[00:00:00] Speaker A: Slack is just a way for you to communicate. If you are in a physical office, you're not going to your office mate's cubicle every hour. You're not. That's just weird.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: You weren't born to sit in traffic, work for approval, or wait for Fridays. You were built to be free.
Welcome to Rich and Remote, the show for the ones who dare to do life differently. Here we talk about building businesses that give you choices where you work, how you live and what you create.
This is for the entrepreneurs who crave freedom, financial freedom, location freedom, and freedom from everyone else's expectations. If you're ready to design a life on your own terms, you're in the right place.
Rich and Remote Hosted by Alex and Carla Booth.
Foreign.
[00:01:08] Speaker C: Hey, quick one for anyone still doing $15 an hour work when you should be doing $10,000 an hour thinking if you've ever tried hiring a virtual assistant and ended up with someone you had to train from scratch, I want you to check out the Hire an AI VA playbook which you can
[email protected] and it's a $17 toolkit that shows you exactly how to find, vet and hire an AI savvy virtual assistant. Someone who already knows how to use ChatGPT and Claude properly so they can actually take work off your plate in as early as three hours and not in three months. It has betting checklists, masterclasses, job post templates, prompts and even done for you. AI Skills test will even guide you through the interview process so you'll truly everything you need to land a proper AI enabled virtual assistant who can finally take these tedious everyday tasks off your plate.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: Link is in the show notes so
[00:02:12] Speaker C: go grab it and do yourself a favor. Once again it's hireanaiva.com you deserve high quality support and you deserve an AI savvy virtual assistant. Go check out hire and aiva.com hi, I'm Carla Singson and this is Rich and Remote. My whole business is placing talent from the Philippines and Latin America with online business owners, so I am very very lucky to have a front row seat to every way delegation goes sideways. The assistant who got handed a password and a prayer or the founder who tells me, you know what, I tried outsourcing once but it didn't work like that.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: Settles it forever.
[00:02:54] Speaker C: And it's just like this reality they built in their minds. I observed that a lot of business owners didn't realize that they started a business and they kept a business going only to become the most expensive assistant in it and now, even with AI, AI agents, AI chats, a lot of AI workflows, and really affordable talent from companies like mine in proximity outsourcing, people still struggle to properly delegate.
And so this is not a tips episode. You have read all of these productivity tips. You've downloaded probably too many SOP templates, but somehow you still can't let go. You can't turn off your brain. Maybe you can't trust your team enough. And today we're going to talk about why you actually hold on and how we can process this and how you can also change a deep thing inside your identity to make delegation better. As a leader, as a business owner, as an entrepreneur and a visionary, I really want you to learn this core skill of delegation, because that's how a lot of things break in terms of leadership, scale, and even outsourcing. I don't want you to get into that trap. And of course, I don't want you to feel like you are a slave in your own business or to feel like, yes, I am making money. I can see it on my stripe, I can see the money in my bank, but somehow I still can't fully relax. I'm still the bottleneck. And, yeah, this episode may sting a little bit, but also it will come
[00:04:39] Speaker A: with a lot of love, of course,
[00:04:41] Speaker C: for me, and it will be a straightforward masterclass on delegation. A lot of people talk about the skill of hiring, onboarding, management, you know, being a good leader, but really, a lot of people miss out on this skill, the skill of delegation. So I hope you guys enjoy. And by the way, I'm saying hi from the Dolomites in Italy, and I'm very, very happy to give everyone an update that I did not feel stressed at all. My team has everything handled, and it's not just me who learned the art of delegation, but also my top management. And I'm very, very proud of them.
[00:05:20] Speaker A: I didn't get here easy.
[00:05:21] Speaker C: I learned a lot of things in my almost two decades of business, and today I'm sharing with you the best of the best of my lessons in delegation. Enjoy.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: I know a lot of you women love the D, and this is the D that you should have in your life.
I notice that in my business, in outsourcing, there are a lot of people who still struggle with the action or the habit of delegation. Some of them, it's an attitude thing. It's like, oh, I'm not really used to being a boss. I'm not really used to telling people what to do. They have all these kind of internal struggles with how they feel towards even giving someone to do. And so sometimes it starts there. It starts with the principles and the feelings and your comfort. And then eventually, you know, you learn a lot of tactics on how to delegate properly. And so I realized that even though I've been in this business for seven years and I've helped businesses of all sizes, I have a client who's a solopreneur and a Coach who makes 200 to 250k a year and she has two teammates. So that's her burn.
She makes 20 to 25k a month and her staff just costs her under $2,500 a month. So she takes home over 20k and she's very happy. She lives a very true life, travels a lot. So I serve people like that up to eight figure businesses. And so I have served companies and clients who have their own HR team also or have their own management team. And we work with them to really make it possible and to really help them outsource to the Philippines because that might be something they haven't done before. But in this huge range of clients that I work with, a lot of people still really struggle with how to delegate properly. So that's what we're going to tackle here first is let's talk about principles. I think that delegation first of all has to be an attitude. It should feel natural to you. It doesn't mean that you're going to be bossy and you're going to tell people what to do all the time and you don't want to just do any work. What it means is that it has to feel natural to you to ask other people to do things for you. And so a lot of the mistakes that I see, especially with some female founders and owners, they don't know how to even feel that it's natural to ask for someone to do something.
And there's a little bit of caveat here because there are people who are naturally good at this and those are eldest children.
So if you're an eldest child, just like me, I know that this feels more natural to you because you're older, you're kind of the boss of your brothers and sisters, of your younger siblings. And there is, there are times in your life and you've experienced this even as a kid, you would tell them what to do, you would tell them to do certain chores at home, you would try, you know how to basically, for lack of a better term, control them. You've studied them, they grew up in front of you and you know these people. And so with that, and you're in the setting of the home, of the house where you're super comfortable, it comes natural to you. And this feeling of feeling that delegating is natural, this grows on you and it definitely shows as you go to school, as you apply for a job, as you start your own business. So I noticed that people who are elder siblings, they have a more natural way to delegate, but for those who are not, which is obviously the majority of people, it's not as natural to them. So I want you to basically close your eyes and feel what it's like to be supported and how good that would feel.
And beyond that, I want you to think about the business that you do, and I want you to really have a full belief, full positive belief in what you do and how you help people.
Think about your customers, think about your clients, think about how you're going to grow their businesses too. Think about the people that you will help, all the livelihoods you will improve, all the lives you will improve. If you are a coach, think about all of the traumas that you can help fix, how the growth that you're going to give to other people. If you are a hair salon, think about how good you make people feel as soon as they get out and, you know, you finish giving them a haircut and maybe a blow dry and they feel so good. Think about that kind of service that you give to other people. Think about the good that you give to the world and the ripple effect of this benefit. And I want you to think and fully believe in your heart that good people like you deserve support too.
So if you find it difficult to feel natural, to delegate, I want you to think about how much you deserve support, how much you deserve help, how much you deserve systems understanding, someone to listen to you. And that's where it all starts. Because it could be something as small as asking your husband to take out the trash or asking your kid to properly arrange their toys after they play, or maybe you want to ask a little bit of extra from your server when you're dining out. But I want you to make this a practice in your life to feel supported, to have that affirmation that you are doing something good to the world and you are contributing something good to the world. And because of that, you deserve help and you deserve support. And the only way that you can do that and get that help and support is when you delegate. So I want you to really fully feel this. And if it helps, I want you to get out your notebook and your paper and list down the reasons why you deserve support, list on all the things that you do with your time when you freed up the time because you've delegated certain tasks in my industry, in the outsourcing industry, the founders or the owners of the business usually delegate the tasks that they don't like and the tasks that they don't feel competent in. So a lot of the founders are natural salespeople. They have the idea, they know how to sell the idea, they've talked to the customers, they validated this idea. So a lot of founders actually naturally fall into the role of the salesperson or the main salesperson, marketing person, promotions person of their company, their mascot, basically the main brand ambassador. And what usually gets left behind is management and operations.
And when the founder flings between the role of an implementer or somewhere in the operations, a leadership role in the operations, between that and the salesperson, it's very likely that that owner will get overwhelmed. And then after taking care of operations, there's a lot of little things like now you're going to think of client success or customer success. How can you make your clients happy? How can you make them super happy that they refer you? How are you going to grow your market? How are you going to attract your first few affiliates? And now you're thinking about ads. And so it's, there's a lot of things under it. And to be a little tip, after figuring out how to sell and then how to operate or how to deliver, the next thing that owners actually think about is client success or customer success, depending on your product or your service, if you have clients or customers. And so little tip, of course for our sponsor for today, check out consult Huckleberry. They take care of client success management and customer success management. If you want to grow your business through increased customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention. Same with clients. If you're a B2B service, check out consult huckleberry.com our sponsor for today.
So I just want you to really believe in what you do and, and practice getting that support and really, really digging in your feelings and what you do in your and listing down the reasons why you deserve that. And then now you've done some sort of inner work, I want you to, of course, practice. I want you to just get over it. Some of the thoughts that you have in your mind will be like, well, I don't want to be a bother to other people or I don't want to be bossy or I, I just, I don't know, it's Just not me, you know. So you have to get over those feelings. You have to also know that delegating is a skill. And the better are at this skill, the better your team will also be at delivering. Because the more that you do it, the more that you practice, the clearer your communication will be. And here's another big advice for you. You have to also prepare as much as you can. So even if you are ready emotionally and even if you've gotten over it and you have now no qualms about asking someone to do something or assigning a task, especially if you work with a company like us, your job description will be very clear, the success metrics will be very clear and the scorecard will be very clear in terms of expectations. And so if you have that, all you now need to do is you have to prepare as much as you can, everything that's needed for you to be able to delegate properly and effectively. So what does this entail? Usually you would prepare certain templates.
Of course you also have to prepare SOPs or standard operating procedures. A certain set of expectations that may be a step by step plan to do something. If it helps. I also want you to really take advantage of technology such as a loom video. Oh my gosh, it's such a huge time saver for me because it just saves, you know, takes a shot of my screen as kind of a video and I can just send the link to any one of my teammates. It has saved me a lot of meetings. In fact I told my team the less meetings we have, the better and the less activity our slack has. Slack guys, remember is an instant messaging tool. It is not your job to be on slack.
Slack is just a way for you to communicate. If you are in a physical office, you're not going to your office mates cubicle every hour. You're not. That's just weird.
Even if my best friend and I worked at the same office, which actually has never happened because me and my best friends just have different careers and and we live in different places. But if I am going to think about it and if that's the case, even if they're my best friend, I don't think I will be bothering them every hour, even every two hours or honestly more than one time a day. And so think about that. The busier your slack is, the more broken your operations is. So you can quote me on that because I know enough about being in the operations and consulting for fast growth online businesses. I used to also do con revenue optimization consulting where I would go into a business and find the hidden buckets of money and how they can make more money. And sometimes I realize that they're not making enough money because their team is just not efficient. And so, yeah, don't try to avoid doing slack every day. So be efficient in terms of delegating, in terms of giving instruction. Practice making requests properly. Be kind. Don't forget your manners. Say please. Or one of the phrases that I really like is, would you be so kind as to.
So, for example, if someone's like, hey, do you want to catch up? And then.
And then we agree on a time, okay, what about Monday at 5? And then I just ask them instead of, you know, saying, okay, please send me a zoom. I still try to be kind because it's a request. I say, hey, thank you so much for confirming. Would you be so kind as to send me a zoom? So for me, I don't know if it's. I'm more careful because English is not my second. It's not my first language. But I think just also really nice, especially that I feel like it's such a nice way of asking someone, and it's really hard to say no to someone who says that. So I love that. So I do that to my team as well. I say please a lot. Of course, don't forget your manners. You can say kindly as well.
And of course, don't forget to say thank you. And don't forget to throw in a compliment to your teammate every time they do something positive or nice or if they did the job very, very well. The other thing is, of course, I want you to develop a positive feedback loop, A positive and open feedback loop. So when I say positive, it doesn't mean that you're not allowed to criticize. It means that it comes with a positive and nurturing energy. And so it has to be accurate. You have to cultivate a culture in your company or in your agency or practice that when you discuss problems, you are not looking for someone to blame, but rather you are just identifying what the root cause is and you're just trying to help. At the end of the day, there is really no benefit to blaming someone. Even if they are to blame, they will know where they were wrong. And so just keep a positive mindset and a positive approach and. And always be open and transparent. And the other thing that I also find really useful is that when you hire someone or when you onboard them, you have to have a conversation with them, that they are hired for a certain reason. They are hired for their intelligence. They are hired because you're confident that they will be able to do the job. They are hired for their experience. And that because you believe in them and, and that you want them to succeed in their role and make them look like a rock star and that their teammates feel the same way. You have to tell them that and have that conversation. Make it a really positive part of your culture that people are open and transparent. Because sometimes even if you're very good at delegating, they there could be something in that thing that you're assigning to them or delegating to them that makes it difficult for them to deliver it and they're very scared to ask you or they feel stupid if they do. And so this is why you have to nurture an environment that doesn't give them these feelings and actually gives them the opposite feelings. In fact, if you can make them feel smart for asking a question that's so much better, that would be a culture that I would love to cultivate in my own team as well. The last thing that would be really good to add on feedback loop is setting a clear expectation. So if you expect this to be done by a particular time, if it's delivered in a particular format, the quality of the work, if you have a benchmark or something that they can use as a sample or a reference, that would be great. The clearer you can make your expectation, the better the results will be. And there's also very, very little room for them to make mistakes. So by helping them, you're also helping you. And lastly, and this is my favorite part and my favorite tip in this masterclass on delegation, if you are still stuck, get professional help.
So my first thought because I'm biased is of course to hire a managed outsourcing company that can help you think these through and can perfect the role and take care of onboarding and then assist you. You. We specialize in managerial roles and we also have a lot of virtual assistants. Tech roles, creative roles. We specialize on higher level roles, higher than a virtual assistant. And so creative managerial client success, we definitely help with that as well, placing these people. But aside from a managed outsourcing company, you can hire a consulting firm, maybe an operations consulting firm to help you clean up your operations. Of course, if it's pertaining to client or customer success, you can talk to Huckleberry consulting. It's consult huckleberry.com and they will help you with that. There are also coaches who are really, really good at this. Certain business coaches, certain productivity coaches, people who are really efficient and are used to handling big teams, you can get help from them as well. I personally know and have met a lot of coaches who have really good experience running high pressure remote teams. So it would be awesome for you to talk to them.
