Do – Delegate – Delete
Anyone who has taken part in one of my workshops knows I talk about the 3 Ds. A productive person employs them consistently, and the 3 Ds allow them to effectively move toward their goals each day.
The powerful Ds are: Do, Delegate & Delete
When a new opportunity or request arises for you, see which of the 3 Ds make most sense.
In the last year there have been quite a few magazine articles and blog posts about Power Poses. The idea is certain poses make us feel more powerful and therefore we present ourselves and act in ways that yield higher success rates. After sitting or standing in power poses for just two minutes, studies show that we have higher levels of testosterone and lower levels of cortisol. What that means is we are more willing to take risks and we will perform better in stressful situations.
The options seem endless when thinking about what you can delegate to a virtual assistant. But what are the items that will help you reach your business goals the fastest?
Identify where you spend your time.
Often we are so busy being busy that we don’t really know where our days go. For a week, document where you spend your time.
Example: 1 hour returning emails about general FAQs on your product/service, 5 hours networking, 2 hours sending follow up emails and phone calls up from networking, 45 minutes entering new contacts
into database, 4 hours doing research projects, 2.5 hours writing articles, 30 minutes uploading new blog posts to wordpress, etc.
Add to the list things you’d like to accomplish.
These are items that are always on your To Do list or are looming projects that don’t get done. Maybe you don’t have time, interest, or ability to complete them. Add them to the list.
Example: start or update your blog, social media updates, reach out personally to each of your clients, create a new product to sell, upgrade your website, enter info from all the business cards you have been collecting into a database, etc.
Congratulations! You have identified the important items that must get done in your business. The next step is to determine what specifically makes most sense for you to delegate.
Prioritize what to delegate first… What do you HATE to do?
Identify the things you really dislike doing. Delegating these items will ensure they will be complete in a timely manner, you won’t feel guilty about putting them off, and you won’t feel frustrated when you have to do them.
Example: These items are different for everyone. Common tasks we have heard are bookkeeping, writing, research, event coordination, database management, following up on late invoices
What is possible for someone else do?
Mark the items that YOU do not need to do. Usually 80% of your list falls into this category. You are not committing to delegating these items, but you are identifying things that could be given to someone else. Remember, just because you are used to doing something yourself does not mean you are the only person who can do it.
Example: scheduling your appointments, research projects, placing phone calls on your behalf, sending follow up emails, project management, client communication, bookkeeping
Find recurring items that are time sucks
What responsibilities that take up a lot of your time? These are essential details but they keep you from spending time on the most important parts of your business. They are things that must be done daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly.
Example: posting blog articles, sending emails, research projects, scheduling appointments, formatting documents, data entry, replying to email inquiries, updating spreadsheets
Identify things that will let you generate income the fastest.
What needs to be done in order to increase income the fastest and most consistently for you? Identify these areas and focus on them! You can either have a virtual assistant take on the responsibilities or you can delegate the timesucking duties you have been doing that have kept you from the income producing activities.
Example: product development, customer service, follow up on leads, sending invoices, set up online store, marketing help
Start small but strategically.
By this point you have identified many items that can be delegated to someone. Prioritize this list and come up with the few duties that you will ask a virtual assistant to do first. Start with just a few items so you can provide feedback and be sure things are going smoothly. Select the responsibilities that will make the biggest impact for you – the ones that will help you increase income, give you the most time back in your day, or help you regain balance and sanity.
Happy Delegating!
“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.”
–Theodore Roosevelt
The most successful people have a talented team supporting them. Think of any entrepreneur who is growing their business, making a healthy profit, and has any sort of balance outside of work. That individual has at least one person assisting them.
We are all told to delegate, but most people fail in this area. It may not be a miserable, walls come crashing down sort of fail, but a fail none the less. Maybe the items you delegated are not coming back the way you want them so you end up spending time revising work you thought you got rid of. Perhaps the person who is supposed to be helping you doesn’t get things done as quickly as you would like or to the level you hoped.
All common challenges with busy professionals, and all fixable. Assuming the person is qualified to do the work, one of the top missteps people make when delegating work to someone is in the request.
Make me a sandwich…
For instance, if you were to tell someone to make a sandwich, how many end results could you have?! PB&J on white bread, turkey and swiss with lettuce and tomato on a french roll, tuna salad with pickles on rye … this list could go on and on. If you really don’t care what sort of sandwich you get, there is no problem with this, but if you hate mustard or have a vision of what you want the end result to be, you must communicate that.
I have seen clients ask a virtual assistant to create a template for their email newsletters. They say something like “use green and blue, and make it look clean”. More often than not, a person who makes this request really does have an idea in their mind of how the template should look, and when the template comes back different than that idea, they get frustrated.
So how can you fix this?
Be specific in describing your desired outcome.
The same client could have said:
Next time you delegate, take a few minutes to prepare and then follow these 5 steps.
Follow those five steps and chances are the added detail in your request will save you from frustration and revisions in the future. Delegating gets easier with practice, and can become quite effortless and fun!
When working with a virtual assistant or team, giving and receiving feedback is a key to success. Create a system and expectation for doing this from the beginning of any work relationship.
If you are working with someone new to your support team, commit to feedback frequently. With an established team, schedule time for feedback after any big project or event, or at least once a quarter. This allows you to constantly assess and improve within your company.
Pluses and Deltas
The feedback process we suggest at Assistant Match is called “pluses and deltas.”
Plus (+) is the symbol for positive
Delta (Δ) is the symbol for change
When providing feedback with pluses and deltas, you identify both the positive and what can and should be changed in order to improve. This is a solution-oriented process. You do not dwell on things that were “bad” but instead, concentrate on what can be changed to make it “better” in the future.
This feedback process allows for everyone to be heard in a safe, constructive environment.
Let’s take an example and walk through the steps. A virtual assistant completed a research project related to customer leads. This is the first time the research was conducted by anyone other than the company president or sales representative. The president (P), virtual assistant (VA), and sales rep (SR) take part in the feedback process.
Step 1: BRAINSTORM PLUSES & DELTAS
Set a time limit. You may want to allow 5 minutes to brainstorm pluses and another 5 minutes to brainstorm deltas. When doing this with a group, select one person to record (type) every comment, but do not take time to ask questions or discuss yet. If someone has a question on something that is said, ask for it to be “starred” so you revisit it later. Over time this will become a natural process that can happen less formally.
Always provide feedback on the PROCESS, RELAIONSHIPS, and RESULTS
+ Pluses
Δ Deltas
Step 2: REVIEW LIST
Read each item out loud if the list is longer than 10 items. Be sure no items were mistakenly omitted and there are no additional ones to add.
Step 3: CLARIFY
Most of the plusses and deltas will be self-explanatory. Take time to clarify any “starred” items. If conflicting items appear on the pluses and deltas lists, hear the view of both sides so everyone is on the same page. You may want to flesh out an idea that was brainstormed during Deltas to make it more thorough and to discuss if it is actionable.
Step 4: COMMIT
Identify items from both lists that need action. Define that action. The appropriate person commits to it and a timeline is set if applicable.
With this process, you and your support team will be on the same page and will be able to move forward faster and in the direction you desire. Be sure to capture this process in a Word document or someplace else, and commit to acting on the deltas.
“My assistant has been instrumental in my online marketing strategy. Assistant Match has been a very wise investment."--Marissa Levin, Information Experts and Successful Culture
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