What Three Things Should I Delegate To A Virtual Assistant First To Actually Save Time And Money.

Most business owners know they need help.

But the real challenge isn’t finding a virtual assistant it’s learning how to let go.

In this episode, Emma Mills explores why delegation feels so uncomfortable, the psychological reasons we hold onto tasks for too long, and the first things you should actually hand over if you want more time, focus, and freedom.

From inbox overwhelm to the “delegation dip”, this is a practical and honest conversation about building a business that doesn’t rely on you for everything.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Focus on the Fun Stuff, the podcast for business owners who want to build a business that they actually love. I'm your host, Emma Mills, seven figure founder of MyPA, the UK's leading virtual PA support agency. And since 2008, MyPA has helped thousands of business owners to buy back their time, get out of the weeds, and focus on what matters most. And every week on the podcast, I'm sharing my own journey, live as it happens, and interviewing other business owners who've been exactly where you are now. And we're sharing practical tactics and real strategies to help you build a business that works for you, not the other way around. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Focus on the Fun Stuff. I'm Emma Mills, I'm your host, and I am here to talk about the question that I probably get asked the most to people that are new into the world of virtual assistants. And it's a good question. Drum roll, please. The question is what are the first things that I should be handing off to a virtual assistant? Like, is there is there a path that I should follow that is the no-brainer that's going to get me the biggest payback, the quickest reward, the biggest time back into my life? Like I don't wanna, I don't wanna miss out on the first things I should hand off. And it's a good question because people often don't have a plan when they start working with the virtual assistant, and they just are already going into it thinking it's quicker to do myself, which we know is poor man's thinking. So the biggest mistake is to have no plan, and today we're gonna leave this episode with what I believe to be the plan that you should have when you start working with an assistant to go, this is the biggest payback and the quickest reward. I want this episode to prevent anyone from pulling back on using a virtual assistant just before it's about to get really good. And I'm not talking about you just with using us or any other virtual assistant, if whoever it is that you are using, I think a lot of business owners will often pull back just before they're about to reach the breakthrough of things being amazing. For me, there's three reasons why it feels difficult, it feels unnerving. Some business owners struggle to get things over, and the three reasons are number one, it begs the question when we start to delegate things to somebody else, what are we gonna do with that time? And honestly, in 2021, I felt that quite strongly in a slightly different way to what I'm talking about today. But in 2021, my PA was starting to pick up some serious traction in growth, and via that, we were one by one eliminating things from my to-do list, getting me more support. I was focusing on different things. Um, it was the first time we had somebody else following up on leads, which was Helena. Um, I had a full-time EA, I'd given up all client work, there was none of that anymore. I was still doing quite a lot of like front-facing client journey prospect stuff, but I had given up. Um, I'd also got gotten out of managing our PA team, and we'd brought in or we'd promoted somebody internally. Anyway, all of these things collided together that towards the end of 2021, into 2022, like there was a lot of stuff happening and I was managing the growth, but there was a lot of things that had been taken off my list. And I remember saying to my mentor at the time, Martin, Martin Norberry, we've done all this good stuff, we've cleared all this thing, all these things off Emma's to-do list. What sometimes I had a bit of a feeling of like, I'm not sure what I'm meant to be doing next. I'm not sure what the next right action is. And so I think that a lot of business owners, when they're not clear on where they're trying to get to what the highest return activity is, busyness makes us feel productive, busyness makes us feel good. A lot of business owners revert to, you know, clearing your desk, replying to emails, fiddling about in zero, that is my Achilles heel. We will revert to things that we know how to do well that take little brain power and they make us feel busy and productive because the scarier question sometimes is what do I do with all of this time back? I'm not going to cover that in this episode. Like, what do we do with the time back? But it's a really good question to ask that when you are going to buy time off somebody else, be super clear on in that 10 hours a week, I am going to spend it learning Facebook ads or speaking to new customers or going out and to networking meetings or visiting prospects, whatever it might be for you, or literally just going home on time, having a plan of how you're going to use that time that you get back is really, really smart. And that's another podcast episode in itself. But just having that feeling that busy feels valuable, business owners can