One of the most common reasons people don’t delegate is because they think they can’t afford it. I hear new entrepreneurs say all the time: “I don’t have the money to hire help yet.”
Well, I’m here to give you some tough love! You can’t afford NOT to delegate. Period!
You’re always going to sacrifice something in life, whether it’s time with your kids (if you’re tackling everything yourself), or some money (if you do hire help). It might be your friends, your marriage, vacations…something has to give if you’re a busy person with the same 24 hours in the day as everyone else.
As someone who resisted hiring help in my early motherhood days because, I too, felt I couldn’t afford it, I can tell you: once I hired just one person to help our family do the laundry and tidy up a couple days per week, our entire household changed for the better. I got on such a hiring roll that I couldn’t wait to delegate more and more because it freed me up to do things that only I could do. And when I did those things, I made more money and became a much better mom.
You can do it too! I promise!
Why Delegate?
According to Harvard Business School: “CEOs who excel in delegating generate 33 percent higher revenue. These executives know they can’t accomplish everything alone and position their team to tackle tasks they’re confident they’ll achieve—in turn empowering employees, boosting morale, and increasing productivity.”
Delegating not only means you’re willing to give up control of things that others can do (and likely do better than you), but that you value your time and hourly worth. For example, if you make $100 per hour, but you’re tackling things that you can pay someone $15 an hour to do, it’s actually costing you money to do them.
Why not pay someone $15 to run errands for you, organize your Dropbox (or your closet), or make your Instagram posts so that you can keep generating your hourly rate and earn more?
Hiring help isn’t as expensive as you think, and if you sit down and do the math, you’ll realize that freeing yourself up allows you to spend more time earning your higher wage, or investing in your business.
Delegate Confidently
Here are Brock’s and my tips to delegating with confidence:
- Take inventory of all of your tasks. Write down all the time you spend in your business and doing things in your personal life you don’t like doing. (For a handy checklist to help you inventory your life, check out this download).
- Give it a trial run. You have nothing to lose by offering a virtual or in-person assistant a 2-week trial period to see how they do and how they communicate.
- Give the same tasks to multiple candidates. Try out a few people with the same or similar tasks at once. Compare their work. Let each person know you’ve done this, not only so they put their best foot forward, but so they know their time is a true trial period.
- Evaluate your earnings and time. At the end of the trial, sit down and assess how you feel. Are you less stressed? Are you more productive? Have your finances improved? If so, consider hiring them as a consultant, or even taking on a few more people.
- Don’t assume you need to hire someone full-time. This fear prevents so many people from making their first hire. Let me repeat: you need not hire anyone for longer than you want! Hire per task, or for a few hours per week to test it out!
- Ask for referrals. If you’re an entrepreneur, ask around. People in your space might want to share an assistant or already have a great one who wants more work. If you hire from a site, check their references or read their reviews.
The Best Sites for Hiring Help
We use and recommend all of the following sites..
Top Questions to Ask Future Hires
Once you realize you need to delegate, get ready for the interview by asking questions like these…
- What devices do you use? Apple? Android? Etc. Compatibility is key for ease.
- What are your working hours? Do you have any times that are blocked out? How many hours do you have available per week?
- What other clients do you currently have?
- Why did your past jobs not continue?
- Will you continue looking for other work/how many total hours across all clients are you working?
- In the past, if an employer gave you a task you didn’t know how to do, how did you handle it?
- What’s your worst boss experience?
You’ll know the answers you’re looking for when you ask these types of questions. Is the candidate confident? Do they blame? Are they resourceful?
At the end of the day, trust your gut! Unless your gut says not to delegate, because trust me, you need to. You should! Hiring can be fun if you remember that doing less actually reaps more rewards!
Happy hiring! If you take any of this advice and apply it to your home life of business, let us know in the comments below!
For more on the topic of hiring help, check out this podcast!
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