When are you going to say, “Never Again”? When are you going to put your foot down? This is what will make you masterful at delegation.

In the early days of the business, I was thrilled to be able to work from anywhere. We’ve never had office space. I just work where my laptop is. I’ve always had staff that worked in cities other than mine.

I had set up the invoicing system to be like this:
Our staff works X hours for a client from the 1st of the month to the 15th of the month. They submit a timecard for those hours and I turn right around, the next day, and on the 16th I invoice the client. Then, that invoice is due to be paid by the client in 14 days. All that money comes in, in the next 14 days, and then we run payroll with it on the 30th. So this was a nice clean, tight invoicing system I invented.

One piece I added - If you want to pay with a credit card, we will keep that on file and we will run it twice a month on the day we invoice you. This allowed me to get money fast and shorten the time between when the work was done, and when we got paid for it.

We still use that tight timeline to this day. And to this day, hardly anyone ever pays us late.

In the early days I ran this invoicing system myself. Every 1st & 16th of the month I sent out invoices and ran credit cards. I did not care what day of the week it was. I needed money in the bank FAST, so we could built it up and make payroll.

Then one time, I was in Maui on vacation with friends. It was the 16th of the month. My friends were snorkeling. I was on the beautiful lanai doing what???? SENDING INVOICES!!

On the one hand I was blessed to have the opportunity to work from anywhere. Good for me. On the other hand, I was sending invoices while my friends were snorkeling! What was wrong with this picture!?!

So I said to myself - Never Again!

And this is the key everyone . . . where are you going to draw a line in the sand and say, “Never again?” Where are you going to put your foot down, on your self, and say, “I have got to find a better way”?

Never again am I going to be late to that meeting.
Never again am I missing a kiddo soccer game.
Never again am I selling out yoga class for “getting more work done”.
Never again am I interrupting or changing or showing up late to dinner with the family.
I’m unwilling to be that person any more. I love her. She got me here, but this is not how my future is going.

This is a big step in becoming masterful at delegating. When you “have” to get things done before you leave the office to get to yoga or to get to the soccer game, then you will have to delegate! When you are no longer willing to sacrifice things and people who are important to you, you will start to get good at delegating! And then you’ll get hooked on it!

How my firm came to be: Breaking $1M in 8 years through Effective Delegation and Leadership Development

Once upon a time, I was an Executive Assistant (EA) for a CEO of a small recruiting firm. After a couple of months my boss sold the office space and soon we were all working from home. So there I was, an EA who was working remotely and I loved it!

Some years later her business shrunk and I moved on. I rustled the bushes of my community looking for another business owner or C-suite person who could use an EA like me.
 
One day my friend Tiffany said to me, “My boss could really use you.” She made the introduction and soon I was the EA for that CEO, managing many aspects of his life from my home office.
 
A couple months later Tiffany said to me, ”I could use you starting next quarter. I’m going to need some EA support.” I said, “I don't really have any more bandwidth.” She said, “Ok fine. Just find me someone like you. Oh and by the way, you should open this as a business.” (Cue music for arc shift.) 💫

Tiffany and I had mutual friends, so I said, “Let’s put our heads together and see who we can think of that could support you.” We thought of Dorian. We knew she was unhappy in her job, and we knew we would love working with her. Tiffany said, “Yah! Go talk to Dorian about it! See if she wants to be my EA. Then we will pay you to be her ‘EA Coach’.”
 
I said, “Tiffany, if we do this, we cannot mess with Dorian's life. She's been at her job for seven years. This is her first real job as a young adult, post college. She lives at home with her parents. We can’t mess with her life if she leaves a job and comes to work with us!”
 
Soon Dorian left her job and became Tiffany's EA. Tiffany's company paid me a little bit for every hour that Dorian worked, to coach her in being a high-caliber EA.
 
A few months pass and Tiffany says to me, “There are two directors in the company and they could really use an EA. It would make them so much more efficient and productive. Oh and by the way, you should open this as a business!”

I said, ”I’m really not up for being an entrepreneur again. Been there. Done that. No thanks.” Tiffany said, “Phooey. Get over yourself. Open this as a business and see who you can find who could be the EA for these two directors!”
 
I found another friend of mine, Alison, who was an EA for a property management company. She had a young son and wanted to be home more with him. So she shifted gears and started working with us.

In May of 2016 I took $5,000 to my local bank, opened a business account, and then founded the corporation. I put Dorian and Alison on payroll, and the adventure began!

By five years into the company I had turned over so much of the business to others within the firm, that I was only working 10 hours per week. Eight years later we broke $1M and I was working five hours per week. How? Through empowering leaders to rise up around me and own parts of the business.