confuse the two things of being busy feels valuable, but is the thing you're doing actually valuable? So then if you hand that off, what is the thing you're going to fill it with? And that can be a scarier question sometimes when we're a little bit like, you know, there is nobody. I was only thinking the other day, I was doing PDPs with my leadership team, and I was I just thought for a fleeting moment. Like there is nobody behind me that does my PDP with me. I have mentors, I have Mike as our fractional COO, I have people that I bounce ideas off and and have people that will be frank with me as well when they think I need to do things differently, but there is no one telling us the way. So it can be scary sometimes to go, but what is the next best use of my time? So I think that is one reason why people will stop, refrain from getting a virtual assistant, but also will pull back quickly if they have the slightest inkling that that tasks or things are not going to go as well as they would do them. They'll have a very small margin of error that they'll allow before they go, oh, I'll just do it myself, because it's easier and it makes them feel busy and productive. So I think that's reason one why it can be difficult for business owners. Reason two, I don't know if you've ever heard of the endowment effect. And it's an actual psychological study that people value far more greatly the tasks that they do themselves or have done themselves. They will put far more emphasis on how important it is that they are done right because they have done it themselves. That it's it applies in the same way to objects or items that you own. Like I might have a jellycat at home that I am absolutely obsessed with, I love, I wouldn't want to part him for anything. And if I had to sell him, I'd sell him for a very high price because he's very valuable to me, but somebody else wouldn't perceive him in the same way. So the endowment effects means that things that you think you can do well, that only you can do them like that, it you put all of this value onto a specific kind of task. If I relate it back to myself, for a very long time, I would run our onboarding calls for our PA team. So on our onboarding calls, we have the dedicated PA, we have some other members of the team who are going to support the clients on there on a video call. We all get to meet, we all get to understand more about the client, understand their personality, understand what their goals are, the tasks that they want to offload to start with. We'll ask loads of questions, pick it all out of them, make a strategic plan, and so on. And the welcome call is our place to go. This is us, this is who you're working with. And so for me, it's really important that that call is high energy, has humour in it, is really high on emotional intelligence because we are connecting with people in that call. I want every client to leave that call feeling made the right decision here. I feel supported. Like we've had so many people on those calls towards the end go, I already feel better. I already know that I've got somebody on my side. Now, for the longest time, I would run them, I would do all the talking, which also wasn't helpful. Um, but I would properly run these calls, and it was difficult for me to even reconcile that anyone else could run these calls as well as I do, did I say, because I don't do them anymore. And it was a source of pain for me as I started to step out to them. And I remember, so my office is next door to the room where they will take place, and so many times I've kind of sought what I'm doing to strain through the wall to hear how it's going, to see what's going on. And I know you're gonna say, like, we have we have a system, we have a play, but we have a process of how to run these calls, but still I'd be like, I know it'd be going so much better if it was me in there. Do you know what? We haven't had any feedback that a welcome call has been a disappointment, has been poorer, has been not effective, that somebody's not enjoyed the experience. Like, okay, mine are mine are different, of course, because that's me and my energy in it, but it didn't mean I put so much emphasis onto how important these welcome calls are, but actually, other people can run them as well. And even if it's 90% as well as you, they are now running without me once, twice, three times a week. It's a it's a part of the business now that I don't need to direct or do, and so I've claimed that time back. And this is the process and iteration that we just need to go through all of the time. We will put a lot of value on those things in the business that we think only we can do as well. Our monthly meeting is another one, so we had it today, and I run the monthly meeting. Um, Matt and Tyler, who are in our leadership team, they will report on their departments and they will interject in the meeting as well. But ultimately, I run it. I know with that particular task, and now of course I'm the leader of the business, and so it's maybe a slightly bit different. But actually, in theory, when I'm on holiday, if that monthly meeting coincides, I know that Matt in my leadership team leadership team can do a job 95% as good as me. Like the thing will still happen. And I think loads of us will have so many things in our business where we think, oh, but only Emma can do it because it's so it's so important, this task. Another example in my when a mastermind group that I'm in, Nigel will talk a lot about a member of one of his groups that has a shutter business. And when he came to Nigel, he was doing about 400k in revenue. And literally, this guy thought that only he could install shutters. Like Nigel's told this story so many times, it's ingrained in my mind, but I think it's the very best example I know of the endowment effect that we think there's only us that can do something as well. And it's also, you know, there's a lot of emotional attachment to you're the one that's got the business started, you're the one that's had to do everything. Um, but I I digress. The the shutter story, 400k has now gone to 2 million and he doesn't do any fitting at all. So it's just an example of there will be lots of smaller things that happen daily in our business where we go, oh no, but Emma, I I should really do that. I should really because nobody can do it as good as me. And that does hold us back. And so I think it's just a really interesting concept to be aware of the endowment effects, because we load value onto things because it's important to us. And one, it probably isn't perceived in the same way by anybody else. And two, I think there is a very, very small list of tasks that could not be done 90, 80% as well by somebody else. Something to think about the next time you think, oh, I can't give that to anybody. And one of the most interesting reasons, I think, and I think once you once I explain this, you won't be able to unsee it. And hopefully it will help you the next time you delegate a task, the next time you get an assistant or a team member in your business, and it's called the delegation dip. And for anybody that has read Seth Godin's The Dip, which it applies to most hard things in life, this is how it works in delegation. So up here at the beginning of the curve, we are excited to start delegating. We are at a hundred percent energy of I've got some support, I'm gonna hand things off. And let's say we pass over one task up here. So we pass over one task, we give a brief, whether that's good or bad, or however involved it is, but we pass it off. And then what happens in most cases is that there might be a tiny bit of nuance or understanding or something that needed explain a little bit more, and so the delegation of this task will drop to about here in the dip. Now, at this point, you'll have a business owner who goes, That's it, told you virtual assistant does not work for me, it's quicker to do it myself. I may as well just take it back, forget it, I'm going, forget it all, I'm doing it. Some business owners will do that at this point. Other business owners who understand the concept that leverage your time is the most important thing you can do, and that also all good things take collaboration from both sides. A lot of business owners at this point will go, okay, let me understand. Sorry, uh, let me kind of re-explain a bit of nuance. What have I missed? A bit of coaching to make this task better. A really good EA as well will at this point go, sorry, I'm missing this context. I didn't realise that. With a virtual assistant, it might just be a bit more like you need to spoon feed, but with a really good EA, like we have at my PA, they'll they will be able to articulate what is missing from this. But at this point, those business owners who want to push through, get it done, will go, no, I get it. Sorry, uh, oh, I needed to add this. Oh, I didn't tell you that. Oh, I get, I get why you why why that might not come across like that. So in the second iteration of doing this task, what actually happens is that the task will fall to about this level. So it'll be at the bottom of the dip now because there might just be um a bit of information, a bit of nuance, something that they haven't encountered before, um, a scenario that hasn't been explained. And so we're at the properly at the bottom of the dip now of, oh, right, okay, just need to add this. We're nearly there with it. But again, another percentage of business owners will go, oh, forget it. You clearly don't get it, it's not working for me. But the smart business owners who are motoring through in this delegation dip will go, okay, what are we missing? Let's just do a final tweak. And it is at this point, almost always, that the delegation that like the the leverage, the friction all removes, and the delegation dip comes right back up to maximum. I am being leveraged, things are now running without me. And it pretty much happens with, especially at the beginning of a relationship, but with a lot of tasks depending on the complexity that they have. And it's this, it's at this point up here in the delegation dip that a lot of business owners won't get through because it will feel too hard, because it's quicker to do it themselves, because they are struggling to reconcile how giving time over to do this isn't just quicker than doing it themselves. I know we're going to mention this phrase a lot in this episode, but it is true. But it's this delegation dip, and it happens in almost all things in life in training for a marathon when you don't feel like you're getting any better, and then you run the marathon on the day and you realize all the training you put in paid off. When you are starting a business, you know, year two, year three, year four. I feel like for a lot of people, it's a bit of a wilderness of you're in, you've got some clients, it's not paying you enough, you're not quite sure on the next steps. There are