Transcript:
Have you ever got an assistant? A virtual assistant? Been really excited prior to it, been so overwhelmed, got so many things to do, and then you get an assistant and you just don’t hand anything over to them. You don’t know what to hand over. You don’t have time to hand over.
Well, today’s episode is all about why it happens and what you can do about it. You. You. Hello and welcome to episode two five seven of
my tv. My name is Emma Mills, and I help business owners go from Solopreneur. When you’re doing everything on your own, right through that messy middle, starting to get help, getting an assistant, getting a thriving and, ambitious team around you, because that’s the only way to get, as I would say, your head out of the dirt and into the cloud. And today’s episode is inspired by real life, not problems, but just like real life situations we have with our clients who, ah, are overwhelmed, have, ah, too much to do. Busy, successful, moving forwards know that they need help.
They get super fired up to get some PA support, and then when it actually comes to handing stuff over, they get stuck. They get like, delegation block is like a really good term. It’s just like before you have an assistant and they tell us about how busy they are about all these things that we could do. And then when it comes to it, nothing comes our way and it happens more than you might imagine. And for me, there are some really specific reasons why it happens, but I’ve, got two or three solutions of how we can make sure you can. Like, it’s
almost like a dam that needs releasing the task of getting into that method of delegation, even when you feel too busy to delegate. So the three most common reasons why we get clients who are really, really excited to start, this is the answer to all my problems. I’m going to hand stuff over, and then it’s like radio silence. There were three main reasons. So one is overwhelm, literally, in that there is just so
much to do. People get fatigue in their mind of actually, well, what I can hand over, because it all just seems like, as I said, in the last few episodes of one really long, depressing to do list. And then as soon as you start to look at the list, you’re like, well, all of these. I’m looking through them, looking through them.
What is the easiest thing to hand over? Because I don’t want to hand over something that’s then going to take me ages to start explaining. And then you just get in your head about it all and it all just comes to a halt. So overwhelm is definitely number one, and I totally get that because you’re in a place of so much activity. So I’ve got no headspace left to go. Right. My lovely new assistant, who I know can
help me and do lots.
How do I get you involved in that? Number two is number two. Number one. Number two is Nigel bottle calls it poor man’s thinking, and I totally agree is that sentence that we have all said at some point in our heads when we’ve either been frustrated, overwhelmed, in a mood, that all of our team members are crap, which we’ve all been there. not that they are, but we’ve all had that thought in our head of like, oh, everybody’s doing everything wrong, and it’s that, it is quicker to do it myself. And there are millions of things which are probably quicker to do yourself because you know how to do them inside and out. But just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should do
something. And that big difference between those two statements is, quite frankly, the difference between wealth in some people’s businesses is the fact that they’ve gone, I’m just not going to do that because it’s not the best use of my time. And so that quicker to do it myself. There’s millions of things in this business it’s probably quicker to do myself, but would I benefit more from somebody else doing it who probably enjoys it more than me and, most probably is going to take longer than I was doing it.
Well, absolutely. There is. Nobody’s going to give me a gold medal for doing something quicker than somebody else in my office. Like, nobody cares. Nobody gives a shit about it. So why would you not give it off to somebody else who can look after it? It’s not on your list anymore. Even if it takes double the time. Why would you still not do that? Get the time back and use that for your most needle moving, big
rocks, big business, pushing forward tasks. Why would you not do that? That education piece, that mindset piece is one of the biggest triggers to offloading tasks. It’s not with everyone. I know it’s not, but definitely, oh, I’m just going to do it myself. That is like the precursor to training yourself. I, talked about training last week, training yourself into new habits of delegation, because one of it is, ah, that we start a business on our own. We’re used to wearing all the hats, we do all the stuff, we wear the superhero cape and we go, I can do all of this. Myself and we can, but it’s not sustainable. It’s not going to get us to where we want to be. We’ll burn out, we get tired, we don’t achieve what we want to. That’s where it comes from, this kind of, oh, well, I know I can do it. I know you know you can do it, but you should not be doing it, you should hand it off to someone else. And so next time you think to yourself, it’s quicker to do myself, also tell yourself you’re going to earn less money, like saying that to yourself. and the third one, which is super understandable, happens to loads of us, is just, you’ll say, I don’t have any time to hand things over now. There are lots of things none of us have lots of time to do
and there are things we do have time to do and that is because we have made the time to do them. And so finding time to delegate stuff, it probably feels like it the complete opposite of what you should be doing. You’re creating more time to hand over things to somebody else when you’re actually probably just thinking, I just need to get on and do it. However, to me, making time to delegate, to actually go
right, I know I can hand off X, Y and Z is just the same as all the other things we look to make time for.
