Delegate & Grow: Business Scaling Secrets

Speaker 1: the beauty about delegation is it can move as slow or as fast as you want it to the biggest barriers that I see with entrepreneurs is they say just easier for me to do it myself hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the sheb builted experience with Melanie join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech Innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in welcome back to the shilt it podcast thank you for joining us Jenna you are the founder and Visionary of assist Pro a platform offering executive assistant matchmaking and delegation coaching tell us about what led you to launch your business so great to be here with you Melanie thank you launching my business came from a desire to be a more present mom I was in corporate banking crying dropping my children off I was on the hamster wheel and just for myself knew that I needed something professional to keep that side of me because I love my professional life but I also needed to be more available with my children so I left that and became an assistant to two amazing business coaches and entrepreneurs and six months later the path was open they said Jenna we have colleagues that are looking for great assistance you've got all this experience is this something you'd be interested in and so I started the company they mentored me all along the way and it's been an incredible journey and the amazing realization that came with that is I always felt like a fish out of water in the corporate world and I didn't realize it until I was in the entrepreneurial world and it seems like you found the right path for you and you're not alone there are so many moms and mothers out there that want to keep that part of their corporate life and especially when your children are little it's so hard to try to hold on to that and good for you for finding what works for you when your children are little there's a lot going on and you're very physically tired but I knew in that season of my life that once that season was gone it would be gone and every new season is great but you never get those other Seasons back so I've always had a very strong awareness of what season am I in and how can I appreciate this for what it is and so that's been my desire and really was the driving force behind making the jump to become an entrepreneur because I wanted to provide that opportunity for other women and that's so true I find myself with younger children thinking if not now it doesn't mean never it doesn't mean it will never happen and you're right that's so much about the seasons that we go through in our life and I love how you found your business naturally yes it's not necessarily something that you set out saying I'm going to have this type of business it just organically happened for you if I were a client right now joining a cispro walk us through what that would look like I am a big believer in delegation and that is how I fell into my business but I also have such an appreciation for delegation because I was on the receiving side of Delegation and saw what that did for my clients so the value point of that comes from two different directions for me so that's what I talk about with new clients is are you looking for help and why are you looking for an assistant so we do all executive assistant matching and training and onboarding would really be identifying what it is that you need to get off your plate to help you be the entrepreneur that you want to be working in your zone of Genius 90% of the time we would talk about who you work best with go through a discovery process of what you need to get off your plate but who is the right person to do that so we created something called the delegation equation and it's trust plus process equals great delegation you're not trusting you're not going to hand things off of your plate you're going to tell yourself it's easier to do them and then if you don't have a good process you're not going to see a lot of traction with delegating so we would have a discovery call about that then we would identify a few candidates we think are a good map for you because we keep a constant pool of available candidates on our team and then we would help you get started and we would set 30 60 90day goals we would be training your assistant on specific things that you want that support in on the background or in the background and then we would get you to a point where you graduate out of that and then you have your assistant we operate in two different ways so one is more of a service model where we can be your continual service provider where that assistant is underneath of us and if you need transitions or additional assistance we provide that we also do where you make that investment into more of a six-month process where we help you get up and running help you learn the value in that get the right person and then you go on your way with your assistant and that's so great because so often within a business that's where the business is held back when you go to work for someone you think oh I want to do a good job but unless everything is well explained and the system is put in place from a delegation perspective someone might not know if they're not doing the job exactly the way they should be yes absolutely a lot of people think I just need to get this off my plate I just need to get someone to help me with this but the biggest thing in understanding the power of Delegation is that it is a practice so putting those things into place the process the parameters the simple one two three and what's important to me and why it's important putting those boundaries in place for when they need to check in with you when something goes wrong but continually going through that practice and delegating more and more items that is what creates great delegation is that practice the continual action of delegating and I think what a lot of people don't realize is that great delegation actually feeds Employee Engagement and because I was on the other side of Delegation right as an assistant when I realize the importance of my decision making for my clients that they might not have somewhere to sleep tonight they might not have a flight somewhere their wife might not receive flowers from them today for her birthday that created so much engagement for me not only engagement but responsibility and the feeling that I was really making a difference so now that's what we teach to our clients is when you can continually delegate you're feeding Employee Engagement you're feeding employees that want to stay with you they want to work harder and that byproduct is your employees are learning new skill sets making them more valuable for you and helping to expand their skill set so it it actually helps with retention and growth in so many areas that people don't think about just by thinking about I'm going to delegate these three things off my plate it's so true and you're right knowing you're making a difference and knowing you're doing what the the client wants you to do makes you feel good that makes you want to do more and more because we all want to feel good about the work we're doing otherwise why not go do something else yeah what's the point tell us about EOS entrepreneurial operating systems and how you and your company help clients achieve it yes so we are big fans of EOS EOS is simply a set of business tools and practices that they can Implement to help them get more traction out of the business and to get what they want from the business by implementing these tools and this process and really a certain set of activities on a very specific and consistent Cadence it helps companies track their measurables and to grow and to really gain traction with their vision so the original clients that I supported like I mentioned they were entrepreneurs