scenes myself. And all of the kind of marketing content, social media content, all of that kind of thing I've done myself, I just could, I couldn't seem to outsource anything to anyone. So I get it. Delegating is really hard to begin with. I found it extremely hard. But here's the thing, since I mean eventually I did I had to have support with that business and my business is now completely different to that business. I'm now as you know, a business coach, mentor and growth strategist. And I definitely couldn't run the business that I have today without my team. Take for example producing this podcast. I love the fact that I I get to come on here. And I just sit here and record. And I love right to outlining the episode recording. But then I also love that between us, Emily, my VA and I have put together this really robust process whereby myself creating the content, Emily to all of the support work that goes around getting the episode out to Lena, the amazing podcast editor who edits these episodes, we all know exactly what our part to play is. Okay. And that has made an amazing difference. And here's the thing. Remember what Charlotte said in last week's episode, when she talks about don't delegate a task, delegate a process, as soon as I hand it over to someone else, the entire process. And so again, taking this podcast is a perfect example. Emily put together the process I delegated to her creating the process, she just tells me what my parts of play in it is, instead of the other way round. And oh my god, it's so much easier, honestly, it is so much easier, delegating really does get easier. And I think where we get stuck is that before we learn to delegate these overall processes, we delegate tiny bits,
I would do this all the time, I would delegate a tiny kind of insignificant low risk part of an overall process. And so the problem then, was that because I was owning the process, I was the one kind of having to chase up or remind someone or, you know, I was the one owning it, then I was always the bottleneck, because no one was chasing me for my part in the process. So what would happen was if I wanted something to happen, but I was responsible for delegating each part, or each tiny task within that process, if I didn't actually initiate and get my bid going, or my bid completed, no one else could do anything. And it was all on me. So the it's completely different now. And it's getting easier all the time. So in this episode, what I thought might be useful for you people, is for me to share the things that I now bake into my business, in terms of delegation, in terms of really making the most of the support that I have from my team, so that I'm not the bottleneck anymore. I'm not the person where, you know, it all starts and ends with me, because that is where things don't get done. things don't get done, because I will quite easily. If it's all on me, I will quite easily reprioritize at the drop of a hat. But if the process is owned by someone else, and they are holding me accountable for completing my part, my you know, turning my cog in the wheel, I cannot even explain to you it makes it so much different. Okay, it's so liberating. And it's so much more efficient. So, here's a few things I want you to think about. First of all, you need to really be clear on what you can and can't delegate. Okay, so this is obvious, right? There are certain things in your business that you cannot delegate to someone else, because they are the you in the business. If content marketing falls as part of your strategy, then normally you're the one that's going to want to be driving that content, you might decide that you want some support, you might use a copywriter, you might decide that you're going to get your VA actually to own that process and, and set out the process for you and therefore assigned to you a writing day where she'll tell you or he'll tell you exactly how much content you need to produce on that day because that's what's going to drop in nicely into the content plan and And, and they can then go and execute that and post it and share it, etc. But generally speaking, actually coming up with the content, so no one else can record this podcast, I can't delegate the recording of this podcast, right? It's my podcast, it's my voice. It's my thoughts that come out of this mouth, usually fairly unedited. But, you know, no
one else can do that. Clearly, if you create content on YouTube, something like that, clearly, no one else can produce that for you. So there are some things that can't be delegated in the business. Lots of your service delivery can't be delegated. So get really clear. And certainly, if you've already got a team, if you've got just a VA, really have a good heart to heart with that VA and get them to help you decide what you can and can't delegate. What I've found, certainly Emily, and I, she will always be the one coming to me and saying, why don't we try it this way. Or I could be doing that for you. And for a long time, I resisted, because, like I was, I was just a control freak, to be quite honest, I really was. And if that resonates with you, I really, really want you to pay really close attention to this episode, because it will change everything in your business, when you master this art of delegation, and lose a bit of that control, okay? The