Whether it’s going to the gym, whether it’s learning something or reading or doing my duolingo or delegation and handing off. Because the more you hand off, the easier it becomes. It is like anything in life, it’s like installing a new habit. It’s like doing a couch to five k. The more you do a bit, the more you do a bit. You just like in 1 minute you’re like, oh my God. Well, she’s already got all these things I’ve handed off, so she’s got her own. It gets easier, it snowballs. And so making time to delegate is so, so important in the very beginning. And so I’ve got these things, two, three, four things, a handful of things next that I think, and I advise all of our clients to do, to make the very most of them getting an assistant and not having that kind of deflated feeling around. I’ve got somebody sat here now it feels like another
job to give them stuff. So here is my framework of things I think can help. So number one, set a meet with your pa twice a week. Now this shouldn’t be an onerous of who I haven’t got all this time, even if it’s a ten minute task download, catch up, a place to just like what’s the plan for the day? If you have any kind of team meeting and if you’re virtual assistant like with those guys, it’s remote. Having them in on
the Zoom call to listen, just some kind of touching point that’s in the diary that is a focal point for you to aim for with things that are happening. And even if it’s just to catch up on things that are happening, don’t underestimate the value in bringing your pa into your world and them understanding what is going on right now, because from that they will also be able to suggest and help things for you. But having at least twice a week, having a video call if you’re local with each other, meeting, but having a video call in 1015 minutes twice a week at times that suit you just as a touching point. And if your pa is a good one, an exec pa, they will drive the meeting and ask you questions as well and suggest things and help. But having that, in the diary is a non negotiable. And of course things happen, it can be moved. Having it
some benchmarks in the week of my check in time with my pa who’s here to help me, really gets the mindset going of I’m going to be speaking through an hour. It forces you to be. It’s like when you’re going to buy a red car and then all of a sudden all you see is red cars. It’s the same thing. It starts to help you get into the mindset of things that can be put onto your pa’s task list. Number two, give access to your inbox, to your pa from the off. And even if in the beginning they’re not necessarily actioning things or you say, I don’t need to touch my inbox at the moment, letting them have the overview of it, letting them see what’s coming in, things that are happening. A really good pa will be able to start saying, I can help you with that. Can I reply to this? What about that? I’ve seen this coming, this project that’s coming
up. I can help with that. If your business is a house, your inbox are the windows. Like it’s the windows to everything going on in there. and it is without doubt one of the easiest ways to go. I know I need help. I’m not entirely sure what best to give you. Can you do this? Can you do that? Which most often, most exec pas are very, very adept at doing a whole wide range of things you wouldn’t even believe. But
letting them see your inbox is a really easy way to take the pressure off you and to go right.
Okay, Emma, here’s my inbox. And over the next week or so of working together, they will be able to come to you with a list to go right. I saw you involved in this. What about that? I’ve seen meeting requests coming in. If I book them in 45 minutes, if I start to get back to people like, this is what I’ve picked up, can I start doing that? I’ve seen you have to get contracts back by such a date, or you have to create this
tender or, can I help with this? They can also, from your inbox, pull a to do list. So if your inbox is the kind of inbox where there’s like, it’s hundreds deep, you’re never getting to the bottom of it. It’s like, so spread it. You’re replying to quick wins. The stuff sat below the line that you don’t see again and you’re not getting back to them. A really good exec pa can pull out of your inbox your to do list. And whether
that’s just really simply on to do list, or if you’re using Gmail or 3651 of their very simple to do lists that come with the inbox, them just starting to pull out a to do list and helping you get them done, reminding you, asking, can they help? Suggesting it for me is the very trigger to getting stuff done. So even if you go, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is like, too much. I don’t want you to do anything in my inbox yet. Please
give them access to it because from it, they’re going to pull loads of super pa information and they’ll be able to wow you with. Right, I’ve seen what’s going on. This is some ideas of what I can help you with first, and it’s going to make the job so, so much easier. Number three, we have a running joke in our office that when in our group, WhatsApp, our ops manager, Matt, will send a message about something
really deep and meaningful. Like, have you ever thought about why this happens? Or what would you do if this happened? And I’ll go, is that a shower? Thought? Which maybe is a bit of a weird thing to say, but there’s a running joke that when Matt has a shower, he comes up with all of these really deep thoughts, these ideas for work, like all this off the wall stuff. And to be fair, my shower moment is when I’m drying my hair. So when I’m drying my hair, I guess I am kind of in a bit of a meditation of just drying my hair.
