If you're a small business owner, summer vacation may seem like a scary prospect - all those client emails and missed opportunities! I have good news: email monitoring is a service I offer. It's one of the many tasks my clients can delegate to me. New to delegating? Read on.
Merriam-Webster defines the verb delegate this way: to put (something) into the possession or safekeeping of another.
This means that not only do you have to give over control of the thing you're delegating, you also have to trust the person to whom you are delegating, which may feel like a risk. However - lest I talk you out of delegating altogether - proper delegation includes providing all the necessary direction and details for your delegate to do the job well. You are essentially arming your delegate and sending her (or him) out to do battle for you while you perform more critical tasks, like making sales calls or going to lunch.
You: I'm not good at delegating.
Most people aren't, especially if they care about the thing they're not delegating. It can be difficult to entrust an important task or responsibility to someone else. Another common reason for not delegating is that it's faster to do it yourself than to explain or teach it to someone else.
Well, guess what? Delegating is a skill you can learn, and it gets easier the more you do it!
Me: Here's how you do it.
I recently helped a client determine which tasks she could delegate to me by asking her to consider the following questions. This was helpful to her because she was able to identify the tasks she didn't necessarily have to do herself, freeing her up to do the things she's great at.
- What keeps getting moved down on your to-do list? You have a lot of priorities in your business, and sometimes they change. However, there will always be those things that you must do yourself and that means that other things get pushed down on the list. Those are the tasks you want to delegate first so they don't drop off the list entirely.
- What tasks do you not like to do, or do you not do well? If you don't like writing, or if you're just not good at it, why are you still doing your own newsletter, blog and social media posts? Or even worse - you're not doing these things at all. Either way, you're not getting the most you can out of a potential revenue goldmine.
- What tasks do you do that have the lowest ROI? If it's not making you money but it needs to be done, it's most likely a good task to delegate.
Delegating can seem like a task in itself, but with some thought and intention, you can get good at it and reap the benefits both in your business and in your personal life. Case in point: a worry-free summer vacation!
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