so many iterations of this. Learning, learning to do something new. Even in our business now, Crispin's joined us full-time um socials, content, video. We're putting out more stuff than we ever have before. And for me personally, there is a there is an element of this delegation dip to understand: are we spending our time on the right thing? Should we be doing more shorts? Should we do be doing more YouTube? How do we know what's going to pay a return? But if we if I was to constantly pull back from everything that we were doing, we wouldn't build up any traction, we wouldn't build up any data. And this dip of going through new things, hard things applies to almost everything, and very much so in delegation. So this delegation dip that a lot of business owners will go through will be the thing that will ultimately cost you more money in the in the long run because you've now got no time back, you've got no assistant, it's just really painful. But you've capped, you've capped you and your productivity at a level because you can't get past the, but nobody can do it better than me. So I think those are the three reasons why people struggle to get virtual assistants to work with them. There is this element of what am I going to do with the extra time? It feels valuable to be busy. The endowment effect, we put so much value onto the things that only we can do because that's how we perceive it. And the delegation dip. There is always an element of making your way through this path of delegation. It is never a straight line. There always might be a bit of information you might have missed, some context that's needed. And it's that ability and willingness to work through the delegation dip that will get you so much time back and so much leverage. So I think with those three things, it makes it hard for a lot of people to really get flowing with a virtual assistant. The fact that being busy as a business owner feels valuable, kind of asks some, it makes us ask some questions of ourselves what we're going to do with our time when we're not so busy, and even are we still being valuable? And number two is the endowment effects, like the the value we put onto the things that we're doing, and it's totally from our perception. It doesn't even mean that they are that valuable, but we also think that nobody else can do them as good as us. And number three is the delegation dip. There is never a direct line to perfect delegation. There might be a little bit of nuance that's missed, some coaching that's needed, some understanding between the two people or in a process, but it's the people that push through that dip that ultimately don't cap their own growth, don't cap their ability to get things done and raise the bar of where they can get to in their business. So you might ask, Emma, what are these three things that I should, if I am looking to get a virtual assistant, I haven't had one before, what should I start with? Well, number one, I feel like you know what I'm gonna say. It is high frequency tasks that are gonna keep you distracted, and that is always still in this day and age, with every AI fixer under the sun, is inbox. Um the inbox is the king and queen of micro distractions, and having someone that will clear it two to three times a day will archive, archive, triage, file, and draft replies, and will give you an end-of-day update with the key, only the key curated emails that actually need your approval, your again, some like nuance or information. Having that in your life, I still think for most business owners, is the biggest win in terms of reclaiming uninterrupted time to meaningfully move things forward. So it's honestly as simple as that. Inbox triage and gatekeeping, and it is totally possible for somebody else to take over that completely, and that you only get asked questions about it, and that also you don't feel like you're missing anything, you know exactly where everything's up to, and you only have to input on the most important things that is possible. That would always be my number one go-to. Number two on the list of things to give to your virtual assistant first is calendar and meeting logistics. Again, it is like a high-frequency micro distraction. It's the kind of thing that can have six or seven emails to arrange somewhere, arrange a location, shift the time slightly, rearrange it to another day, make sure that several people are all available at the same time. Also having everything you need prepped for a meeting, having agendas in there, reconfirming that people are attending the day before. And almost one of the highest value parts of calendar and diary scheduling is the protection of your time. So, in my calendar, as I've said many times, up until 12 on most days, sometimes one is completely protected. I'm not doing anything else apart from thinking, creating the projects that I need to move forwards. I'm getting stuff done. I'm not going between calls, I'm not going between meetings or traveling here and there. It's protected for that. And so and it can be easy for me to say, oh, but I'll just squeeze this one in, or I'll just squeeze that call in. Having somebody who goes, No, we agreed this, you know that you're gonna need that time, you know that you're gonna use it better. Don't keep squeezing stuff in. Having someone to manage you, again, I think is the biggest buyback in time if we're if we're starting right from the beginning. So we've got inbox, we've got calendar and