– Welcome everybody to today’s Building My Legacy podcast. I have with me today, Emily Morgan. Emily has accomplished a lot in her life so far. Just for some highlights, let me tell you, she has been featured in Forbes as the Top 50 Remote Employer, she’s contributed articles to Huffington Post, and she’s been highlighted in the New York Times, just to mention a few of her areas of acknowledgment. Emily has a company called Delegate Solutions and she is all about, how do we delegate? What do we do to become more efficient, effective through delegation? So, Emily, how did you get started on delegation?

– Yeah, it’s funny. Thank you for having me, Lois. My sort of path to and exposure to delegation is really a 360 view. In my early career, I was working as an executive assistant, supporting, in particular, I was working at University of Pennsylvania where I was supporting some deans and things like that. And then I had my son about 15 years ago and realized, hey, I really love helping people, but I don’t necessarily love commuting in and out of Philadelphia every day. So I learned that I could actually do the same work that I was doing in the office, but do it at home and be present to kind of be home for my son. And so,

– And how many years ago was that?

– 15.

– So you started that right after he was born.

– Yep. He loves to take credit for the business.

– So, you were way ahead of the curve. Okay. Good to know.

– Yeah.

– I’m sorry, go ahead.

– No, and then, so I started the business and it’s funny because a lot of my old bosses came in as clients, so I started building up this client roster where I was basically working as an executive virtual assistant, but I was the one doing, I was being delegated to. And then over the years, as my company has grown and I really stepped into a CEO visionary seat, now I’m delegating to everyone else, so I really have this holistic 360 view of delegation.

– Okay. So what brought you to delegation? Why did you choose that out of all the issues that people have that you’ve seen, why delegation?

– Well, why I initially got into it is simple, I just liked helping people and I was good at it and very simple answer, but as I’ve sort of developed and sort of created my own position on it, to me, delegation is about elevating our time. And the very first chapter of my book is called, The World Needs You Elevated, because I really believe that we’re all here to make an impact, we all have a very specific thing we were meant to do and the more we can clear off our plate, just to focus on that one thing, the more impactful we can be and we contribute to the world in a more meaningful way.

– Wow. That is so true. Okay. So what is it, that keeps us from delegating? Because it’s so logical and yet it’s such a difficult thing for many of us to do.

– Yeah, it’s interesting because I think we all want to delegate and we’ve all tried to delegate. And over the years, maybe we’ve gotten some scar tissue because it’s failed or it’s blown up in our face or something like that and so we throw up our hands and we say, I’m not good at this. I hate delegating, it doesn’t work for me. But in reality, we only have so many hours in a day. So being able to master this and embrace this as a tool to really do more of what we love is, is step one. And so why do people struggle with it? A lot of different reasons. But to me, it’s a lot of head trash, stories we’re telling ourselves around, no one can do it as good as me, or if I let go of this, what am I going to do instead? Or I love being in the middle of everything. All these sort of emotional feelings that we have toward delegation that are really under the surface.

– So the feelings are under the surface and yet is it pain that finally gets somebody to come and get help? Or are there some people that are just born delegators? They know when to do it, they know how to do it and they just plain do it.

– Well, I think there’s some strategies to work your way to a place where you are doing more with delegation, the very first thing that I think people need to be clear on before we delegate is what we’re going to spend our time on instead, because if we can picture that, we can visualize it, we’re going to refill the time of things that we let go of with these really important activities, we’ll be more inclined to do it.

– Wow. So it’s true, isn’t it of so many things, if we have a clear vision of where we’re trying to go, it’s so much easier. Letting go is easier, delegating is all about letting go, isn’t it?

– It’s about letting go and where people get stuck is they don’t know what they want to spend their time on instead and for entrepreneurs, in particular, they are really focused on, they love to be in middle of everything and they love to be the hero and solve all of the problems. And so if they’re not doing that anymore, then what is their value? Right? And so it’s about understanding that our value is our ideas, our vision, our leadership and that that’s important and being okay with that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re so busy anymore, you’re busy thinking.

– It’s hard to, I think for entrepreneurs especially, we get onto the hamster wheel and when the hamster wheel slows down even, we suddenly feel like we’re inadequate, don’t we?

– A hundred percent, because we are placing our value on we’re so busy and so there’s a shift that needs to happen around, that’s not the best use of my time. Being busy is not why I started my business, it’s not what my unique ability is, it’s really about my contribution that I’m trying to make.

