Hey, fellow entrepreneurs, welcome to the Buckets and Boone Gates Studio with Kim White, Jill Olish, and many other brilliant entrepreneurs. Determined to solve world problems for entrepreneurs, this community is changing how we look at the big things we do on our business adventure and sharing from their own lives ways to protect our time, money, and bandwidth. This show is designed for you, the entrepreneur, to hear behind the scenes stories of real business people across the globe and learn what is possible for you. keep listening to join today's juicy conversation with kim and jill welcome to the buckets and boom gates studio i am jill olish and i am joined by the fierce kim white today thank you for so much kim for joining me on this podcast i love podcasting with you jill it's a good time we have great conversations and today We are talking about hiring help without making your life more chaotic. So if you ever hired someone and thought this is more work than doing it myself, stay with us because we'll get there. We've all been there, I think, too. Kim, can we start off in our usual fashion with a confession today? And can you tell us about a messy delegation story that you have? my goodness i can tell you a lot of them but i'll pick one um back when i really did not understand how to delegate i think a lot of people have this feeling that they're able to delegate they don't know what's wrong with the other person but i'm going to call myself out in this this was a me problem i asked someone to do something for me and it was a va it was someone who was a virtual assistant I asked them to do something and they did nothing that what I thought I asked them to do. And I couldn't figure out why I got the bill for them doing the thing, but the thing wasn't actually done. Cause in my side of the delegation process, I'm thinking everybody knows how to do this. Everybody knows how to do this thing. The reality was they didn't know how to do that thing. And it was something that, you know, we talk about our ordinary can be someone else's extraordinary. I had learned all the way to do this thing. And when I delegated it, I didn't give them any of that information. I just thought everybody knew. Why wouldn't somebody just know that? So very unclear in my directions, very unclear in my expectations. And I really in the beginning, I blamed them. I'm thinking, what is wrong with this situation? Don't send me a bill for something you didn't do. You didn't do this. However, in their understanding of it, they were doing what I asked, and why wouldn't they send me a bill? So it was a very messy, messy thing, and it made me feel like I'll just do it myself. It also made me feel like I don't know what is wrong, but I can't spend this money because I was bootstrapping it for a business I was doing this with. I didn't have a lot of money to spend. I was trying to get help. And this was like the first hire for, for this company. I was doing my best or I shouldn't even say company. It was a business or one woman show is what I'm going to say. But it was so messy. It frustrated me and it made me upset with this other person. Reality was I pulled back and I did the whole, I'll just do it myself. Like that's not the answer. I'm going to tell you this. So the best mentor I ever had in my entire life told me if I decided to delegate something, I had to delegate it and never take it back. And I thought, what? What do you mean? He was right. He was right because I kept waffling back and forth. I waffled with trying to delegate something, but the true story of this, the true bottom line of this, I needed to learn how to delegate. I needed to learn how to delegate before I could even start to pick another human that could be delegated to. So it was a very messy thing. The problem wasn't the person. It was how I hired them and how I delegated. So terrible confession still makes me feel terrible. And I don't want that for you, sweet listener, for sure. But you can get more details about that confession in season two, episode seventy one. If you want to go take a listen, we do talk a lot about learning how to delegate before you should be delegating in that episode. So Kim goes through the whole story on this confession and we talk a lot about making sure you understand how to do it first before you go ahead and pass it off. So you're not in this waffling position. Yeah. But when we are working on setting up our team to help us, what's step one of figuring out this whole delegation piece? So I'm going to giggle and say step one is really yourself to learn how to delegate. That's really the, you know, When you're a business owner, you're running fast, you're busy, you're overwhelmed, you're doing all the things. That's what you dream about. Like you dream about having help. You dream about having a team. You dream about those things. But reality is if you've handed your business over to someone, would they really be able to do what you're asking? So I really think that step one is figuring that out, figuring out what you want to delegate, because I did a laugh and confess this. This was probably twenty years ago. I made a list of things I wanted to delegate and it was a long list. Let me tell you, here's the problem with it. Number one, I didn't know how to delegate it. And number two, I didn't know how to find someone to delegate to. It was a messy thing. So I'm going to challenge you in right out of the gate this morning. Don't hire someone that gives you all the promises of they can do all the things, because unless you know how to ask them for what you want, you're really wasting your money and both of your time. Delegating is harder in the very beginning. And it's lovely once you learn how to do it, because we have a whole team that does things around here. I couldn't do everything I do. without that. So I want to say all that up front that it's really important. When you're thinking about delegating something though, what is going to give you your time back, your energy back, your bandwidth, your mental bandwidth back? I need help doing things that somebody else can do i think that's one of the qualifiers if only i can do it it shouldn't be on the list but start a list do you need admin support do you need customer support do you need tech support do you need marketing support do you need delivery support so think about the tasks that you do in your business every day every week every month because there are different things that