and coaches that implemented this system into companies so my company specifically is a partner or a referable vendor through EOS for their coaches and for companies that are fans of EOS so EOS is a very simple process to use inside a company that helps you get massive growth and it really is super helpful to have an assistant that understands that Lego so that's where we come in of providing assistance in that ecosystem to where we understand the tools the flow of how things need to happen and that way your assistant really understands that but it also is really great because inside of the EOS world as we call it there are a set of core values that everyone lives by and so you're working with really great people and you're working with assistants that are hungry and they want to learn and they're ready to live with a heart of service and provide great experience and service to their clients so EOS is a phenomenal system I really love it I've utilized it in my own business and I highly recommend anyone that wants to improve their business to look at implementing it inside of that it's really been a great opportunity for me to grow my business specifically because we haven't been out in the Big Blue Ocean looking for any and every client we laser focused on our Niche which was going super deep with our EOS friends and continuing to support them the best way that we can so that has really been the biggest contribution to our business success is staying laser focused on who we're servicing and staying within this ecosystem if you will and it saved me a ton of marketing dollars which has been awesome too yes and what I hear you saying is systems and Trust put trust in the person that you hire and I always think when hiring a team member I want to find someone who's excited to do what I'm going to ask them to do because that makes it so much easier for everyone and then also putting systems in place because how do you know if anything's operating properly if the right system isn't in place and so often business owners are so focused on the thing that they like to do within the business that sometimes the overall systems can get l in the process absolutely and focusing on process as well can help deal with sticky people issues sometimes we get caught into the emotion of an issue with someone or within an issue have we stepped back to say what is the actual process for this have we followed the steps where did we meet those where did we not where did the communication get off track because a lot of times it's a misc Comm unication or a misalignment or something that's off in the process but we get caught into the human emotion of it's not going right and it also can help if you have people on your team that you think aren't the right fit it can also drive it back to being less emotional and more about the process and if they aren't able to execute the process you can love them as a person but does that mean they're a right fit for that role and should they be in that role if they're not a right fit for it so it also provides emotional intelligence to be able to bring that to to the situation it can become an emotional filter for us by leaning into the process delegation we can always improve if someone wanted to improve their ability to delegate what is the first thing that you suggest that they do yes I would do what I call a wellness check so if you are struggling to delegate or want to delegate more first look at do you feel comfortable with who you're delegating to and answer that question honestly yes or no if that answer is no then ask yourself why and answer that question

Speaker 1: asked this question because I love that you say delegate responsibility and not tasks because we think in our mind this is a task I need done always think about it as we're delegating a responsibility one of the biggest barriers that I see with entrepreneurs is they say it's just easier for me to do it myself if you're holding the brain space and you're asking for an individual task to be done every single month it is easier for you to do it yourself so that has been a really big piece in helping entrepreneurs unlock the power of Delegation is how can I delegate this in a way to where it's someone else's responsibility to do it for me on a routine basis when it needs to be done you believe in coaching assistance into leadership roles share with us more about that yes I'm also in the vacuum of the EOS world and working with a lot of Visionaries in companies that are writing books and doing doing podcasts and pursuing other things rather than being an employee in a business along with Business Consultants and business coaches a lot of fractional leaders as well so our goal for our executive assistant is to elevate them into a practice manager role into an operations manager role because a lot of times our clients other than Visionaries in a company have a lot of solopreneur nness to their business and so the more that we can equip that assistant to become their right hand to communicate on their behalf with marketing people and their accountant and their attorney it helps them take more leadership and provide more accountability for that client so the client can truly delegate their responsibility of this is what I want and who I am as a person how I operate can you manage these projects move them forward manage the community ation with these people to get the information back to me that I want and so when we can Elevate that assistance thinking into leadership not leadership in managing employees and managing people underneath of them but more leadership in I am truly the right hand to this person which means I know that they're going to want me to call and check on this three times before I even say that it's done learning those quirks it's like a leader 2.0 version of your yourself because when you have someone at that level to understand you how much more can you get done because they're able to execute on the 70% that you need to get off your plate to stay in your zone of Genius magic happens when we focus on the part of our business and ourself that brings us joy what is one thing that you do to make sure that you find and live your joy so I love business but one thing that has brought me joy in the last few years is playing tennis didn't know that I liked it didn't know that I wanted to do it we decided to move our family to almost 20 acres so that has been a very big lifestyle adjustment it's been amazing we love it when we moved I thought I've been growing my business I was living in a neighborhood and I didn't have the Deep kind of relationships that I wanted because my children were tiny I was building a business so when we moved I said you know what I need friends like I need to do I need a hobby I need to do something so I picked up a tennis racket started playing and now I have so many amazing friendships and relationships and I love tennis so that's one thing that brings me immense Joy because I'm also competitive so I always want to win points it's so fun I love it thank you for joining us Jenna you have taught us so much about trust and systems and delegation and I love the thought of delegating responsibilities instead of tasks something that's so important to keep top of mind please tell us how and where we can find you yes thank you so much for having me so you can find me at assist pro.com you can also connect with me on LinkedIn Jenna Spencer I would love to hear from you if anyone has any questions or needs any help send me an email Jenna assist pro.com love to give you a few minutes of my time and help you see where you're at and what you need to take your next step with delegation thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to to me at hello Sheil it.com on our Sheil it website or at Sheed on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave