Whether you are working with your Virtual Assistant or in-person teams, delegating tasks should be easy if you keep these best practices at hand…

How to Delegate Tasks Like a Pro

An efficient delegation strategy with your Live Sidekick or Virtual Assistant is key in producing ROI for your business. Additionally, putting a system in place will help cut your cost and losses in terms of time and energy, and will prevent you and your team from overwhelm and exhaustion.

Here in LiveSidekick, we believe that there’s always the right and efficient way to delegate your tasks – one that does not entail burnout. It can be scary for some people at first, as it requires a lot of trust, communication, and work, but once you are able to do it the right way, it can certainly create new horizons for your business. 

The possibilities for scaling and growing your business will become exponential as you duplicate your strength with the help of your Live Sidekicks. Learn how you can find the best Sidekicks for your business by clicking here.

Why is it important to delegate?

Some business owners find it hard to delegate tasks because of so many reasons. One that we often hear is the time it takes them to train a new person compared to the time that it takes them to just do the task themselves. We hear this question a lot: “Is it even worth my time?”

Our answer is a resounding YES! You might think it’s unwise to invest a lot of time explaining all your processes to a new person, but this activity actually provides you with a lot of benefits in return. To name a few:

• Delegation helps you clear things off your plate and provide the headspace that you need to work ON your business and not IN your business, and focus on your growth.
• Delegation gives you freedom to spend more time doing things you really want and less time doing the things that you don’t.
• Delegation helps you become an instrument in your team’s personal and professional growth, and maximizing their skills to their full potential.

To help you get started delegating tasks to your Virtual Assistant, we have listed some key steps to always remember:

1. Have your Tasks Ready

This step is important to do even before you decide to outsource your projects to a Live Sidekick or Virtual Assistant. To make the transition seamless, you should know what things you really need to get done and when you need them done. Adding to this is the “how” to go about doing it. 

This could be as easy as starting a Google Document and listing down all the projects that you want to delegate and outsource to your team. Beside the tasks, add a deadline and your step-by-step process. If you need help documenting your task processes, check out this link. This document will become your living and breathing roadmap for delegating and outsourcing your tasks to your team.

In addition, you can also prepare video or audio recordings which will give clearer instructions, things to remember, and tips to help your virtual assistants work on their tasks in the most efficient way.

Additionally, this strategy saves you a lot of time scheduling meetings to provide direction that you can just do over video recording.. Doing this can allow your Virtual Assistants to train themselves in your processes in a manner that is time-flexible, and that work for both of you.

2. Delegate Tasks to the Right Person

After you already have the tasks listed, make sure that you know who among your team is best fit to fulfill certain tasks. You want to make sure that the one you delegate tasks to is proficient to whatever charge the tasks require.

Our LiveSidekicks have undergone a number of thorough steps for us to identify their strengths and skill sets. We believe that this step is the secret to unlocking the maximum potential of everyone because this enables us to make wise decisions about tasks while prioritizing our Virtual Assistants’ growth.

If you want to know what else you can benefit from our Virtual Assistants (or as we call them LiveSidekicks), click here.

3. Relationship Management Matters!

Make your virtual assistants feel that they are welcome and valued by asking them questions that show genuine concern. Always remember that at the end of the day, your Live Sidekicks are also human, and relationships need to be nurtured and fortified so you can produce the same quality of results day after day.

In addition to establishing good relationships within your outsource team, building a positive team culture also helps you become successful at working with Virtual Assistants. If you want to know more about how you can create an effective team culture, check out this article.

4. Prepare and Set Up Helpful Tools

Make use of all the tools available online to help you speed up productivity and improve your processes.

In working with remote teams, these are some of the tools that you want to set up successfully to ensure stress-free delegation of tasks within your team:

• Project Management – choose the best project management tool that will work for your business. Don’t know where to start? Check our blog for our step-by-step guide on how to find the best project management tool for your business.
• File Sharing – share work files easily by setting up the right file-sharing platform. You can use DropBox or Google Drive.
• Security – choose a password sharing tool that lets you share password easily and safely. Some tools you can look into are LastPass and Dashlane.
• Communication Channel – ensure that your communication channels are accessible, easy to use, and simple. Slack, Skype, or Microsoft Teams can be examples of this.

5. Clean and Open Communication

Working with a remote team or Virtual Assistants requires open communication to avoid confusion, misunderstanding, and things falling through the cracks.

While you want to avoid being a “micromanager”, you need to be 100% clear with business goals and communicate that clearly with your virtual assistants. Doing so will ensure your virtual assistant’s performance and work are aligned with achieving your desired results.

Additionally, you do also want to establish a communication channel where your Virtual Assistant can reach out to you comfortably for questions and clarifications.. This allows you to track your remote team’s daily productivity and ensure long-term success.

Remember, delegating tasks to your Virtual Assistant and keeping track of progress is important because this is a powerful tool to shape your business growth.

6. Evaluate Regularly

It is necessary for every task to be evaluated. Likewise, you should evaluate your  virtual assistants to make sure you are getting the most out of their services and expertise. 

Have them report to you through your project management tools or via email so you can monitor how effective they are and how much time they are putting to every successful task they have produced.

Having regular evaluation calls also lets you fulfill your responsibility to provide direction, set goals, build relationships, and resolve issues and concerns within your remote team.

Wrapping Up

It is a fact that hiring a virtual assistant to help you with all that you need is advantageous. Delegating your tasks efficiently will ensure that your investment will not be wasted, and that your business will grow.

Still not sure how to delegate tasks efficiently? Talk to us!