– So is there a process that you take people through? Because that’s a mindset shift, we’re talking about really changing, in a sense, your identity, right? So is there a process you take people through so they can let go?

– Yeah. Step one is to just do an exercise, to get really clear with yourself on what you want to let go of or what, excuse me, what you want to spend your time on instead. And then from there, there are some exercises that we can run, that help us segment the activities that you’re currently doing into something that we can visualize and start to take off your plate. So we’re clear on what we wanna do instead, we start to list out what are the things that we’re doing that drive us crazy that we hate doing, that we’re not good at and we start to identify the differences between the two. So that’s sort of the first and second step of doing that is vision and then reflection. And then from there, it becomes about doing a delegation strategy. So we’d like to talk about what your goals and priorities are and what are the tasks and activities contributing to you being able to get those things done, that you don’t necessarily need to do yourself.

– Okay. So in a sense, to do that, you have to have people who are disciplined, willing to be reflective and to really look at that. And that by itself is also a process, is it not?

– Yeah, we built a delegation system, we call it the Delegate Freedom System and it’s a systematic way to think about delegation holistically. So we always wanna start with, what does our vision look like? Then we wanna reflect on how we’ve spent our time. Then when we wanna strategize around, what’s gonna go, who’s gonna do it? Then we wanna hand it off to somebody. And then we wanna feed back in the middle and at the end, when those things are completed to figure out how we can get better. And so, as a way to sort of build your own confidence and competence with delegation, we like to start small. So what are some really quick things that you can hand off to get into a really positive head space around delegation and get some big wins in? And then slowly start to add in some of these other things. So we use that with clients who are really nervous about delegating it’s like, all right, well, let’s just take your calendar or let’s just take your personal tasks, what are some very small wins that we can make just to get moving?

– So, what size company do you find, begins to look for help from you in terms of delegation? ‘Cause what about the solopreneur? Are they people who come to you? Or at what point do you need to start thinking about this?

– Yeah, the first few years of my business, that’s typically who I worked with was solopreneurs or people who didn’t really have any other staff on their teams. Over the years, we have shifted to start to work with clients who have teams. Because I believe once we come in and we start leveraging the entrepreneur, the visionary, the CEO, then we can move to the leadership team, then we can move to the sales department and the financial department, all the different groups within the organization that could be better leveraged.

– So what are some of the things that people tend to typically delegate?

– Yeah. The number one thing that comes off people’s plates and I would recommend this for anyone listening is scheduling. Whether you’re using Calendly or some sort of automation to handle that, I noticed in your process, to speak with you today, there was a lot of automations happening. So scheduling’s always the first thing to go. From there, it’s usually travel, doing work inside your inbox, so cleaning your inbox out, organizing it, responding on your behalf, those sorts of things. And then the last one would be personal tasks.

– So inbox is, in a sense it’s a tricky thing, isn’t it? Because,

– It is.

– So how do you manage that? Because part of it is a decision making process as to what’s important, perhaps not as important. So how do you do that for a client?

– So one of the things that makes my business unique is that we have about 45 team members working with hundreds of entrepreneurs and we take that collective knowledge and we build it into a systematic plan to take those things off your plate. So with inbox, it is very complex and you can start with just unsubscribing from spam, all the way through to, I never want to see an email again. And you’re just getting a summary of, these are the things that happened in there, and that’s possible, we’ve gotten clients there. Most people fall somewhere in the middle, but it can start with just filing, then it can move to prioritizing your inbox. So when you go in, you’re just seeing the most important things. It can move to, we’re automatically forwarding things that need to be scheduled to our emails so that we can take that off your plate, responding on your behalf, so we kind of inch our way to the promised land of being out of our inboxes.

– So when you delegate an inbox to somebody and have that managed, there’s a real, you have to know the business in a way to really be able to make those decisions for the solopreneur or the entrepreneur. How do you go about learning the business, so you can really be skillful at this?

– Yeah, so we do a lot of shadowing. So for inbox, as an example, our process is we’ll go in and shadow your inbox, learn about what’s happening in there, have conversations with you, sort of start to create the process and then you’re gonna follow us. So we’re going to start working our way through those steps with you watching and feeding back information.

– Got it. Wow, so it’s very much a joint project, isn’t it?

– Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah, we’re working together because inbox is wildly subjective in terms of, what’s going on in your inbox versus mine, they could be completely different. And how you like to handle your emails, another thing that comes into play there also.

