The Power of Delegation

Today we start a new series on the topic of Hiring a Virtual Assistant. Today’s topic is, “The Power of Delegation.” Hiring a virtual assistant to boost your productivity. 

As many of you know, I’m a virtual assistant. I have been a virtual assistant for 16 years. I have served tons of Christian entrepreneurs, authors, speakers, and coaches. I have helped them over the years to boost their productivity. 

But we need to talk about what a VA can really do for you and how it really helps your business. So I’m going to cover the concept of delegation, how to be most efficient when using a VA, and some strategies for effective delegation. 

If you’re unsure about hiring a VA, you can click to download my FREE guide, “Five Questions to Ask Yourself Before Hiring a Virtual Assistant.”  It will enlighten you. 

Let’s dive in. Delegating means taking some of the load off yourself and beginning to share that load with a team member or virtual assistant. The best things to delegate are those tasks that are not your strong suit. Don’t delegate tasks that are not your area of expertise. For me, the very first thing I delegated was bookkeeping because I am not good at numbers. 

Delegating to a virtual assistant, not only saves you time and focus but can also save you money. With a virtual assistant, you don’t have to focus on spending time on tasks that take up too much of your brain power or stress you out. It allows you to improve the focus you have to complete tasks you’re really good at and the ones that really make you shine. 

Strategies for Effective Delegation

You have to keep up with the tasks you do on a regular basis to determine what you need to delegate. So, spend some time tracking your day. With a notebook and pen, write down the tasks you are working on and track the time. Then you can look back and see which tasks are taking up too much of your time, and these are potential tasks to delegate to someone else. 

Another part of effective delegation is clearly communicating your tasks to your VA. I am a detailed person, so as a VA, I’m going to need all of the details, and I’m going to ask all of the questions, especially if you are not clear on what you are looking for or what you need. So it is really important to provide as many details as possible. 

I like to help my clients create SOPs (standard operating procedures) for specific tasks. This makes them slow down and write out step by step what they do for a specific task, and when they want to delegate that task, if it isn’t something your VA is familiar with, they will be able to learn what to do by reading your SOP. 

Many times, you’ll be surprised that your virtual assistant is more well versed in a task than you are, or maybe you don’t know how to do it at all, and that’s why you hired them to begin with. That’s okay, too. You just want to make sure that you are clear in the beginning about exactly what you are looking for. This will save you not only time in communicating with them, but it will also save you from having to restart the project or edit it so much.

Another strategy for effective delegation is to set expectations and deadlines early on. You also need to determine the best form of communication between you and your virtual assistant before you get started. For example, do you expect them to email you after every project has been completed, or is it okay if they send you a summary of the tasks that were completed at the end of the week. Make sure to set those expectations early on, so that your relationship with your virtual assistant can thrive.

After being a VA for 16 years, I can tell you that it is much easier to work with someone who does these things than trying to work with someone with whom you feel like, as a VA, you’re having to pull teeth or squeeze juice out of the lemon to get them to share with you what they’re thinking and what they need. It can be very frustrating from the perspective of a virtual assistant to be able to get from the client what you need in order to do your job when they aren’t an effective communicator and don’t share their expectations and the details of what they are looking for. 

So be sure that you do that, and you will save yourself and your VA lots of time and frustration.

I hope you found this helpful. Delegation is truly powerful, and you can really grow your business exponentially when you hire someone else to help you, but you have to go about it the right way. 

If you are interested in hiring a virtual assistant, I would love to talk with you. Visit alyssaavantandcompany.com, check out my services, and click over to my contact page to contact me. I am building a team and have a couple of subcontractors who are now helping me on my team. So any new clients will likely be working not only with me but with my team members as well, and those two ladies are amazing. So I would love to hear from you. 

If you haven’t joined me in our Facebook group, The Christian Business Advantage Facebook group, it is a great place to connect with other authors, speakers, and coaches.