091: How to Delegate Tasks Within Your Team
Do you ever feel like you’re overrun with tasks? Like your to-do list keeps growing, even though you have a team of capable people behind you? If so, you might be a task “hoarder.”
Even after you’ve grown your team, it might feel hard to hand over the many tasks on your to-do lists. It could be that you don’t feel your team is ready, that you have a hard time letting go, or that you don’t know where to start. No matter the reason, you deserve a less overwhelming to-do list.
In today’s episode, I’m walking you through a simple exercise to determine what you can (and should) delegate within your business. I’m explaining some of the reasons you might struggle with this, and I’m also sharing my tips for making the adjustment easier for both you and your team.
What’s in this episode:
- Why we “hoard” tasks and hesitate to delegate to our teams
- Releasing control of certain aspects of your business
- How to determine which tasks you should delegate
- How releasing some of these tasks can help you “spiral up”
- Envisioning your life without these less aligned tasks
- How to equip your team members to take on some of your tasks
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EPISODE 91 TRANSCRIPT:
Download the Episode 91 Transcript
Welcome to the Scale Your Way podcast episode number 91.
You’re listening to the Scale Your Way podcast, where we share simple, proven strategies just for done-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 and money, create a bigger impact and a better life. I’m your host, Nicole Jackson Miller. Let’s dove into today’s episode.
I hope you all are having a great day, a great week. I’m excited to chat to you today about tasks and any of you are out there hoarding tasks that could be delegated to somebody else who’s currently on your team. Please know you are not alone, and I want to share with you how you can stop doing this and still keep your clients happy.
So for those of you who don’t know me? Hello, my name is Nicole and I help done-for-you service provider. Step into the role of agency owner and really create incredible experiences for themselves, their clients and their teams, too. So with that, let’s dive in.
So why do we keep tasks on our plate that we know could be delegated to other people who we have on our team? I think there’s a few reasons why we do this, myself included. I have clients who have expressed this. I’ve talked to people online, friends, even, you know, I think first off, sometimes we make the task of delegating feel harder than it is. It feels like this big task for us to have to delegate tasks and it’s like, I already have too much on my plate. I just like this isn’t a priority for me right now, so it could be a priority thing. Sometimes it’s a control piece where if it’s something that maybe you’ve delegated in the past, it hasn’t worked out, you’ve taken it back on and now you feel hesitant and delegating it again because it hasn’t worked out in the past. That could happen. And sometimes it’s natural to feel some fear of releasing control around another piece of client delivery. Perhaps you’ve started feeling really comfortable with delegating certain areas, but there’s like one area that you’re just afraid to let go of.
And so there can be so many reasons, and it’s totally understandable and sometimes happens. We don’t even realize it’s happening. It’s like, Oh, right, of course, I could totally be giving this to somebody else. So this is what I want you to do. I would love for you to take out a piece of paper right now and write down all of the things that you’re currently doing right now that could be delegated to somebody else who’s currently on your team. Now, sometimes that is like too much thinking. So if it is more helpful to you, I would just write a list of everything that is on your plate right now, just brain dump it all out and then go back and underline, circle, highlight the things that could be done by somebody else on your team.
I have done this exercise with clients before, and it is incredible to see how many things could be delegated to people who are already there. You don’t even need to hire anyone else who’s new. Now this is something that I do for myself too, and I think it’s an important exercise to do regularly because as we grow and as we take on new tasks and as team members shift, there’s always going to be more, that is, it’s very likely that we could be delegating to other people. And so it’s a part of what I call spiraling up where you want to reassess this frequently to see, OK, now that the dynamics on my team have changed or my business has shifted, we’re doing different offerings or we’ve gotten comfortable in the roles that we’re in right now. What’s kind of that next level that I can really be able to hand off right and starting to get into the practice of as soon as something comes on your plate, stopping yourself from just from starting to do it and knowing, you know what, this would actually be done by better by somebody else could be at first, it’s probably to be someone who’s on your team. And then eventually it’s probably going to be someone to say, like, you know what, we’re going to hire someone to do this because I’m not doing this. So it’s really exercising that muscle and that it’s a practice where we have to practice this every day. And you know, I talk about this, I teach this and it’s something that I do for myself. It’s something that I sometimes forget. And all of a sudden, if you’re really like, squirmy and I’ve been telling my friends, I’ve been using the word, I feel wiggly inside. It’s like, Oh, because I feel like I’m buzzing, like there’s just too much, too much to do. And so I’ll write this list down. I’m like, Oh, wait, like, I could totally hand off these three things. And something that’s great is that once you do that, you’ll find that you will be less of a bottleneck, which will then have a domino effect on other things that you’re doing.
For example, for my podcast, one of the things that I started out by doing was listening to audio the after it was edited, and this did create a bottleneck inside of my business because things were just piling up and I didn’t have, you know, it was like I was spending so much time recording episodes and then engaging with people afterwards that to go back and listen to it. I thought I really wanted to do it first, and I agreed, you know, to do it first, and that was something that I desired. And then eventually, I’m just like, You know what? I think that I need to hand this off, and so I have somebody on my team who’s able to do that. And what was nice is that I was able to let that go. And then episodes have been able to get out faster, more efficiently. You know, team members are able to keep moving forward. We’ve all been on other people’s teams and it is really challenging when one person is holding things up and like, you don’t know when it’s going to come and if you should work on something else and then it comes in its emergency, right? So constantly asking that question, I think, is really important.