other thing is kind of play into your team's strengths. So find out what your team loved doing and what they hate doing, find out what they're going to enjoy, and therefore will execute really well. Because the worst thing you can do is delegate to someone, something they absolutely hate, you're better off finding another team member or a different team member who actually enjoys that kind of work than trying to get an existing team member to do something that they really can't stand. So I think it's important to really play to their strengths. And their goals, like think about what they want to achieve, you know, most of us as entrepreneurs have contractors for me part of our team, so certainly I don't have any permanent employees. I work with all of my team or contractors. So you know, find out what their goals are for their businesses, and find out how there could be a good synergy there in delegating to them, things that they're going to find inspiring and useful and fit in with the goals that they have for their own business. Okay, a really important thing is to make sure that you're really carefully defining what the outcome is that you want. So this is a sounds really obvious, right? Make sure they know what, what they need to do. But it's not so much defining the process, because quite often, you'll find that your support team are going to be better than you are at coming up with a slick and efficient process for doing something. Whether it's some kind of marketing process, it might be your social media management, it might be podcast, management like this. It might be Client Onboarding, you know, whatever it is, quite often, your team will be the ones who actually have better ideas than you do on what can work well for that. But what I'm talking about here is really focusing in on what the desired outcome is for the process or the task that you're outsourcing. So as an example, if it's Client Onboarding,
really think about what you want the end of the process to look like? How do you want that client to feel? Ideally, if you're onboarding a new client, you want them to feel like it's been a really efficient process. You don't want them to have had to chase up your team for any information. So you want everything in that process to be very proactive. Very much kind of anticipating what that client's needs will be as they come into your business and you begin working with them or delivering a service to them. So think what you want that desired outcome of the process to be done If you are delegating to your team, sending a welcome email making sure the client has log on access, if if you have an online portal for your clients, if it's getting their first call booked in all of those kinds of things, think about what that desired outcome is, what are all the things that need to come together to make it a complete process. And then allow your team to come up with your VA or support team, whoever you've got working with you allow them to make suggestions about what the right processes for that, that's going to get you to the desired outcome in the most efficient way. And, of course, I mean, whenever you're outsourcing something, please make sure you're giving your team the right resources, you know, don't make their lives harder, by just because it's maybe a tool you're not using, you know, so I've seen this quite often where an entrepreneur will be outsourcing their social media management, for example. So they'll pick the cheapest clunkiest scheduling tool out there. Because of course, it doesn't matter to them. They're not the one doing it. But if that's something you're going to decide to outsource, talk to your team, find out what do they think the best tool would be. And then providing is within your budget. Use that tool, give them the resources, they need to be able to do a great job. Because again, if you're someone that's a control freak, and you really struggle to delegate or outsource work, making sure that your team have the right resources is going to make it it's going to put you in the best position for them doing a good job. And that is going to be like working that outsourcing muscle isn't it, you're gonna get a good experience, and it's gonna get easier every time you do it. So don't put obstacles in your own way, like skimping on the resources that your team need. Okay, one thing that we do in my team is that we communicate in two ways. And we are really, really disciplined about the way we communicate. We use Slack and we use Asana. So slack we is like an instant messaging kind of thing. So you can to and fro really easily with instant messages. And Asana is a project management tool. But not only do we use those two tools, we also have really, really strict guidelines for how we use them. And it's almost like one of our non negotiables is that we don't vary from that. We are disciplined about how we use it. And that makes delegating outsourcing. Collaborating together as a team, assigning tasks to and fro so that each person is completing their part. That makes it so much easier. And also make sure you're really clear on which tool you use for what so we're clear that slack we use for very quick messages. Have you done this? Do you know where this is? I'm finishing early today. So I'll see you tomorrow, those kinds of messages that slack.
