Three Questions To Help You Delegate Better – Or Get You Started!

Are you one of those business owners who just can’t delegate tasks to others? Or maybe you delegate sometimes. It may not be enough. In fact, it might be detrimental to your MSP business and you don’t even realize it. Not delegating work hinders you from spending needed time on more critical concerns, like company strategy, company culture – or with your family (remember them?).

I was alerted to the challenge of delegating when I heard Ryan Giles, the CEO and head coach of Giles LLC, on a “Sunny’s Silver Linings” podcast. Ryan, a business coach who helps MSPs grow their leaders and profits, provided a wealth of information about this vital topic that opened my eyes. For instance, he noted that some of you don’t delegate tasks because you actually enjoy being busy. The reality, though: 95 percent of the time leaders like you want to delegate.

For now I want to focus on just one factor he covered: How do you choose what to delegate?

Whether you currently delegate or not, Ryan has an easy and effective method to help you decide what tasks you should give up. Begin by writing down all of your tasks. How do you spend your day? Keep notes and track your time. By writing them down, Ryan claims, you can see the things you’re doing that you don’t need to do. It’ll open your eyes and motivate you to make the necessary changes.

Then ask yourself three key questions about each of the items on your list:

1. How much enjoyment does this task bring me?

Is the task fun to perform? Do you get much enjoyment out of doing it? Jot down each task and rank it from 0 to 10 with 10 being “Very enjoyable”.

2. How much revenue does this task bring to my business?

Can you hire someone to perform this task for less than it’s costing you by taking you away from other more important, revenue-generating tasks? Rank your answer from 0 to 10 with 10 being “High revenue”.

3. How good am I at performing this task?

Be honest with yourself. Can you find someone who can perform the task better than you? It’s very common for us to do many things that we’re not really good at. So if you hire someone who has a greater aptitude for it than you, then they can dedicate less time to it than you and perform it more efficiently and effectively. They will also bring a fresh perspective to performing the task. Rank your answer from 0 to 10 with 10 being “High aptitude”.

Once you rank each of your tasks, take the lowest scoring ones and those are the ones that you should be delegating. If one of them is a one-time task and it’s quick and easy to do, then that’s not one to delegate. But the tasks that need to be repeated or are complex to do and require lots of time, then now is the time to delegate them to a team member or hire someone who has the aptitude required for it. Know this: The delegating decisions you make today are meant to best serve your MSP tomorrow.

Or as Ryan so eloquently put it: “Success doesn’t live for the moment. It looks for the long-term result. So stop making decisions that affect you and your business today and consider making decisions that will affect the future of your MSP.” Click here to listen to the podcast.