Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / How to Stop Being the Bottleneck in Your Business with Tonya Thomas

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How to Stop Being the Bottleneck in Your Business with Tonya Thomas · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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  Three, two, one, zero, ignition.
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  Lift off.
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  Ending small business failure.
• 0:11
  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with the number one small business expert, Melinda
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  Emerson.
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  Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
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  you need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
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  Now here's your host, the small biz chat lady herself, Melinda Emerson.
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• 1:01
  Hi, everybody.
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  Welcome to another edition of the Small Biz Chat podcast, your go to destination for
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  entrepreneurs who wanna build profitable businesses that create freedom, wealth, and
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  lasting impact.
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  I'm your host, Melinda Emerson, Small Business Lady, America's number one small business
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  expert.
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  Now our mission here is simple, to end small business failure by giving you the strategies,
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  systems, and confidence to succeed as your own boss.
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  Every week you'll hear inspiring conversations with today's top business experts, successful
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  entrepreneurs, and industry leaders who share practical, real world advice you can put into
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  action immediately.
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  If you're ready to grow smarter, lead stronger, and build a business you've always envisioned,
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  you are in the right place.
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  Now before we get started, if you are a fan of the Small Bitch Chat podcast, please take a
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  moment to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to your
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  favorite podcast.
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  If you don't like my show, please don't take the time to dog me online.
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  That is not nice.
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  Now, today we're gonna be talking about an issue that a lot of business owners struggle
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  with, and that is learning how to let go so your business can grow.
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  Now joining me today is Tanya Thomas, founder of Team Delegate, a premier virtual executive
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  assistant firm that helps founders and CEOs reclaim their time by partnering them with
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  experienced US based executive assistants.
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  Tanya believes delegation isn't just about getting tasks off your plate, it's a leadership
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  strategy that creates clarity and increases capacity and allows business owners to focus on
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  the work that drives growth.
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  If you have ever felt overwhelmed by your to do list or wonder whether or not it's time to hire
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  support, this episode is for you.
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  Please help me in welcoming Tonya to the podcast.
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  Thank you, Melinda.
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  Listen.
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  How to stop being a bottleneck in your business is a big issue.
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  Right?
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  Because we believe can't nobody do it as good as mama could do it.
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  Right?
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  I mean, that's that's really how most entrepreneurs think, and that's dangerous, is
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  it not?
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  Yes.
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  Very.
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  Because if you're trying to do everything yourself, it can really bottleneck the growth
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  of your business.
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  So yeah, important topic.
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  Now there's a thin line between being a strong leader and becoming the bottleneck.
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  How does it even happen to people?
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  Most people, you're right, it happens to them and they don't realize that it's happening to
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  them.
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  Because a lot of times too, what can happen is you can delegate and if something comes up,
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  somebody that you delegated to has a question or something like that, you can find yourself
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  getting pulled back in.
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  That's how it happens a lot of times and that really has a lot to do too with not having
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  strong systems and processes.
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  What do you think are the most common habits really that cause business owners to
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  unintentionally slow down, their companies?
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  Mainly, they have the best intention at heart.
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  One of the things that I was alluding to a little bit ago, you you delegate and you think,
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  okay.
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  I've I've hired somebody.
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  I've delegated to them.
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  Something comes up that's out of the norm and then you end up getting pulled back into it.
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  For example, maybe you have somebody who's handling customer service for you with your
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  clients and an issue comes up and that person that you've hired and delegated to do the
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  customer service, they have a question.
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  They don't really know how to handle what's come up.
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  So then you think, well, okay, I'll I'll gotta jump back in here and get this taken care of
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  because this is important.
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  And you find yourself there and getting pulled back into that and doing it and then something
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  else pops up somewhere else.
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  Oh I gotta jump back in and take care of this too.
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  That's how leaders and unintentionally get pulled back in and bottleneck things or you or
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  somebody's waiting on you to get them an answer and you feel like okay well I gotta put this
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  marketing to the side because now I gotta take care of this and give them their answer.
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  So all of those things kind of compile even though, you know, they have the best
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  intentions, but that's how you can bottleneck and stop, you know, things from progressing.
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  Now as a business grows, what are the three responsibilities that you feel like only CEO
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  should own?
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  Definitely the strategy because that's your engine, you know, what you're doing.
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  So definitely the strategy piece and I know for a lot of small business owners marketing is key
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  too.
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  So handling that marketing and that's one area where you can definitely end up bottlenecking
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  the growth when you get pulled back into other things because that stops.
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  So that's the second thing.
