Want to Delegate More Effectively To Your Virtual Assistant? Take These Steps
As a small business owner or entrepreneur, the constant juggle of multiple tasks and responsibilities is somewhat inescapable. Delegating some of these tasks can be your escape. Outsourcing tasks can be a game-changer for your productivity and overall success – but only if your delegation process is effective.
Delegating tasks isn't just about lightening your load; it's about flexing your management skills and maximizing productivity through strategic empowerment.
Delegation involves assigning the right tasks, steering clear of micromanagement, and refining your leadership skills so that your team members grow to be indispensable contributors to your business's success.
Good delegation requires careful planning and execution so that you can get the most out of the money you are spending to have tasks taken care of for you. If you are deliberate about your delegation process, you can build a true team – an alliance between you and your virtual assistant.
How do you do this?
Freedom Makers Virtual Services has been matching talented military spouse virtual assistants (our Freedom Makers) with solopreneurs and small business owners for over nine years. Not only do we have a deep appreciation for the challenges many face when it comes to delegating tasks effectively, we’ve also seen firsthand what works and what doesn’t.
If you are starting your delegation journey, you can avoid many pitfalls and points of stagnation that can be the leading cause of failure between a business owner and a remote employee.
Check out these steps, which will help you streamline your task delegation process and unlock greater efficiency in your business.
IDENTIFY REPETITIVE TASKS FOR DELEGATION
What Are The Right Tasks To Outsource?
The first crucial step in your delegation journey is properly identifying the repetitive, mundane, and/or undesirable tasks that can be passed to a virtual assistant. This initial assessment is the key to understanding where you are spending significant amounts of time in your business.
- Are you pouring over invoices for hours a week?
- Checking your emails when you should be networking?
- Going back and forth with a lead, trying to schedule a time that works in both of your schedules?
Start here!
We also recommend checking out our Task Audit. This tool will guide you through your business areas so that you can pinpoint the tasks that you could or should outsource. By leveraging our Task Audit, you can see where you could save more time in your day by getting those burdensome, repetitive tasks off your plate.
ASSESS YOUR CURRENT WORKFLOW
How Do You Do What You Do?
Once you've identified the repetitive tasks for delegation, the next step is to assess your current workflow. Take a close look at your daily, weekly, and monthly tasks to determine which ones are essential for you to handle personally and which ones you could delegate to someone else.
- What are the steps involved each time you execute this process?
- Is it optimized?
Being introspective (and a little self-critical) about your workflows and processes will allow you to really see how and where your time is being spent. You will then more clearly understand the opportunities for outsourcing that will provide the most significant return on your delegation investment.
CREATE STANDARDIZED PROCEDURES AND GUIDELINES
Can You Get It Out Of Your Head?
Assessing your workflows might actually be the first time you've ever given much thought to how - or why - you do things the way you do inside of your business. If all your processes live inside your head, you are not alone! However, to ensure consistency and efficiency in task delegation, it's essential to be able to express and explain the task you are outsourcing.
Your virtual assistant will need to have some sort of guideline or procedure to follow, even if it is just a verbally expressed walkthrough of what you do. The more clearly you can outline your expectations, deadlines, and desired outcomes for each task, the better. Start by creating an easy step-by-step screen recording of yourself as you execute a workflow within your business.
Having a Loom video to share can help immensely when explaining your process to a new delegate. But you don't have to have it documented perfectly! At Freedom Makers, our experienced virtual assistants excel at doing that work for you. Once they understand the steps needed to complete the task, they can create a standardized procedure for you. They will incorporate your process into a documented, streamlined workflow within which productivity is maximized.
So, don't be dismayed if the thought of "getting it out of your head" feels daunting. Just lay it out as best you can, and ask your Freedom Maker to "document as they do" so you end up with a record of the task's workflow.
AUTOMATE TASKS WHERE POSSIBLE
Streamlining Means Time and Cost Savings
Consider the power of automation when thinking about delegating effectively. Automating repetitive processes to further streamline your workflows is where you can save a ton of time and money.
Your Freedom Maker virtual assistant can help identify opportunities for automation and implement the tools and software that will simplify your tasks and save time. Whether it's setting up email automation, implementing a tool like Calendly for scheduling, or using a scheduling software so that all your social media posts are laid out, asking your virtual assistant to find and implement automation can significantly boost efficiency in your business.
MONITOR PROGRESS AND ADJUST AS NEEDED
Check In Early & Often To Avoid Micromanaging
Finally, know that effective task delegation requires ongoing monitoring and communication to ensure that tasks are being completed accurately and on time. While providing guidance and feedback to your virtual assistant is important, it's also essential to empower them to take ownership of their tasks and work independently.
At Freedom Makers Virtual Services, we recommend frequent, regular check-ins during the early stages of working with your virtual assistant so that you feel comfortable with the level of delegation you've committed to. Regular check-ins and ongoing, robust communication is the key to successful collaboration -- making "work" not only about task completion, but team building as well. The trust established through thoughtful, deliberate communication will help you avoid micromanaging and create a productive working relationship that will benefit you and your virtual assistant.
Delegation isn't merely about offloading tasks; it's about crafting an alliance between you and your virtual assistant.
It's about recognizing the repetitive, time-consuming tasks that bog you down and entrusting them to capable hands so that you can focus on nurturing your business's core vision and driving its growth. With the help of one of our skilled and experienced Freedom Makers, you can take your business to the next level and achieve greater success.
Contact our Discovery team today to add a the right Freedom Maker to your team so you can get the support and you need to make your business thrive.
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