So I will say that after doing this, most of my clients after doing this have done sometimes almost like 50 to 80 percent of the work to delegate those tasks. So there may be like so he’s already created or videos already created. They just haven’t actually either had the conversation with the person or done that next step to really get it off of their plate.
So why does this happen? It can happen for a variety of reasons. One, it’s easy. Sometimes like you start something and then you get distracted by other tasks, and it’s easier to just keep doing the same thing than actually change and go back to it. Another thing could be that there might be a concern about money or financials and whether that is real in factual, or if it’s something more like imagined or a general fear that maybe you have plenty of money to be able to outsource this. But for some reason it feels really challenging for you to pay somebody else to do this right? So it could be that it could be. You’re wondering if your team member even wants to do the thing, whatever it is, the extra tasks. And, you know, it’s like, Oh, well, maybe they don’t want to do this and I don’t want to put more on their plate or they’ve been they have a lot to do. So I don’t want to ask them to do this piece, right? So there’s lots of reasons why this could happen. And if you are listening, whether on the podcast or on Instagram or Facebook, I’d love to know if there’s any other reasons why you might feel that you don’t struggle to hand over tasks to team members that already exist. I’d love to know what some of your reasons are, too, because we are all in this together and others might really resonate with that.
So if you’re in this position right now, I want you to know or ask yourself, like, what would your life look like knowing that you didn’t ever need to think about these tasks ever again? So when you’re doing something like, for example, with me, like listening to the podcast episodes over? It started out being like, this really fun thing. And then eventually it became draining and it was totally me. I wanted to do it. Let me just be very clear. But I noticed a shift, an energy shift in myself, or I’m just like, Oh my gosh, I can’t listen to this. And I had, like, started skipping through stuff and everything, and I’m like, This isn’t helpful. It’s not helping my team. It’s not helping me. It’s like, This is no good. And then I thought, like, what if I never had to do this again? That would be great. And then realizing, OK, there’s so many are already on my team. How do I need to equip her in order to be able to take this over? Like what actually has to happen? And sometimes it’s nothing like sometimes the person is just like, Yep, great. Like, they don’t need a ton of information. Sometimes they do, sometimes depending on what it is they need and an SOP, they need a decision making tree for if that involves making decisions, you know, understanding your values and priorities.
So that’s the next step. I want you to ask yourself, what would you need to do to get these tasks off of your plate today, like today, today, right after listening to this? Do you have to record a quick SOP? Could you hop on video and explain some things? Maybe the SOP has already been created and you really just need to message the person and say, Hey, could you take this over starting tomorrow or starting in a week, whatever it is? Do it now. That’s my invitation. That’s my challenge for you.
And if you think that you don’t have the time, then stop, stop listening. Whether wherever you are right now, if you’re on my Facebook or you’re on Instagram or you’re on my podcast, just stop whatever you’re doing, wherever you’re listening to this and I want you to do what needs to be done instead, I want you to do what needs to be done to delegate these items today. So go. You are dismissed.
This is just one of the practices that I work on with my clients. We talk about this inside of my program AGENCY, which is specifically designed to help you delegate at least 50 percent, if not more, of client delivery in 12 months or less. You know, I’ve gotten questions from people on why the program is the length that it is, and it is because this is a practice. So like I said before, when you’re looking at your list and you’re reviewing, OK, what are these? What are the things I actually need to be doing and what do I not need to be doing? And what do I actually already have somebody on my team? I already have someone there that can totally do this and probably do it better than me. So you can do that once, which is great, but you might need to be reminded and to be guided through when you need to do that practice again. And if you did delegate something and it didn’t work out well, understanding why and then making the changes needed to make it work better in the future. So that’s the reason why I have a program that’s 12 months that supports you in doing this is because this is not about just gathering information and checking things off of a list. You’ve heard it. That’s great. This is about actual application and doing it. And when you do that right, we’re working with people. So the companies that your business is serving, the clients that you have, team members that you have and and you everyone’s we’re all people, right? And so it needs to be adjusted based on how you are implementing it inside of your business.
And that’s another important piece of this process, which is why it is important to continue through because this isn’t just checking things off of a list and then never having to address it again. These are practices. And so that’s when it’s really important to be in a community where you can be supported in that way.
I will also say that we cover a lot inside the program. If you’re interested in learning more about it and go to NicoleJacksonMiller.com/Apply. We cover a lot of things, and based on where you are in your business right now, there may be certain areas that you need to address before other areas. And so we give you the ability to be able to understand and really audit where your business is right now and then give you the direction on what you need to do in the order in which you need to do it, that we would recommend, right? And then we’re there with you as you actually implement and have those questions.
Thanks so much for tuning in today, if you are listening and know that you are committed to stepping into the agency owner role, whether you are a done-for-you service provider that’s working with a few contractors right now or you have a full team of employees and you’re ready to up level your leadership and make the changes in your business that’s needed to create a better and more enjoyable experience for all of your people, your clients, your team and yourself. Then, I invite you to check out my program Agency. You can head over to NicoleJacksonMiller.com/apply to look at the details and apply if it looks like a good fit. If you are accepted, I will send you a brand new free private training only for people that we’re accepting into the program to share with you the details of how we work and how we help remove you from client delivery and allow you to step into that leadership role of your agency again. The link is NicoleJacksonMiller.com/apply. I look forward to seeing your applications.