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  And then the other piece I think too is making sure that you have the systems and the
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  processes that are needed for the business to grow to be able to move forward and grow.
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  So those are the key three areas that I think that you should have.
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  And like I said, though, when you get pulled back into the operations, those are typically
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  the things that bottleneck and that's what's gonna start the growth.
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  Now, Tonya, let's get real.
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  Why is it so hard to let go?
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  Trust, I always say that I think that's the biggest thing because people don't necessarily
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  have that full trust there that somebody's going to be able to do it like they can.
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  And so that's why a lot of times you end up getting pulled back into it as well but that's
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  the biggest one of the biggest reasons I think.
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  The other thing sometimes can be finances as well.
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  Sometimes people feel like, well, I can't really afford to get the help that I need.
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  But I think those are the two areas that where I see where it makes it challenging for people
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  to let go.
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  Okay, so let's talk about what are the biggest mistakes people make when they try to hire
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  their first operation support person, whether it's a executive assistant or a salesperson,
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  when they first trying to get some stuff off their plate, what are the biggest mistakes
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  people make?
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  Communication.
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  Number one, not knowing fully what it is that that they need.
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  A lot of times people don't take the time to sit down before you bring someone and say,
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  okay.
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  What's the outcome that I want to achieve as a result of hiring this person?
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  And then the second thing is once they do get them on, they don't onboard them well.
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  And then the other thing is communication.
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  People tend to want to let that piece go by the wayside.
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  But I always tell people, especially like, I know when you bring someone on, you need to
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  talk with them.
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  I know most of the time I'm working in a virtual situation, so that's what I'm gonna
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  talk to.
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  But out of sight, out of mind, I always suggest to people the first week talking to them if you
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  can daily for a few minutes every morning and then kind of tapering it off from there because
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  people are going to have questions initially and you being available to answer them, you
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  being available to talk with them about outcomes and stuff like that is going to be
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  super helpful.
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  But I think that's where people kind of drop the ball in those areas and then when it
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  doesn't work out, they're frustrated but a lot of it and they want to just blame the other
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  person when they have some accountability in it also.
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  So do I need a whole SOP?
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  Do I need all my systems in place before I hire this person?
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  Because don't I need this person to help me develop all that stuff?
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  I mean, like you say I need to onboard somebody.
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  I'm Okay, a be very honest with you.
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  The first virtual assistant I ever hired, I said to her, I have 18,000 emails.
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  Some have been open, many have not.
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  There's a whole bunch of stuff I need to unsubscribe to.
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  I said, I need you to deal with my email.
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  Like, just fix it, Daniel.
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  I said, if it's something I ain't I mean, it it was it was, like, seven years worth of stuff I
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  had this woman go through.
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  And that was the only task I gave her.
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  Because that because that was the biggest thing that was, like, keeping me up at night.
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  I probably had money in emails.
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  I hadn't even opened you know, because it was just when you get hundreds of emails a day like
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  I do, it's just it just email can become overwhelming.
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  And I had always prided myself on I'm gonna do my nobody's gonna answer my email with me.
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  I'm gonna do my know, like, I was one of these people.
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  So that was the first that was the only thing I asked her to do.
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  I said, look.
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  I just need you to deal with this email.
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  Get this email reasonable, develop a system for this email.
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  And she went to town, she created folders for me, she created, set up stuff.
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  She was like, she put me on a pro, she built the protocol and brought it to me.
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  She was like, okay, we ain't never gonna get like this again, Melinda, we can't.
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  Beyond that, I didn't have the capacity to be like, these are the 10 things I need you to do
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  every day.
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  Because I was like, no, no, this is the one thing I need you to do.
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  I need you to handle this thing right here.
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  And and I did talk to her every day.
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  I did check-in with her.
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  And then the other thing I did was at the end of the day, I asked her to give me a report of
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  what she had done.
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  And so she would say, look, got through 4,000 more emails today, whatever, like she would
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  just send me a little quick email at the end of the day and we would do a quick touch base.
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  Now, one of the things that I've seen a lot of people, there's a lot of foreign VA firms that
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  will contact you.
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  I know that your firm, you only use US based virtual assistants.
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  Can you talk a little bit about the pros and cons of each of those?
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  Like, because you you can pay somebody $5 an hour versus paying somebody, I don't know how
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  much your people make, but let's just say it's $20 an hour.
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  That's a difference.
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  And that's a real difference to a small business.
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  But can you just talk about, you know, the pros and cons of that?
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  Yes.
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  And so what I've heard people say in terms of the differences, I'll just give an example.
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  People come to us and they're wanting US based support for them.