Just focus on that. And I actually generally will have a lot of content ideas, social media ideas, ideas for the business when I’m in this state of, just drying my hair because I’m in the zone. And so I’m sure lots of us have things, whether it’s having a shower, drying your hair, just driving the car, we all get like, in, we have a task in our life that, it puts your brain in this more creative mode because everything else is completely silenced out. You’re just focusing on what you’re doing and you come up with all of these ideas. This is often where I think, oh, I must give Bex that, I don’t know why I’m doing this for my hair. This is not how I dry my hair. Or I think, oh, an actual example. Last week, our new brand manager sent through social media her captions, ah, and posts. And I thought, okay, well, I’ll start to post some of
those. Never did it, obviously. Of course I didn’t. And then I was drying my hair and I thought, oh, my gosh, Becks loves social media. She just needs to do it, rather than me thinking, I’ll still not post it today. So while I’m in these modes, I’ll often have ideas. So then I pick up my phone, a voice note, becks in our Whatsapp group and go, right, tomorrow we’re going to talk about, can you help me start posting on social media, the stuff that’s being sent to us. So having, where I’m going with point number three is having a Whatsapp group. M whether it’s a teams message, whether using the chat on gmail, whether you have a Whatsapp group with your assistant, using that functionality of voice, noting when you have ideas is one of the easiest ways for me, because when I’m with Bex and we’ll have a catch up meeting and she’ll go for all the questions she’s got for me, and she’ll go, have you got anything for me? I’ll go, no, think I’m all right now. There is loads of things going on. And I’ll always go, no, I think that’s everything. Think I’m all right. As soon as we’ll come off the call or like, say, the rest of the afternoon will
pass, I’m driving home and I’ll go, oh, yeah, no, I should really ask Bex can she help with that or. No, I should have said that before. So then I’ll say, okay, and I’ll voice note. And so when I’m in the moment, I’m not necessarily full of all the tasks to like, right. And I want you to help with this. I’m, that I’m that. But when I’m not in the moment and I’m a bit more kind of everything else is to the back of my mind,
I’m just driving home or I’m drying my hair or I’m having a shower, whatever it is. Then I’m like, oh yeah, that’s it. Why didn’t, why have I not aspects help with this before? And I’ll send her the voice note. So having a method where you can just easily voice note, ah, type whatever floats your boat on how you easily get your ideas out. Having that available is really important. If you’re only emailing with your pa, then for me you just need a more creative outlet to get stuff over most often. Sometimes I try and not do it in the middle of the night, because I don’t want to look weird sending stuff in the middle of the night, but I will send a picture of something like the night before. And so tomorrow when you get in, can you have a look at that or at all these different times? Having an easy communication method for me is
one of the biggest releases of tasks because I’m not only like between nine and five, it’s outside of those times when I have a bit more time, when I’m running, when I’m doing other stuff to go, oh, yeah, bets can definitely start work on that. That is really important. So having a communication method where you can easily send stuff across is really, really important from leashing this dam of tasks that you need
to get across to somebody else. So I know what it’s like when you get to Nina, you’re excited, you have felt overwhelmed, you got loads of stuff to hand over. And then when it actually comes to it, it’s like radio science, you get stuck, you don’t know what to hand over first or what’s going to be the least painful for you. And it’s so, so typical of lots of people that get an assistant. So it’s not only you. If you’re
watching this and going, yeah, I struggle with that as well. But my top three, my framework of how to kick start this would be to set a meet twice a week that you turn up to, even if you don’t have anything specific to hand over. But getting into the mode of meeting with them, talking about what’s priority, what’s been going on, give them your inbox. Like, for me, that is a game changer that is going to get them helping you. M and the big thing around this is like a really good virtual assistant in my business, or exec assistants, a really good executive assistant is going to be able to drive you as soon as they see your inbox. They can’t do it if you don’t. Like, obviously somebody needs information to be able to help you.
They need information their way, but their inbox, giving them access to it, is without doubt the easiest way to let your business priorities, your life. All this stuff going on, open up to them and a really good one will come to you with all of the stuff that they can help you with. Like that for me, is the easiest trigger to get started. And number three, make sure you have a WhatsApp group or ah, on teams or something that’s not just sending emails to each other somewhere when you’re in the flow, when you’ve come up with other ideas, when you think, actually, I wonder if she could help with that. You’re able to just send a voice note easily and you want the least amount of barriers between your thoughts and, getting it into his or her task to do list like priorities for the day. And so, yeah, it’s really common that you need help, but then get stuck at handing stuff over. And you know where I am. Such, if you would like to pick my braids anymore or need help on that, hit me up. And I hope it helps you to get your head out of the dirt and into the clouds because in the dirt is having no help and in the clouds is having an assistant who has access to your life to push you forward and to pull work out of you. And so I hope it helps. And, I will see you next week for episode two. Five, eight. See you then. Bye.