Asana is anything where you need to be able to see the flow of a process. So what I might do, in fact, I'm just thinking here, I am going to do this, I'm going to include a little snapshot of the project that we use for podcast production. And I'll show you how it works in terms of delegating tasks between us. So the three of us that work on this podcast, and I'll show you how in Asana, we have created a process that's so robust. Everyone knows exactly what they're doing when and knows how to assign that task to and fro. So that an episode goes from idea to published in a really slick and efficient way. So I think that'd be useful I will do that I will include in the show notes is just as an example. Obviously we use it for lots more than just this podcast. If you have any kind of service delivery, you know you can plot out what that looks like inside of Asana. If you are Planning a launch of a new offer? Absolutely, you would plan that out in Asana, every single task that goes into that launch would go into Asana. So, again, really clear communication channels are absolutely key. When it comes to like delegating outsourcing. It's the one thing that if you don't master that you will struggle to delegate. Because someone's always going to be holding up someone else, or someone won't know when it's their time to jump in and do their bit. Whereas if you've got it super clear in Asana, everyone knows what they're doing when and Asana is not the earliest it's Asana is my preference. But I mean, I think there's click up there's Monday, there's lots of other lots of other project management tools you can use in the same way. Another thing to think about is just lightening up a bit on that perfectionism. And that took me a long time really to master, I don't know, if I have completely mastered it yet, but I'm a hell of a lot better than I used to be, I really am. So you know, allow for an element of it not being exactly how you would do something. Sometimes, if you just let go of that control, you'll find that other people do things better than you, I know, took me a long time to realise that that was a possibility. But it's true. You know, we all have our strengths, and you're not gonna be the best at everything in your business, I can guarantee that you won't be the best at everything, there will be some things that someone else will do a little bit better than you could do it. So allow for a margin of error, you know, let go of the perfectionism allow some things to not be exactly as you would do them. And some things to be an enhanced version of the way you do it. Because honestly, both will happen.
And I think patience around that as well. You know, kind of be patient and accept that it will take a while when you are letting go of that control, and a letting someone else take on the mantle of doing certain tasks or being responsible for certain processes within your business, it will take a little while before it gets really slick and effortless. You know, there will be teething problems, when you outsource, there just will, that's the nature of the beast. So be patient. And just keep going. Keep refining. keep refining how you work together, communicate really well. Give feedback and ask for feedback. You know, how are you going to know if something is frustrating someone on your team if you don't ask them because often people on your team, that they're not going to just volunteer that information to you. They won't feel comfortable doing that necessarily. So really, especially if you're outsourcing a task for the first time. You know, give it a couple of weeks and then ask for feedback. So how's that going? Are you enjoying doing that work? You know, is there anything I could do better? To, you know, really prime you for taking the whole responsibility for that task? What do you need for me, always, always ask for feedback of what you could do better to empower your team to work on your behalf. And definitely deliver feedback to there is no point if if someone is repeatedly making a mistake. However, much the people pleaser with you detests the confrontation of telling them that you're going to have to really push through and give them that hard feedback. Because not doing that doesn't help anyone, it will mean that the entire process will probably fall apart because you won't have the confidence to keep outsourcing or delegating to that person. And they won't know why. They won't know unless you tell them and give them that really constructive feedback. They won't know why it's not working. Okay, getting really close communication. Open communication is the biggest, the absolute biggest key to delegating some of the tasks in your business. I hope that has been helpful. Outsourcing and delegating and working with a VA or working with a team is a huge topic. And I know we will, we will have more episodes about that moving forward, I definitely will get Emily to come on on a future episode. I know she will, she will be kind enough to do this with us. But she will give you some great insight around working with the VA or on my business manager. She'll give you some really good tips on how to do that in the best way to get the best from your team. In the meantime, I hope you have a great week, I think I've just taken four days off over Easter. And I really did take four complete days off, I didn't do anything in my business. And I love that I've been able to let go of control to a point now where I can do that without it worrying me without it worrying me that I'm dropping the ball on something. Because when you put things on your own shoulders, that is a Ah, that's a sleep, disrupting feeling. When there's no one else keeping an eye on anything is all on you. And that will really limit the way you can grow and scale your business. I mean, clearly, as you grow and scale a business, you will need more support as soon as your budget allows. And as soon as you are able to start really working on that art of delegation because it will change everything for you. It really will lose a bit of control because it really can be good for business. Okay, until next week, have a fantastic week. Bye for now.
I hope you enjoyed this episode, and that getting our heads together this week has filled your mind with what's possible. If you love the show, would you do me a massive favour please? Would you leave a five star rating on Apple podcasts? It would really help you put more heads together, which will ears and expand more minds. Until next week. Bye for now.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
