Seven Secret Benefits of Delegation

I recently discovered that I am not the world’s greatest delegator!

It all came down to trust. I trust that people will get things done. But not the way I want it or in the time it would take me. Along the way I realised that there were secret and unspoken benefits of delegation. So here is what I learnt about delegation and its life changing benefits as well as

how to delegate.

SAVE TIME

Running a small business has so many elements that you need to juggle all at once and it's overwhelming sometimes. Not to mention, those tasks you don't want to do, that send you into a procrastination vortex... that equals time wasting! I always thought that it would take me longer to actually delegate the work and that I could complete the work in the time it took me to delegate. By using the age old WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN and HOW technique I was able to delegate a few hours’ work in five minutes.

MAKE MORE MONEY

Yes it's true, by delegating work to other people, obviously to those who charge less than you, you can make money.

Consider Jess's example as an accountant – she loves her work, *crunching numbers* it's her passion and she charges $45 per hour. She realises that data entry is an important part of her business and it needs to be done, but she doesn't enjoy it. By delegating that job to someone who charges $35 per hour, she can effectively make $10 per hour without her spending any time. She is also able to make more money by spending those two hours as an accountant and being able to see more clients during the day. I call that WIN WIN.

LET GO OF PERFECTIONISM

Yes I like things done in a particular way or style, but when the work came back complete, I was so happy that I had saved the time. It then became my choice to either change the colours to the way I like or just let go. The work I had delegated came back client ready and I decided it really didn't matter if the colour was yellow or blue. It was professional and sleek and a finished product. This also saved me more time!

DO WHAT YOU LOVE

Most business owners really love the work they do – they wouldn’t be doing it otherwise, and there are many rewarding aspects to owning and running your own business, but, there are aspects to starting or running your own business that you won’t like or that just don't interest you. For me it's finances, delegating those to someone else made my life stress free. Whether they charge more or less it's a relief if I don't have to do it.

GET MORE CLIENTS

Once I got the jobs out of the way that I didn't want to do I became far more accomplished and when running your own business, getting more work done amazingly helps grow your business and who doesn't want to grow their business.

GIVE BACK

By delegating work to someone I allowed someone to contribute and help me in something that I am passionate about. By doing this I was able to give praise and recognition to the work that they had done. This left them with a feeling of purpose and accomplishment. It really did feel great to be able to give back. After all there is always more happiness in giving than receiving.

HOW TO DELEGATE

This is the easy part! Make a list of the jobs you don’t like to do. Be honest with yourself and don’t feel guilty, this is an honest list of the tasks you don’t want to do. If you think you can’t find anything to delegate to someone else – look at your To Do List and change it to a *Delegate* list. In this day and age everything is delegatable! (yes that is a new word)

When you are ready to delegate, give the person clear instructions. I like using the following template as subtitles in my delegation emails:

WHO: Sarah

WHAT: Please data enter the following names in our database

WHERE: Our data base link is here.... and your password is...

WHEN: I need this done by tomorrow at 12pm

HOW: Please spend no more than 2 hours on this task

So if the opposite of delegating is doing, why not try delegating our experienced support team a task for them to do. We can help with any marketing, hiring/HR, office management and administration support and we love helping small businesses and consultants!

Whether you own a business or not delegating is a great tool in any role and will only add to your life.

Happy Delegaing Everyone.

Chantal

#personalmanagement