"The Big Six ©"

A few years ago, we surveyed 149 Entrepreneurs and asked them, "what's your single biggest frustration or roadblock to getting a great Assistant?"

98.7% had one or many of the following concerns:

1. Control / Trust - I don't know how to release control or trust an Assistant.

2. Money - I don't know what to pay an Assistant and how to make an Assistant profitable.

3. Time to Train - I don't want to take the time to train an Assistant.

4. Time to Manage - I don't want to take the time to Manage an Assistant and / or fix their mistakes.

5. Where to Find - I don't know where to find a great Assistant.

6. What to Delegate - I don't know what to Delegate.

We call these "The Big Six ©."

Believe it or not, once you clearly know what to delegate, a number of the Big Six © concerns start to fade away.

Step 1: Start with a Time Study

It's impossible to know what to delegate until you know what you're doing with your days.

As boring as it may sound, a good, old fashioned Time Study does wonders.

The best tool to to track your time AND ask some of these analysis questions is our Time Study spreadsheet, download it here:

For three days, track what you're doing.

If you want to get more tech-y, then you can use Toggl.com, Harvest, or a nifty little device called Timeular.

I've used all these tools and don't really find there to be any huge advantage to using any kind of tech.

Where most Entrepreneurs fall short in their time study, though, is stopping at "what was I doing?"

Often they end up with a list like:

• - email
• - calendar
• - client meeting

The problem is this doesn't really indicate what's Top-20% work, and what's Bottom-80%, where the latter could possibly be delegated.

So we need to add a bit of color to each task.

At the end of tracking time for 3 days, we need to look at each task and say:

• 1. what was the tool / context I was in?
• 2. what was the activity?

Answering email then becomes:

• - Answering email - customer updating credit card (probably delegatable)
• - Answering email - dealing with $50,000 lawsuit (probably not delegatable)

With our time study created, now we can start finding the right tasks to delegate first by using "The 7-Yes Test ©."

Step 2: The 7 Yes Test ©

Once you've got a sense of what you're doing, now we need to get the task right-sized.

When there’s something you want to delegate, run it through this set of 7 questions and you’ll right-size it so the task is the right size for your Assistant, and - most importantly - you can accelerate how fast you get work off your plate.

Any question you run into that’s a “no,” simply modify the task until you can say “yes.”  Typically this means unpacking the project or task into smaller pieces, then delegating just one piece at a time.

Remember: The goal is autonomy.  We want our Assistants to be working without our help on as many tasks, as soon as possible, so this formula paves a golden path to their autonomy so you can start getting your time back this week.

1) Is the task a $10-20/hr task?

It’s important that the level of difficulty is appropriate.  Tasks for technical experts range in the $40/ hr - $500/hr.  Set your Assistant up for success form the beginning by setting them up to have a fighting chance from the start.  Over time, they will likely graduate up into higher and higher level tasks.  Start them on the easier work to get early wins.

2) Does it happen at least once per week?

Massive shortcut is to pick the tasks that happen repeatedly and OFTEN.  It can seem like a waste of time to spend 30 mins teaching a 15 minute task.  Unless, of course, that 15 min task happens four times per week.  That’s an hour per week, or 50 hours per year.  Would you invest 30 mins of teaching to get 50 hours back?  That’s called leverage.

3) Is there room for error?

Avoid delegating anything with dire or difficult consequences if misperformed.  For example, sending confidential data to the wrong client, or making a $10,000 purchase of the wrong product, are both small mistakes with big consequences.  Pro tip: if you need help with work that’s high-stakes, you can modify the task so you are double-checking the work before release, or perhaps you’re the one with the final step so you can confirm everything is accurate.  Add that final-check by you, and the scope of what your Assistant can take on instantly expands, even into higher-stakes areas.

4) Can one rep be completed in 20-60 mins?

The problem with delegating large, multi-hour tasks, is your Assistant might be off-course for a LONG time before you realize they need a course-correction.  So start with smaller tasks, or at least small increments of larger tasks, to get your Assistant up and running.  As they build experience and familiarity, they’ll gain confidence  and context to handle longer and longer stretches of work.

5) Does it require you to create minimal training?

We call this “easy to teach.” By minimizing how much work you need to put into training, we maximize the speed that you can get tasks off your plate. This also accelerates how SOON you'll be ready to teach this task to your Assistant.  At this point, don't teach difficult or complicated tasks / processes; your goal is to get in quickly and get your Assistant into the game ASAP.

6) Does it require minimal learning by assistant?

