The Value of Pushback: Why Every Leader Needs a Challenger
Do you have someone on your team who will push back on you and challenge your thinking? Not just a coach, but someone on your team, working alongside you daily who isn’t afraid to speak their mind and share their opinion even when it’s different from yours. ...
The Ultimate Roadmap for Successful Hiring: Tips and Common Mistakes
Navigating the hiring process is tricky and extremely time-consuming. The impacts of a bad hire are felt throughout your team and reflected in your bottom line. If you're ready to grow your team, intentionally moving through each phase of the hiring process will help take the guesswork out of hiring and increase your chances of finding your ideal match....
Building Your Dream Team: Make A Confident Hiring Decision with Three Key Questions
The idea of finding your ideal candidate in a pool of hundreds of applicants can feel like finding a needle in a haystack and the fear of making a poor hiring decision leads to procrastination, critical talent gaps on your team, or even low-impact activities taking up your time and energy. Make a confident hiring decision with three simple questions you can use to evaluate your candidates....
Elevate Your Delegation Game: From Manager to Leader of a High-Performing Team
How you lead sets the tone for your team’s performance. Delegating isn't just about offloading tasks; it’s a strategic skill that can either cultivate a high-performing team or create chaos. As your business grows, fine tuning your delegation approach is essential for nurturing a self-managing and engaged team. In this article, we explore three distinct delegation styles to help you identify your current approach and refine it for optimal team performance. The Ostrich You excel at giving your team the freedom to work independently. Your schedule is blissfully free of team meetings (which you deem a waste of time), and you’ve successfully delegated tasks without looking back. Challenges with Your Team: Despite your efforts, projects often fall short of expectations. You’re frequently let down by the outcomes and can’t understand why balls are dropped so regularly. The barrage of texts and emails with questions from your team leaves you wondering why they can’t just figure it out. Your Team’s Perspective: Your team is perpetually in reactive mode, scrambling to keep up with your next idea. They operate on a short-term view, knowing the plan for only the next month (or less). They lack a clear picture of what success looks like for their projects and how they contribute to the bigger vision. The Paranoid Parent You’ve reluctantly delegated basic tasks but hold onto critical responsibilities, fearing they’re too important to be mishandled. You’ve created step-by-step instructions for the tasks you’ve delegated. Your time is split between client work and overseeing your team. Challenges with Your Team: Your team rarely takes initiative. Tasks only get done if you explicitly request them. You face constant questions about task handling, and often, tasks boomerang back to your plate.Your Team’s Perspective: Your team follows instructions to the letter, but it’s monotonous. There’s no room for personal creativity or feedback, leading to frustration and a lack of confidence to tackle unforeseen challenges without your input. Goldilocks Your team operates independently, and you’ve effectively delegated tasks you shouldn’t be doing. Your time is divided between client work and shaping your business vision. Regular, productive team meetings focus on big-picture planning. Challenges with Your Team: If issues arise, they’re often due to a mismatch between team members’ roles and their strengths or outdated processes that need revisiting.Your Team’s Perspective: Many team members have been with you for years, growing alongside your business. They know when to seek your input and when to proceed independently, updating you on...
When should I hire a Virtual Assistant?
A Virtual Assistant can help you serve more clients, have more time to work on your business and work towards your big mission, and give you more free time to enjoy life outside of your business as well. A great VA can help you do all of this by doing the things in your business that you should not be doing. However, you need to be ready to bring on a team member. Here are 3 tips for knowing when the time is right. When you can afford help First and foremost you need to be able to afford to commit to a team member long-term. Your business should be generating enough money where you can save for taxes, generate a profit, pay yourself, and pay for your expenses and someone to support you. A good VA will charge anywhere between $30-$65+ / hour (rates will vary greatly depending on experience). You can work with a VA for a few as 10-15 hours a month. And, if you find the right person who is excited to grow with you, you can increase the number of hours as your business grows. TIP: If you are implementing Profit First in your business, your team expense should be no more than 50% of your operating costs. When you are (pretty) clear there are things that you should not be doing It’s not necessary to be 100% clear about everything you want to delegate. In fact, if you wait to make sure you are 100% clear, you might be procrastinating! Have a good starting point and at least an idea of the things you can get off your plate. Keep a running list on your desk and write down the things you do that you know you could delegate to someone else. A great VA will jump in and take these things on AND help you see other things that you can hand off. TIP: You do not need to know HOW you are going to delegate these things. You just need to know what you want to delegate. Your VA will figure out the HOW! When you are ready to commit to a long-term partnership with your Virtual Assistant The magic in working with a VA really happens when you are working with someone long-term. If you are looking for someone to just handle a few tasks for you on an off and you aren’t really looking for a long term commitment,...