– Got it. So for a person that’s in business, let’s say they’ve been handling everything themselves. They’re kind of doing okay. They aren’t really being pushed hard, but they know that something needs to shift down the road. At what point do you say, okay, here’s where you’ve got to draw the line, you may be getting to feel it, but this is when you’ll really know and you need to have things lined up and ready for them. How do you know when that time is?

– It’s a good question. I don’t know that there’s one super perfect answer to that, but the way that I would be thinking about it is thinking about what my time is worth and understanding what that number is in comparison to what I might have to pay someone to come in and help me. And so you’re usually already winning when you’re thinking about it that way, ’cause if your time is worth $100 an hour, you have to pay someone 50, go a bit more time and then pay someone else to do some of these lower value tasks. So that’s, really the first step. The other thing you wanna look for, whether you do an exercise like I was mentioning before, or you’re just sort of observing your workflow, you wanna look for repeatables. So things that you’re doing more than once, because that becomes an instant candidate for delegation, ’cause it can just be captured in a process and someone can just take that right off your plate.

– I like that idea of what is it that’s repeating, repeating, repeating, because sometimes you like doing those things, at least I find that, because you’ve developed a rhythm, you can do it fast. And yet those are the things that are also very annoying ’cause you go, I’ve been there, done that one, I wanna move on, right?

– Yeah. And let’s just admit it, sometimes busy work is comfortable, right? It’s like, huh, I don’t have to solve this ginormous problem today, I’m just gonna sit here and file things. So, just be aware of your own sort of subconscious thoughts around why you’re doing what you’re doing, why you’re spending your time on this, is probably an awareness thing.

– Can I just take a step backwards for a moment? You were an administrative assistant, those are vital roles for executives or people who are really in major positions trying to make things happen. So when you were doing that, what were the elements that were most essential for you to do, to have your exec be successful?

– What were the activities, you mean?

– Yep, yep, what was it that you found, people really came to you and counted on from you, to make their lives successful?

– That’s a great question. And one I haven’t really thought about lately. So, I think just off the cuff response to that, I think someone that’s thinking proactively on their behalf, so for example, the client or the boss was going to be in Chicago, having a standing conversation where we know if he’s traveling, I’m saying, okay, is there anyone else that you wanna meet with in Chicago? And let’s go ahead and book you with a dinner or something like that. So that sort of proactive anticipation of needs, I think is super crucial for an EA to be able to bring to the table. And then also an energy of problem solving. So, I hate hearing, tell me what you want me to do today, or here’s this problem, solve this, I’m putting this back on your plate. A busy leader does not wanna hear that. They wanna hear, here’s this problem, here’s three ways I’m thinking about it, what do you think? Go. That’s the sort of energy that an EA needs to bring, to really be impactful for a leader.

– I appreciate that because I think to really understand what somebody like your company can do, is appreciating the vital tasks that administrative assistants have always filled, that role that they have filled in companies. And I don’t think there’s an executive in a major corporation, educational institution, hospital, any of those places that wouldn’t say that the most important person in their life at work is their administrative assistant.

– That’s so fascinating. Yeah, I think it’s very easy to get attached when you have great chemistry and you’re feeling super optimized and efficient. So I agree, a great assistant is there to leverage your time and even more so, to be able to suggest ways and actually execute on those ways to make that happen, so that it’s not all on your shoulders to figure out what they’re doing for you and filling their time, that’s so frustrating for leaders to feel like, well I have this person, but now I got to think about what I have to give this person to do. Let the EA drive that conversation or they should be if they’re a good EA, I think.

– So we’ve talked a lot about the entrepreneur and coming to the EA and how does the entrepreneur acknowledge to really allow that VA to still feel they’re part of a team, even though they may be virtual? Because we’re seeing that happening more and more and engagement is going to, I think, be a big issue for us. How do you keep that kind of staff that’s virtual, fully engaged? What’s our responsibility as that entrepreneur?