Executive coaches as well. So a lot of enterprise coaches have, you know, they. They mostly do corporate contracts, but they'll also do even for a smaller business if it makes sense based on your hourly offer or something like that. So get professional help if you need it because there's only so much help that you can get from books or YouTube videos or even a master class like this. So I basically walked you through the 101 in delegation, basically, and as much as possible, how you can do this all by yourself. But if you feel like you are still failing or there's particular angle that you don't see. Like for example, we outsource to the Philippines and a lot of people come to me for operations advice whenever they have a Philippine team. So they can't use our service anymore because they've already hired a team basically. But they need help in managing them. And so that would be an angle as well. So this is why it's worth it sometimes to hire executive coaches or people who know a certain angle or a certain nuance, maybe a certain culture or a certain time or in their life. You know, like if you are, say, a baby boomer and you feel a little bit of disconnect with your Gen Z or millennial team, maybe a coach who deals with both, both generations or both age range, I would say will also be of help to you. So those are our options. And that is basically it. This is our special episode for today, a master class on delegation. I hope you like it. If you have any questions, just post reply. If you're listening to this on Spotify and if you also want to talk to me about it or give me your insights, feel free to message me on Instagram. Follow me at Karla Stefan K A R L A S T E F A N. You can also find me r on LinkedIn and Facebook. Carla Stefan Singh son and I'm happy to have that conversation with you. I really love delegation because I'm an eldest child and I love mossing my sisters around. No, but also really, I feel very supported. I also, you know, growing up poor, I found it difficult to kind of really own that identity of being a boss. And there's also a lot of negativity with the word boss sometimes, like, you know, the word bossy is somehow a negative characteristic or something. But I, I had to wrestle with these thoughts and with this feeling of being supported and from time to time it would come up, you know, I would end up doing something. And then I realized that, oh, I can just delegate this. And you know, anyway, a lot of trial and error, right? And now I'm in my mid-30s, I'm married, I live in Mexico, I'm pretty much, I, I really love my life. But also I realized that one of the reasons that I do is because I get a lot of support. I get a lot of support from my sisters, my husband, my home team, I call it my home team. So I have a cleaner that comes to my house to do a deep clean on my house and a cook. I've taught her my recipes because in Mexico there's no Filipino restaurants here. Maybe a few, but not in my city. And so I miss the food. And so I have a cook that comes to my house weekly and she cooks a big batch. And I have two masseuses that come and see me to. I get a lymphatic drain massage and like a regular massage. The person who does my nails basically comes to my house and I've, I've delegated basically. Like I could do all these things by myself obviously, but I don't want to do that and I want to delegate that, those, those, those tasks basically. And of course for my team, I have a full on team that supports me. I love what I do though, and I'm really passionate with what I do. And so what I do is that the particular tasks in my business that I enjoy the most, those are the only things that I'm doing. And for now that's copywriting and public speaking or kind of branding, brand ambassador, basically. Basically being my company's mascot and talking about our values. And it helps us not just get new clients and affiliates or partners, but also helps us create a good brand for my following in the Philippines so we can attract the best candidates. And so I really love what I do. It helps me show up better and it helps me not have to feel motivated to do the work. I just do the work. I believe in my mission and I love what I do and I'm good at it. And I think that I was able to get to these positive realizations because I was able to delegate a huge part of my life and outsource a huge part of my life that I don't enjoy doing but are supportive to what I want to do. So that's the magic of delegation, guys. And so definitely try to learn it. There's also some a lot of videos and books about it, but you can only get better at it the more you practice. That's really it. So more reps, more success. That's what I always say. Anyway, thank you so much for joining me here at none of your Business for this master class and delegation. I'll see you next Monday for another wonderful episode.
[00:29:53] Speaker C: Thanks for listening to Rich and Remote, where freedom isn't a dream, it's a decision.
[00:29:59] Speaker A: This is Karla, this is Alex Booth,
[00:30:01] Speaker C: and this is our journey to our dream rich and remote life.
[00:30:06] Speaker A: If this episode inspired you, share with a friend who's ready to live life differently too. This is perfect for entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs who crave financial freedom, location freedom and freedom from the opinions of others.
[00:30:18] Speaker C: And don't forget to leave a quick review. It helps more freedom seekers find this show. Big thanks to our sponsors, Huckleberry Consulting, getcsm and Proximity Outsourcing.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: See you in the next episode and check out our online hangout spot, richandremote.com.