We call this, “easy to learn”. This is actually different than "easy to teach" (above).  For example, you could give your Assistant your username and password to a 20-hour course; assigning the login information is a 1-min task which is easy for you, but the 20-hour course is hard and time-consuming for your Assistant.  The task you choose to delegate (even if you aren’t training it) still needs to be relatively easy on the student to learn so they can get an early win, achieve autonomy, and start actually taking work off you plate.

7) Are you already doing it?

Bad advice I hear all the time is "you don't need to learn it, just buy a course and have your Assistant study it."  It’s generally a bad idea to delegate anything you aren't already doing because:

• 1. you don't know how to train it, so asking your Assistant to learn and execute is, effectively, 'the blind leading the blind,' which doesn't work;
• 2. you can't evaluate and coach the quality of work;
• 3. you don't know how to estimate time or difficulty;
• 4. worst of all - you aren't actually getting any time back once your Assistant is doing the task! 

If you choose, instead, to delegate what you've already been doing in your day-to-day, then as soon as your Assistant is doing that task independently, your time is now freed up to focus on what matters most.

One exception to "Are you already doing it?"  is if the given system / task / project is already running in your business, and your Assistant is simply stepping in to take it over from a more expensive staff member or contractor.  If that’s the case, make sure the size and sequence of delegation still meets the above 6 questions.  Your Assistant will still need the first 6 questions to be true, even if it’s someone else training them.

Once you've run a few tasks through the 7-Yes Test © and found a few winners which are now right-sized, you can proceed with packaging those tasks up effectively with our third proprietary tool, "360 Delegation ℠ ."

Step 3: 360 Delegation ℠

360 Delegation ℠ is simply defining these three elements of any task:

1. Vision
2. Resources
3. Definition of Done

You can even ask for these three elements when you're receiving delegation and want to make sure you've got full clarity on what's expected of you.

You can do 360 Delegation ℠ over email, Trello card, Convo or Slack message, heck I’ve even used it when leaving a voicemail message for my Executive Assistant.

1. Vision

In bullet form, give a few points on what you’d like accomplished. The following list will help prompt you.

Don’t have to answer all of these every time, this is just to inspire your thinking:

• what do you want done?
• what’s your vision for completion?
• why are we doing this? (especially important for Fact Finders)
• when are we starting this task / project?
• what are the milestones along the way?
• what’s the ultimate, final, drop-dead deadline?
• consider telling a story – what are the stakes if this goes well? poorly?

IMPORTANT: show an "SOS" - a sample of success:

• screencast
• screenshot
• picture
• video
• sound clip
• link to website
• sample doc (e.g. sample invoice, sample report)

2. Resources

Again, you likely won't have all of these, but each time you do 360 Delegation ℠, run through this inventory to jog your thinking.

List just the resources you think will be needed for the Delegation at hand.

Consider:

• Access – online – website passwords
• Access – physical – keys to a building or room, login info for a computer
• Money needed, access to credit cards, PayPal accounts
• Expertise – “how to” courses, blog posts, training sessions
• Expertise – consultants available to hire
• Manpower – team members, outside contractors
• Software
• Systems / Checklists
• Decision-Making Guidelines
• Approvals and/or Authority
• Hours allocated to complete
• Equipment / Hardware
• Storage – online or physical
• Itineraries of people or events
• Language / translators
  

3. Definition of Done

• What is the Acceptance Criteria for this project?
• What do you, the Delegator, need to see to “sign off” on this project? To say, “Wow, this is successful!”
• Specifications of finished project; e.g.) image exported to JPG, 300 x 300 pixels
• Sign-offs required from management or client
• Storage of files after completion; e.g.) store both working file and exported files to Dropbox folder: Clients > ABC Corp > Graphic Design > Banner Ads
• Double-check against related contracts
• Quality-Assurance Checklists created / completed / checked
• Important Dates highlighted
• Schedule created

I promise 360 Delegation ℠ will feel clunky to use in the beginning, but – believe me – your team will be floored with the clarity you give them.

Soon enough you and your whole team will be richly rewarded by significant increases in speed and efficiency.

And remember – as Leader, your true work is in the first 10% of any project, setting the vision and communicating your overall strategy.

Perhaps when you started the company it made sense for you to do the middle 80% of the work, but now you’ve got other people to help with actually doing the work.

Your role has evolved, so now it just makes sense to invest the front-loaded energy into using 360 Delegation ℠ so everyone who carries the torch for you sees your vision as clearly as you do.

Time to Get an Assistant?