happen in the cadences What drains you most? What makes you happy? What makes you feel like you're really doing something well? And what makes you just feel like, whatever, like the whatevers, but choose something that's the most draining. So if it's something that is frequently done and it doesn't require your unique magic or secret sauce, You've got to find a way to delegate that. I'm going to add some super spicy here. You've got to delegate it by delegating it to you first. Write down your steps of what the process is that you're asking for. I can give you a funny example of another thing. I hired a VA that answered the phone for one of the businesses I owned. And I didn't give them any instructions. Well, guess what? They didn't answer the phone. I wanted like how I wanted them to answer it. They didn't answer the questions for the clients. And I started getting pushback from our clients. Who is answering your phone? Because they are so rude. And I'm like, what do you mean they're rude? You know, but they were so used to a certain way that we answered the phone when someone else did it, they didn't know that. I didn't say, you know, always say please or thank you, always say yes ma'am or no sir. Like that's how we operate. And so when they were calling, it was like, whoa, what happened? Another prime example. I think whenever you're looking to delegate anything, you write down the process and you start with only a few hours a month. Everybody wants to start with forty hours a week. But what would you really be able to delegate if you had forty hours a week of assistance? Most people would never be able to get past the first two hours. reality because you have to be able to delegate well so that they can receive that delegation well and do a good job for you common hires just a general va they can help with emails or scheduling or simple admin stuff a tech va which is someone who can integrate into things and that's more like you know they're back in things that they have to know the tech to be able to do it. And you have to know how to delegate what you want them to do. Um, also podcast support. Like we do our podcast around here. Our team takes care of things around here, but maybe you hire an editor for you, the podcast, or they do show notes for you, or they put it, you know, part of the process. So I think starting very, very, very small, Just a few hours a month can be a game changer whenever you are actually delegating the right thing and you're giving good delegation instructions and you have found someone who fits that delegation too. You can train someone sometimes easier than getting someone who thinks they know everything. put that little spicy out there too yeah um oh that was something I was taught before becoming a virtual assistant was being flexible trainable and adaptable that way you could be pretty much molded into the positions that you were trying to be filling and I love when I did join the my sexy business team and well before I joined it when I came on to apply and to be tested for it really was to see if I was able to be delegated to. And then if I was able to delegate also, and also Kim, if you were able to delegate to anyone who went through this process of learning how to be on the team, then we kind of set those tests up when we do find the kind of virtual assistant we're looking for or assistant if we're in person. So how do we set those kinds of tests up for who we're looking to hire? Well, I'm going to give a like really big example of if you think you've found somebody and they're the perfect one, they're your VA, you know, your dream VA of a lifetime. I'm going to say test that real quick because maybe the first week they do a great job and Maybe the second week they do an okay job. And then maybe the third week they've already checked out. The problem is, is if you delegate to someone who hates what you're delegating to them, you're going to lose them. Their want to is going to go away. Their dreaminess of that first week, everybody has this honeymoon period of, oh my gosh, they're the perfect one. And then reality hits. And, you know, it's kind of like, if your husband leaves his underwear on the floor, like that could be very annoying. And so, you know, your virtual assistant could be doing something that really annoys you that you didn't recognize in that honeymoon stage. So I am going to say you do it by periods of time so that you're not crashing someone else's family, because if you give them something that you think is gonna be ongoing for years, and they start doing a bad job, are you, one, gonna graduate? We call it graduating on here, but are you gonna fire them? Are you really gonna fire them? Because sometimes that's the hardest thing you do as a business owner. Are you gonna be able to say, look, this isn't working? Are you gonna be able to have the hard conversation? And instead of putting it in like forever terms, put it in a period of time. I need this done for this period of time. And let's talk at the end of it. Because then you're not promising them that you're going to be their, you know, their paycheck for months and months and months. And they're not doing something. We've had to graduate people and it's devastating. Like that is not something we ever want to do. But that's one way to go into delegation without having it backfire is really test if that relationship or if that maybe they're annoyed with you. I'm a lot. I'll just say that I'm super extra and it takes special humans to work with me. Because I am a lot. I'm intense. I am fierce. I am those things. That's not a joke. So when somebody comes in and they're not prepared for that, you know, maybe they want to graduate me because it's too much. It's just reality. So give them a should I delegate this test? Does this require me specifically? This is like questions to ask yourself. Is this a recurring task or is it a one off? Does whatever it is you want to delegate drain your energy? And is it teachable in a short, like, you know, standard operating procedure kind of video or loom video? Something that if you go through the process, they can literally stop the video and follow what you're doing step by step. You can record your screen when you do it. It's easier to give them a video and see if they're going to fit the script for it than it is to give them verbal instructions and just tell them, figure it out, which I have done plenty of times. And if I feel like someone is going to