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  Sometimes they have tried overseas, I can kind of talk about, I guess, what I've heard through
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  that.
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  The things that I hear is maybe like the time differences, the language barrier.
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  I know in this role, an executive assistant role, you had a lot of written communication
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  for people and so with emails and stuff like that.
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  And so that was one of the things that I've heard too, but English might be in the first
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  language in terms of their grammar and writing.
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  So those are some of the things differences that I can speak on from what I've heard.
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  So some people do prefer to have people stateside, you know, for some of those reasons.
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  No, can agree with that.
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  I mean, I've had US based support as well as overseas support and there is a language
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  barrier sometimes, particularly people are answering your phone.
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  Like I have some sales support folks that were like making calls, confirming stuff, and
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  Americans are biased, they really don't like access, they really certainly don't like thick
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  access, they don't like to feel like they're talking to somebody in India or The
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  Philippines, even though that's where everybody's talking to.
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  But I think that it's important to talk about, if you're having somebody communicate on your
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  behalf, that is a different level of virtual assistant than what we're talking about, right?
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  Right, and so with us, we are executive assistant support.
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  There is a difference there.
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  I always talk to people about that to know what you need.
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  So for us, if you're looking for somebody who's proactive, who exhibits critical thinking, you
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  know, those are things if some of you are wanting somebody who's thinking for themselves
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  and they're not, they're not, they're not reactive, they're proactive, they're not a
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  doer, they're a thinker.
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  So knowing that what you need, you may just want somebody to just do some tasks and you're
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  okay with telling them everything to do.
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  But if you're at that level where you're like, I'm just too busy for that.
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  I need somebody who can think on their own and run with tasks and, you know, be proactive
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  about things, then that's the executive level support.
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  All right, can you give me an example of a CEO that you rescued from themselves?
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  Yes, so I know we had one lady who came to us and she kind of used that analogy of the
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  Lucille Ball show, which I'm dating myself where Ethel and Lucy were on the with the
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  conveyor belt and they were doing the chocolates.
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  It started out slow and they thought that was easy.
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  It got a little faster.
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  They still handle it.
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  It then just got too fast and they were having the stuffed chocolates in their clothes.
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  They were trying to eat.
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  She said that's the same way that she was with her business as it grew and she had tried, you
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  know, to find support unsuccessfully and when she came to us we assigned her someone from our
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  team who was able to help her with her email inbox.
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  That was a big thing for her and so that helped her tremendously she said because then she no
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  longer felt like she was on that fast conveyor belt.
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  Yeah, no, I definitely know what that feels like.
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  So for all my overwhelmed entrepreneurs that I know are listening today, what is the one thing
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  that they can delegate this week that would have an immediate impact you think on their
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  productivity and their business growth?
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  I wanna say their email because but I know that's what that's a big one for people but a
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  lot of people are apprehensive with that but we typically tend to live in our inbox and you can
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  start and end your day there.
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  So having somebody who can you know take care of that for you in terms of weeding out what
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  you don't need to to see and so when you go in there you can only deal with those critical
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  things that you need to take action on that is going to be huge but again I know that's one
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  area where people are a little apprehensive about but different things you can do with
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  that.
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  You can set up rules for personal things that you don't want somebody to see that go into
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  another folder they don't have access to.
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  So it is things that you can put in place to do to help you feel a little bit more comfortable
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  without somebody being in that inbox.
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  Good stuff, good stuff.
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  All right and what is the best business advice you have ever received?
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  Two, I had a mentor, yeah, that helped me before and his best business advice for me was
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  to, you know, don't let everything get to me.
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  You're gonna come up on a lot of things in business and you gotta have thick skin.
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  So that was the best business advice that I have got because that is true.
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  Thank you so much, Tanya.
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  You have really, you know, I think you've been like the Straight Talk Express to folks out
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  here.
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  Listen, if you out here feeling like you doing everything like a one arm wallpaper hanger,
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  stop, get you some
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  help.
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  Yes.
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  Because I always tell people there's a difference between queen bee work and worker
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  bee work.
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  And if you the queen bee, you should not be doing the worker bee work.
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  So thank you so much, Tanya, for being here.
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  You've been so invaluable, and I do hope that our audience can check you out at
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  teamdelegate.com.
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  Thank you so much.
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  Thanks, Melissa.
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  Thanks for listening to the Small Biz Chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
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  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, and join us next Wednesday for
• 17:58
  more fantastic information and interviews.
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  You can find more sources and small business success strategies by visiting Melinda's
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  website, succeedasyourownboss.com.
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  Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.