meeting scheduling. And number three, this might not be applicable to everyone. So I'm gonna have a 3.1 option as well. But number three, that is still so popular in the world of my PA is expense tracking, invoices, chasing payments. It depends on the size of the business. I totally get this. A lot of people might listening now, might already have accounts departments and people doing that. But for a lot of business owners who are growing, who are moving through traction now to get to the next stage in turnover, they may well be still involved in that. And so it happens so much now, whether it's collating expenses together to for receipts, for for the bookkeeper, for tracking, um, whether it's chasing payments, whether it's sending invoices out, like we are still sending invoices out for very successful, profitable businesses who have a lean team. That them three are still really high on the list. My 3.1, if you've already got an accounts department, let's call it 0.4 for ease. Um the fourth one I would say, if invoicing expenses doesn't trouble you, is the project. Management element of if you have other people in your team who report to you, who have projects, OKRs, tasks, you've delegated tasks to other people, that tying together of where people are up to, chasing people up on projects, maybe managing an Asana, a Monday, a click up, a project management tool, having your assistant by your side to do that bringing together of our things behind or on track. Our team members waiting for something from you. Are you the bottleneck? Can Yore get past that and provide the information? That is number four. That kind of so it doesn't lie so heavy on you. It's that like moving forwards of other priorities, projects, plans in the business, having somebody by your side to manage that. They are the top four. They are by no means covering all the things that we do for our clients in here. And I am going to do an episode coming up on the family assistant because I think so many people miss out on realizing that you can totally get personal help. And it's not a it's not something only super successful multimillionaires do, or which I think kind of crosses a lot of people's minds. It's what a lot of our clients do just to make running a business easier. But those would be my top four. My top four wins to give to a virtual assistant, the first things you would look at are inbox, triage, archive, filing, get rid of all the micro distractions, calendar management, all the scheduling, the back and forth, the protecting of your time, the invoice chasing, creating, tracking, expense receipt, collation together. And if your invoicing is already done by a different entity, then number four I would put in there is this project management piece of pulling together who in your team is behind, on track, who needs help. For me, those are the biggest wins most often for a lot of our clients and prospects that we talk to. Delegating things that you hate is certainly a win for your energy. And I am very, very passionate about preserving energy because I think it's the life force behind anybody's business. And I know that when my energy is popping, my PA's energy is popping. So I'm totally for that. But it might, whatever that task might be, it might be more complicated to delegate, or and this is where you should get a professional, somebody who has got lots of experience in delegation. We can chat about this at my PA, obviously. This is where you should get some um opinion on if it's a very specific task you would love to delegate, but something you hate doesn't necessarily give the quickest win back in time that would protect your time to let you do the deep focus stuff and it in doing so help you get more revenue back into the business. It might be that because let's face it, running a business is hard, and lots of us have to do things we don't enjoy doing, and that is actually just part of it. And so while I totally advocate for delegating bit by bit things you don't want to do, you don't like, you don't enjoy, I would always bring it straight back to but what is the biggest win? What is going to be the biggest payoff first? And that is generally in grabbing my time back so I can do the good stuff, and they are generally those four things that I have taught about. The most expensive sentence you can say to yourself in the week, it is quicker to do it myself. And I hope this episode has helped you think about if you're about to step into the world of virtual assistants, whoever that's with, where to start. If you're nodding along to any of the things I've said, you are definitely not alone. My podcast episodes are gathered together from literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of conversations with other business owners from my own experiences as well. We all go through it. Delegation is hard, but it is possible and it is worth the perseverance. So I hope this has helped you to get out of your way and get an assistant. And if you've enjoyed this podcast, please share it with someone that you think might need it, someone that might be thinking about getting an assistant. And as always, the subscribe button and the review button is super, super helpful for the podcast and helps us to do more good stuff and get more good people on it. So that would be really appreciated. I hope it was helpful, and I will see you next week for another interview with a business owner who has been able to focus on the fun stuff.