figure out a better way to do something, I am very open at this stage of delegation for someone to try it. If you think you have a better way to do it, let's try it. You know, instead of being just this is the only way it can be done. Some things in your business are absolutely my way or the highway. But there are other things in business that your team can actually help you get a better process. So that was a lot, Jill. Sorry. No, it's perfect because I love how you're setting up or you have set up your business, not just to be sexy for you, but to be sexy for your team. Because like you were saying, like if we're in this honeymoon phase of getting started, we're super excited, but we find out a few weeks in that we really just don't love this. And I will say, I've been in that spot on the team that you could tell and I could tell that this just wasn't the right fit anymore. Having that flexibility within the team and on the team to change up what's happening for your responsibilities makes it a better environment for everyone. You might have it back on your plate to find someone else to fill that role again. And it might be still like, say it's my responsibility until we can find someone to replace that space that I was taking up. Like it's just another team member to take that part on, but it's not a, this is forever. So that flexibility just makes it so, so sexy. And can I add to that too, Jillo, that if you are the one and you're on a team, you're not looking to leave the team. You're just struggling with whatever it is that you're hating doing. Sometimes it's about getting more training. Sometimes it's about you giving that assignment to someone else, being able to delegate that to someone else on the team and see if you're doing it the hard way. Because sometimes that's the reality. Yeah. Like the way that you were doing, it may not be the best way for me to have gone through doing it. And we just need to find a different system that works. As a business owner, we want this outcome. And if you can turn loose of how we get that outcome, as long as it's with integrity, with intention, with your belief system. Then does it really matter if they go to the right or the left whenever they do something? It's the outcome we're looking for when we delegate. I need to let loose of this responsibility. Will you take the responsibility to get this outcome? So that is an incredible hire when you find someone that, you know, they're not going to just stop and go, I don't like what I'm doing, so I'm leaving. Because that's not a good hire. Yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean to train you quite. You were totally fine because, you know, doing these tests not only help us find out if we are able to delegate as a business owner, but will help us find the right team members to delegate to. So trying these steps will really help us figure that out. And we want you to have a win by the end of this episode. So, Kim, what can we do today regarding delegating? So I think you can create your sexy delegation list. We'll just call it that. Create a stop doing list. So write down some tasks that you really don't want to be doing six months from now. I'm not talking about going out and delegating today because that takes time. planning and thought. I am saying write down what you want to stop doing. Write it down that the end of the year, you're not going to be doing this anymore, which would feel very good in a lot of things. Start with the most draining though, the most repeatable ones. Is there something you do every week? Maybe it is podcast editing. Maybe it is show notes. Maybe it is emails whatever it is just just make sure that that is something that is really draining you that you start there because you have more incentive i'll tell you that you have more incentive to do that when you don't like whatever it is And will you delegate to a human? Because there are things that on our team and we laugh and we name things, you know, tools and things, but here's the bottom line. Sometimes it's a tool we need or a system or a process we need, not necessarily a human. We have found lots of things and I'll give the example again. I talk about Kajabi all the time. Kajabi is an all in one platform. When I didn't have Kajabi, I am telling you, it was such a bigger task. It was such a bigger thing. Things were breaking all the time. Needed a different plugin because this plugin wouldn't play with that plugin. And I needed, you know, just all of these things. When we got Kajabi, that changed. So Kajabi is like a team member for us. We know how it works. We know what we can do. It has lots of automations. It has just stuff. that makes our business and our life better. So that is a team member possibility as well. You don't have to hire a human sometimes. Sometimes you need a tool. And you don't have to hire full time. Start with a few hours or even one recurring task, a few hours a month. And I wanna keep saying that because right now, if you're not versed at delegation, you don't even have enough to delegate to someone for more than an hour or two a week. So think of what you can do, the biggest pain point, the simplest answer to that, whatever that is, a tool or a human, and spend a few hours a month Either working out with that human that you're going to delegate to or learning more about a tool that will take it off your plate. So I think both are very sexy, Jalil, and that's what I'm going to say today. I think that is awesome. A great way to get started. So let's recap real quick. Wrong hires are usually a systems problem, not a, you should never hire problem. So check yourself and if you're ready to go and then we're hiring for energy relief first. So I love that part. Like what's the most draining thing. What's going to give you back time. Yeah. Also, if you have the time, go ahead and go back to episode seventy one for more about delegating. And if this episode helped you share it with one business friend who is ready for less chaos in life, especially because next time we are going to be talking about running your business when life falls apart. So thank you so much for showing up and listening with us today. We couldn't make this podcast better without you. So we hope to see you next time. Love y'all. Thank you for joining Kim and Jill in the Buckets and Boomgate studio for today's conversation. Don't forget to follow the show for future juicy episodes, and they can't wait to chat with you next week.
