Most coaches and consultants are a one person team. And those that have a desire to grow their business, scale, and take on a bigger brand quickly realize one thing…
There is only so much you can do with a fixed number of hours in a day.
The solution?
Begin hiring out or delegating to a team.
It will make your life so much easier and you are going to be surprised and quickly say to yourself, “So this is how it is done!”
And it begins with finding tasks that you can delegate to others so you can free up your time to do client work and do the things you love.
Recognizing Problems
In my company, I recognized the first thing I could take care of and outsource was anything that had to do with my accounting.
So other than hiring an accountant, which I did from day one, I also hired someone to do the bookkeeping. My accounting records are very organized. I am a fanatic when it comes to having everything in order, sort of like having OCD (I haven't been diagnosed).
And so what I did was I created a financial table and every time I would send an invoice, get a receipt or get a payment, everything would be uploaded. And the same with my expenses.
The problem was that this was taking me way too much time.
And you can see what I did in an article about it here, but it was still taking me time. Even with automations and everything in place, I still needed to hire it out.
I found the most amazing VA ever. And she helps me with this. I also gave her other tasks that have to do with uploading content and creating graphic content and carousel.
Why? Because this is important for marketing and I suck at graphics.
And also I was wasting so much time on tools like Canva and minor tasks like uploading things to my website.
(Plus, let's be honest, an extra pair of eyes and someone to brainstorm with is always a good idea.)
The next thing I wanted to hire out was someone to actually write the content. I hired the most phenomenal ghostwriter. Basically I record myself talking, I give all the content to them and then they edit it and make it into this readable document that you're reading right now.
Can you see how many hours I’ve saved for myself to focus on serving my clients and having even more time with my family?
But There’s a Hidden Problem
Having a team like this requires a way to organize everything.
I'll be honest with you.
I'm not always the most organized, even in my own company. (Not often… but it does happen.)
And that caused this article to almost not see the light of day.
How do I actually get organized?
I'm glad you asked.
The first thing I did when I decided that I wanted to hire a VA was create a project in my Asana project management tool. I called the project Admin Tasks. I created sections for the different types of work that I wanted to delegate. I created a section for accounting, a section for blogs and content uploading, and a section for social media and email marketing. Basically, a different section for each type of task that I wanted to be done.
Then I started recording myself doing these tasks. I created a task under accounting, and it would be how to create an invoice or how to record an expense. The task would link to the walkthrough clip.
The real kick is I was doing most of these tasks anyways. All I had to do was record myself doing what I had always done. Then I would start narrating the recordings with explanations of how I do certain tasks.
By the time I needed to hire my VA, there was a recorded training program already in place in my project management tool, explaining exactly what I needed to do.
And what about onboarding a copywriter?
Great question again!
And my copywriter is going to laugh when he reads/writes this article, but he really doesn’t like working within my project management tool.
But in theory, every time there's an article to be written, I'll record myself doing it. I will upload it as a task in the project management tool, giving it due dates and giving it check-ins. When we brainstorm, we create a task for an idea.
What this does is it gives you a record of what you've talked about. All the comments and communications about a task are done within the task. In a previous article I've talked about how this ensures that your team is always on the same page.
Using Google Docs
I love using Google Docs for collaboration because I'll work with a copywriter on it. Then when they are done I share it with my VA to upload, and she'll start commenting within the document as well. And everybody has access to this. She (or anyone with access to the document) can ask questions to whomever.
Building a team that works as a team will make your work more cohesive and it will make your projects run smoother. And it's also going to take so much weight off your shoulders.
Honestly, I plan my content a month or two in advance.
I record it. I send it out to my copywriter. They send it back to me at a certain date. I send it to my VA for upload and graphic work, et cetera.
Everything is ready to go before the first email, before the first blog, before the first, anything has to go up. And this ensures that I'm always on time.
(I say this and yet this article is still late. So, let's just pretend that didn't happen. OK? Our little secret)
How Much Is Your Time Worth To You?
The more project members you hire, the more you outsource, the easier your life will be.
If you're doing videos for your content, hire a video editor!
There are some great ones out there and they don't need to cost an arm and a leg.
Sure. I could do it myself. But if I hire out, then that's hours I'm not spending editing a video, or even 25 minutes.
Some of you might be saying, “but I can do 25 minutes, Irit!”
I’m sure you can.
But let's say your hourly rate is a hundred dollars an hour.
And your video editor's hourly rate is $30 an hour.
If it's taking you 25 minutes to edit the video and it's taking them 10 minutes to edit the video, I'd rather pay them $10 than $25 of my own time - with that time I could be doing something valuable and making $25.
The ROI on that is pretty clear.
So, I’ll ask you again… how much is your time worth to you?
Wrapping Up
The delegation process and working with a team is an iterative process, which means you build it at first.
As you're working with your team members, some members will like one way of working… some will like another way of working. Some like communication directly within the task. Some prefer to just pass voice notes to each other, which can also, by the way, be uploaded to the task and probably should, but that's a different discussion.
But like I said, it's an iterative process.
So keep reviewing your process with your team members, see what works and what doesn't, and fix it constantly.
The more on point you are with your process, the more aware you are of how your process is running smoothly or not smoothly, the easier it will be to run your business and scale your business in a good way.
Remember: Delegate to people you trust, train them properly and then send them out and have them do the work, but track everything!
As always, if you have any questions, you can reach out.