– Yeah, so my team’s a hundred percent remote, always has been, always will be. We have about 45 employees spread all across the US so I can answer from running my company and I can answer from sort of just what a basic expectation is for a virtual assistant. Weekly meetings, very important, always on video, we have a sacred 15 minute whole team huddle every Wednesday in the afternoon where we rotate through who’s hosting it so we all feel that pressure of 50 people staring at you, right? So we rotate that. So that’s a sacred meeting time. Everybody shows up, I don’t care where you are, you’re in your car, whatever. You’re just coming into that meeting. We have weekly team meetings. So their own individual teams that they’re working with, they have a 60 to 90 minute, we call it a Level 10 Meeting, where they just talk about what’s going on for the week. And then we also use Slack, which is an instant message platform. And we have all different types of fun channels in there that have nothing to do with work that are water cooler type channels, where we share photos, whatever. We also hold Masterminds for different roles within the company, so they get to meet together and talk through things they’re seeing, ideas that they’re having or challenges. We do Happy Hours, all virtual. We do Share The Love channel, where we talk about somebody did a great thing and we share that and we celebrate each other that way. When you’re talking about delegation from a leader to an assistant that might be remote, you always, as a delegation best practice, it’s important to think about sharing the whole picture of this thing that they’re working on. So this is the project or task. Here’s why it’s important to me. Here’s what it means globally. You might be working on one part of a project, but they’re even doing one smaller minute thing, so how their contribution fits into the big picture is really important. And then lastly, creating a really healthy environment to give and receive feedback, for them to give you feedback and you to give them feedback and establish that from the very beginning through a weekly meeting, that’s part of your agenda, what worked, what didn’t work, next week, what worked, what didn’t work, just keep going through that process so that you can really build some trust there.

– Feedback is always important, isn’t it? And as you were speaking, I just took a pause in my own head and said, okay, how often am I asking for feedback myself? Because you do, you get lost in the busy-ness and the asks. And sometimes you forget about that two way feedback process, so I really appreciate that. Emily, our time is almost up, what have we missed that we should be talking about, that our audience should know?

– I think we hit on all the key points, so I don’t have any more sort of things to share. From a resource standpoint, if you’re struggling with delegation, there’s a couple ways that couple resources that I can share, we have a Freedom Analysis, which is that exercise I mentioned, where we interview you and we help you segment your time into different boxes so that we can get a better picture of what could be delegated. We do those complimentary. So that’s on video, on Zoom. We also have an ebook that’s filled with all of our perspectives and learnings on delegation. It’s a workbook that you can work through yourself. That’s also free. And then we have an e-course called the Elevation Quarter where we work through this content in small groups of leaders and that’s done on Zoom.

– Got it. And so for those of you who are listening, we’ll have this information available to you in the show notes. So please, please, contact Emily. And Emily right now, are you able to take on new clients?

– Yeah, we’re always accepting new clients. Right now, we have at least a month wait, we have a wait list going for launching new clients, but we’ll work with clients starting anywhere from an hour a day, all the way up to full time, just depends on your needs and your budget. But yes, we have discovery calls available, discovery process and then we’re launching four to six weeks typically.

– Got it. And then one more question that I’m just dying to ask, because I think sometimes the work that you do, that’s behind the scenes, doesn’t get seen a lot. So where do you get your joy and your fulfillment from what you do?

– I love having meaningful conversations about how we can elevate our time, so, and I love seeing the results of that. Like I was sharing with you about our Share The Love channel, where we just sort of like, clients give this amazing feedback around how, what we do transform their lives. And now they get to spend more time with their kids or their wife or working on a new project. And that’s where I get energized is really hearing and seeing the impact that we have on the day to day.

– It’s wonderful to know what it is that you do. It’s also wonderful to have the heart of what you do, where you really are there behind the executive, helping them become successful. And then that way you both become successful, don’t you?

– Exactly. And my team, I don’t wanna leave them out. Most of my team are moms and they’re choosing a more flexible, remote way of living and working. They’re really passionate about what they do. And so being able to watch them develop at my company is also really rewarding to me as well.

– Emily, thank you so much for being with us today on Building My Legacy podcast. I really appreciate what you do because my goodness, I could not survive were it not for the team that’s behind me. And

– Right.

– For me, part of what I have found is, which was a surprise for me, is they come with lots of ideas that I don’t have by myself. And it’s been a great asset. So those of you who are thinking that you might benefit from some help, take a look at Emily and her team and what she’s done and some of the resources that she has available so you can get a sense as to, if this is the right thing for you, if it’s the right timing and of course, give her a call.

– Yeah. And we’re happy to be a delegation resource to you, whether you work with us or not, all the content is available and hope it helps people make better use of their time so they can make a bigger impact, that’s our mission.

– Emily, thank you so much for being with us on Building My Legacy podcast today. And for those of you who are listening to Building My Legacy podcast, thank you for being with us and remember, we will have information about Emily in the show notes, so please look her up and contact her for whatever help that it is that you need. Thanks so much, everybody.