083: How Managers Can Support You In Stepping Out of the Day to Day Management
Are you ready to step out of the day-to-day management of your business and actually run your business? Are you utilizing your managers to help you achieve that goal?
In this episode, I am breaking down some of the habits that cause leaders to struggle with moving forward and how managers can support you in that. You’ll learn why you should consider making a “how to deal with me” document to help you stop getting stuck in the cycle of getting in the middle of your team’s work.
What’s in this episode:
- How to use your manager for support in getting things off your plate
- The habits that cause leaders to struggle with moving forward
- The “how to deal with me” document
- How your team can help you build this all-encompassing document
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EPISODE 83 TRANSCRIPT:
Download the Episode 83 Transcript
Welcome to the Scale Your Way podcast, episode 83.
You’re listening to the Scale Your Way podcast, where we share simple, proven strategies just for fun for you service based companies. Here, you’ll learn how to scale your business on your own terms so that you can have more time money, create a bigger impact and a better life. I’m your host, Nicole Jackson Miller. Let’s dive into today’s episode.
Hey, everyone, Nicole here. Today we are talking about how to help your manager help you get things off of your plate. And I am super excited to be talking about something that I am extremely passionate about, which is helping you better lead the managers on your team.
And this is I want to share today a tool with you that you can use. I’ve shared this with clients since actually it started with me having my project management agency. That was the first time I shared this tool we used it with with one of my project management clients. It was incredible. And then I started implementing it with the clients that I had that were growing agencies like mine. And it’s one some really like small, easy thing that can make such a huge difference.
So let’s dive into that. For those of you that don’t know me. Hi, I’m Nicole, and I hope done for you service providers step into the role of agency owner and really support all of the people inside of their businesses, including their clients, their team members and themselves, too. And today we’re talking about how to use your manager to get things off of your plate.
So as leaders, there are a few reasons why we struggle to move forward. And a lot of times it boils down to habits. And as we shift our identities from being the only person delivering in our businesses to having a team deliver for us, there are certain habits that we’ve created when we did it ourselves, and there are certain habits that we then need to change and either break or introduce as we go to lead a team that’s delivering for clients. And this is really challenging.
There’s going to be some habits that you are aware of and that, you know, like what’s happening. And for some, like you just keep on doing it right because it’s a habit and there’s going to be other habits that you are unaware of. And so today we’re focusing on the habits that you are aware of. And it’s so funny because when I was writing notes for this live, I labeled it bad habits, and I don’t think that’s garbage. So sorry past Nicole, I don’t agree with you. They are not bad habits. They are just habits. There are habits that you formed because when you were the only one delivering in your business, there were certain things that you had to do in order to make things work right. And those become habits.
Answering emails, having to put out fires for clients, jumping in to solve a problem, right? These are all things that are things that probably helped you grow your business. But now that you have a team that’s delivering for clients, you need to shift your your habits. So today we’re focusing on the habits that you are aware of.
So let’s just give a few examples here. One may be delegating tasks and then jumping in to do the work anyway. Have you ever done this where you have someone on your team and you’re like, OK, I’m going to delegate email management to them and then you’re constantly like in your email and asking them, like, Hey, did you see this email? Actually, I want you to send it, send it this way, or then you go and actually answer an email when really it’s somebody else’s job to do that. And then they come in and they’re like, “wait a minute. Like, What’s going on?”.
You may have found that you’re like, Yeah, I’ve delegated this all to my team and they’re not doing it, and I’ll talk to people and find out that they’re actually going in and doing half the work. And then the team member is completely confused on what they’re supposed to be doing.
Another thing that might be coming up is that maybe you’re onboarding clients, even though you have a client manager. So maybe you have the sales call and you have a client manager who’s responsible for onboarding. But yet there you are, filling out the contract and sending the agreement. You know, it could be taking on a client project, even though you know you shouldn’t or you you don’t even need to. But maybe something comes around and you’re so used to jumping in and you feel like you can help them that you take on that project anyway, right?
So these are all habits that do need to shift in order for you to be able to have a team lead your client accounts. And it’s not as easy as just saying like, Oh, I’m not doing it anymore, right? Because there may be reasons why you’re still stepping in, but those reasons need to be addressed and the habits need to be shifted in order for you to actually be able to grow your business.
So the good news here is that you are aware of it. The bad news is that you keep doing it right because its a habit. So here’s how to help your manager help you. It’s in creating a document. This is my big tool. It’s called a how to deal with me document. And so I want you to list in this document what are the habits that you are aware of that are holding you back from delegating client delivery? And how can your manager support you when these things come up?
So, for example, you may know that you have the natural tendency to send out contracts after you have a sales call, even though it’s part of somebody else’s job. So I want you to tell your manager like, Hey, this is something that I do, and I would like to not do it any more. So if I do this, could you please send me a message and tell me, please stop doing this right?
You’re really literally calling yourself out in the statement. Another thing could be checking your inbox obsessively, even though you have a perfectly capable account manager to handle it for you. Right. And so you could literally tell your manager, please change the password for this and you can update it somewhere, right, so that you have, you know, I don’t want there to be a security issue, right? But like, have them trick you into not checking it right. So you literally can’t even log in. Or if you see me responding to something like after six p.m. because I said I wasn’t going to be in my inbox after this time, like, I want you to message me and say, what is going on?
Asking questions to get information that you don’t need, right? So how did that sales call go? Like, if you have a salesperson, like “how did that sales call go? Give me an update.” Even though it’s within their process within 24 hours to update Asana with all of the call notes, right? It’s like, how did it go? Is everything OK? Do you have any questions right now? Trust your process, right? Let them do their job taking on a client project where you can literally tell your account manager I am no longer like available to take on client work like this is something that I do. How can we prevent me from doing that? So that’s another thing they can actually help brainstorm with you because it’s very likely that if they’ve been working with you for a while, they know that you have some of these tendencies and can actually help.
And it also opens up the conversation to have them feel safe or feel safe to express some of the things that you need to work on as the business owner, right? Sometimes it they might notice something but not feel comfortable coming to you. But if you come to them and say, “Hey, listen, I have these like habits, I’d like to shift. What else do you notice and like? How can we hack this so that I don’t do this anymore?” It’s going to be a game changer, I promise you. So if you are looking for more tips to have your manager actually help you so that you can step out of the day to day management and actually run your business, I have enrollment open for my program AGENCY that kicks off in October. I would love for you to check it out and join us. You can head over to NicoleJacksonMiller.com/Apply. Read all about it and see if it’s a good fit for you. And then if it is, just apply. I’d love to see your application come through and we’d love to chat with you, so I hope you have a great rest of your day and I will talk to you later. Bye, everyone.
Thanks so much for tuning in. If you are ready to stop settling for being a done for you service provider and really fully step into the role of agency owner and CEO and lead a team that you love that just delivers excellent client results, then you have to check out my new program called AGENCY, which is specifically designed to remove you from at least 50 percent of client delivery in 12 months or less, so that you can have the time in the space to be able to run your business and, you know, to take a tech free vacation, too. That’s always nice, right? So if you’re interested in learning more, head over to NicoleJacksonMiller.com/apply. You can learn more about the program. If it looks like a good fit, then apply and we will send you, before our call we’ll send you a free business assessment that will really explain more about the framework that we use to remove you from client delivery, and it’ll give you an assessment that you can take to really show where you are now and where you’re going. We’ve had so many people get a lot of insight just from taking that assessment, so I can’t wait for you to check it out.
