Lessons I Learned running a Successful 6 Figures Business — How To Delegate Effectively
In just 5 simple steps
If you have read the article about why delegating is important to be a successful entrepreneur you will absolutely want to read this one.
There is only so little you can delegate. It is vital for your personal life and the one of your business to do it right.
Delegating is the tool that will transform your business into a successful business.
Define the WHY
Why are you delegating? Your partners, employees and yourself need to understand why it is important to delegate one task so your business will become successful.
One of the best tools I got is from Tim Ferriss’ book The 4 hour week:
Define the value of your time, let’s say $50/hour.
Define the task amount of time, let’s say 10 hours/week.
Define the importance of this task. Is it necessary or not, let’s say customer service.
Define the amount of money you will make from this task. You don’t make money from customer service or very little, but you work on the lifetime value of a customer.
Do the math.
You spend 10 hours of your time, so $500 a week.
Customer service is an absolute must if you want to keep your customers.
Tho you make close to none in revenue.
So you can spend up to $500 a week for someone to do customer service as good or better than you.
This is how you get more time to bring value to your business and be more successful as an entrepreneur.
“Delegating doesn’t mean passing off work you don’t enjoy, but letting your employees STRETCH their skills and judgment.”
— Harvey Mackay
Explain the WHY and the HOW
First, decide the task you need to delegate in order to make your business more successful.
Then, explain to your team why you are choosing them for the task and what you are expecting from them.
Having set up processes helps a lot when delegating, so the person has a better understanding of what is expected from him/her.
To hire the right type of personality to the right task is important.
I suggest having a basic understanding of Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience as well as Personality Profiling to do so.
Those tools will only help you be a better and more successful entrepreneur.
In effect, some people need less process and more freedom to develop, like a manager for instance.
Give support and Train your team
When you give your team a process, it might be clear to you, but they may not necessarily be clear to them.
It is important once you hired them, to stay available.
You need to give them the support of the team, as well as the support of the team leader if you are not available.
You need to keep in mind, each and every different business as successful they are, work differently.
It is very important for your team to be trained to work YOUR way.
Some jobs get obsolete very fast, like marketing for instance.
It is necessary for the growth of your business to ask your team to always be trained to new techniques.
To take the example of customer service, you can also ask those employees to make sales when they receive calls.
This is an upgrade of their titles, to this you can ask them to get additional training.
They will feel more important and will find an incentive to work for your business, and so will make it successful.
Be happy to give responsibilities
There is nothing as less friendly as a business where the boss is the boss.
Your team needs to feel like their opinion matters but also there is a possibility of growth.
For a business to run successfully it is important each one of your team members are capable to make a certain amount of decision without your approval.
If you centralize the whole authority but are very busy, your team will just stop work waiting for your green light.
This is what happens with huge corporation and often leads them to watch little business owner take over.
You could call this FLEXIBILITY.
Let’s use the example of the customer service again.
Your team can be entitled to decide to refund a customer for any order under $50 without the approval of any authority.
You can also add a limit of $500 a month or 10 refunds for example.
This will free your team from the wait of a decision. It will free yourself from other decisions to take so you can focus on the growth and success of your business.
“When you delegate tasks, you create followers. When you delegate authority, you create leaders.”
– Craig Groeschel
Gratitude
Everybody likes a “thank you”, a “good job” or any sign of recognition.
As a leader, it can be interesting for you to practice the non-violent communication system.
Google understood well it is important to work in a fun and friendly environment, and this is what makes it one if not the most successful business of this era.
To know how to delegate will be a great help to take your business to the next level.
Receive admiration from your peers and devotion from your team.
“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.”
— Michael Jordan
Go get it done now.
3, 2, 1… ACTION!
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