Solo 2: The Art of Delegation: How to Hire and Work With a Virtual Assistant (Without Losing Your Mind)

Camille: 0:00

So you don't just need someone who knows Canva, you need someone who can take your podcast episode and repurpose it into five amazing social posts. For you, hiring for outcomes means that they're solving problems, not just checking boxes. So you want to make an impact. You're thinking about starting a business, sharing your voice. How do women do it that handle motherhood, family and still chase after those dreams? We'll listen each week as we dive into the stories of women who know this is Call Me CEO. Hey, hey, everyone, it's Camille here from Call Me CEO. This is a solo show.

Camille: 0:47

Today I'm going to be talking about the art of delegation how to build their own virtual assistant business, and realized that many of my friends did not have teams of their own, were not delegating or giving up the tasks that they were doing over and, over and over again, and therein became the rub. They were not able to be the decision maker, have the big vision of what they needed to do to move that needle forward with more income, more freedom and the time back which, after you all, get to the place of that success that you've been going for. The trick is knowing when it is time to let go. There will be a transfer. At some point where you get to a place where you have a little more money than you have, time and time becomes so precious. So when you started your business, I imagine you didn't imagine yourself doing everything forever. Yet here you are, writing the emails, editing your podcast, posting social, managing your inbox and also trying to be present for your kids. And in the beginning, when doing all the things and wearing all the hats can be exciting and new, there comes a point where it can feel completely overwhelming, to a point where I've seen many successful women want to quit completely because they feel like they're a chicken with their head cut off, or things at home get so busy that they can't maintain the management level that they were able to before. They don't have people in place to hand the tasks off to. So that is the schedule that is.

Camille: 2:32

The goal of today is to talk about what are the steps to hiring successfully, what is the art of delegation, how to hire and work with virtual assistants in a way that feels aligned, productive and life-giving. I have a team of people that I've worked with, some for upwards of gosh I'm thinking about this and on my team I have individuals that fulfill very specific roles for me that help with my social media, with my podcast, with my Pinterest. I even, for some parts of my business, will pay for recipes, where I used to be in the kitchen, making, photographing, doing the whole recipe creation. There was a time in my life where that made a lot of sense and I had the time to do that, but now that I'm coaching and blogging and podcasting and doing social media, I needed people that could do it even better than me and in a way that I could keep growing my business without losing my mind. So the step that I want you to think about first is knowing your zone of genius.

Camille: 3:37

Before you delegate anything, you've got to know what you shouldn't be doing, and sometimes that is a task that can take outside perspective. That's something that I will coach a lot of people on is actually going through and seeing what it is that you're doing. Well, what is that you're wanting to do, and perhaps something that you're really good at but it's not really moving your business forward. I want you to ask yourself what are the tasks that I procrastinate, resent or constantly redo, because I hate how they turn out. I want you to make a list and highlight what drains you? What are those things that are a must do, like they have to get done, but they either make you feel like you've lost the will to live that sounds really dramatic, but it just is things that drains your energy or maybe it's something that you're like gosh, I have a vision of what this, what I want this to look like or how I want this to operate, but I'm just not cutting it. So in the end it means you kind of end up shortchanging yourself in the product and in your energy, which is a double whammy. So I have a free, a free B below in the link. It's called a time audit, and you can do this where you actually go through and make a real account for what you're doing day to day and what it looks like in terms of your energy leaks and how you may be self-sabotaging by really not taking care of the most important thing, but the thing that's just right in front of your mind or in front of your face at the moment. That is number one knowing your zone of genius.

Camille: 5:20

One thing I always like to suggest to people is to imagine the tasks that require their actual likeness. Shoulders up is what I say. So your voice, your mind, your face. A lot of things that we do for small online businesses is with our likeness. It could be a phone call that only you could make, or a video that only you could record, or a podcast episode that requires your voice. Those are shoulders and up projects Okay, anything that shoulders down, meaning something that you would do with your hands or, to think of it more of like administrative tasks. Those tend to be the things that you can hire out first. So, whether that's maybe a social media, maybe it's community management, maybe it's HR, maybe it's emailing, maybe it is customer relations, whether you know that it could be a phone call, but it doesn't require you necessarily. So that's your first step.

Camille: 6:16

Step two is to not hire for tasks, hire for outcomes. So you don't just need someone who knows Canva, you need someone who can take your podcast episode and repurpose it into five amazing social posts. For you, hiring for outcomes means that they're solving problems, not just checking boxes. So a good example of this is I have a wonderful person who helps edit my podcast episodes. This person cannot record or be the person or the voice or my face. However, this amazing virtual assistant that's on my team turns my videos into a YouTube video. I also have video clips that are cut and turned into smaller short videos for reels, and then social captions that are pulled from the hero content.

Camille: 7:08

So, thinking about how you could create a hero piece of content whether that's a blog post, whether it's a podcast episode or something like that that can be repurposed for newsletters, social captions, shorter videos like reels, and turning something that you created into multiple different ways of growing your business. And when I say this a lot of times, when people have been used to doing it themselves, they may say well, I really enjoy creating the video. I don't want to pass that off. I have a very specific eye of how I want things to be done. One thing that can happen often is that people in that situation are so used to being in control that they stop themselves from even posting or editing the thing because they get too wrapped up in the idea of it being perfect, and that can be bad. Right, because I always say done is fun, it doesn't have to be perfect, and it's better to get something out and going rather than to hold on to.

Camille: 8:11

Either you don't have enough time or it's not perfect enough, and that can stunt you from getting the things done that you need to get done. Are you ready to reclaim your time and finally focus on the tasks that actually grow your business? Whether you're looking to hire a VA or thinking about becoming one, I've got the perfect solution for you. If you're overwhelmed with your business, I personally connect entrepreneurs with highly trained virtual assistants graduates of my 60 days to VA program so you can confidently outsource and scale. Or if you're looking for a flexible, profitable business from home, my 60 Days to VA course gives you everything you need to have to become a successful assistant without the trial and error. Head to camillewalkerco to get started today. Whether you're hiring or launching your own business, I'm here to help you make it happen. You can also grab this link below and schedule a free discovery call with me to see if it's the right fit for you. All right.

Camille: 9:12

Step three is to set them up for success. Most virtual assistants don't fail. They were just thrown into chaos with no guidance. Here is a thing that happens a lot into chaos with no guidance. Here is a thing that happens a lot. Entrepreneurs tend to be visionary, big idea people. They can also be very distractible. They're spinning a lot of plates I'm saying they because this is me too and the fine details of keeping track of the list or the schedule or the spreadsheet, as it were, is not our top ideal way we want to spend our time, so that can turn into two things where you need this person, you need this virtual assistant. However, you don't know how to guide them. This is something that I help coach people on as well that I actually have a team where we'll come together and problem solve that next growth step for you and what does that look like? But the first thing I always suggest is that you set up a regular cadence where you're checking in with your virtual assistant, whether that is digital, through email, or you could do it through Marco Polo if you have a really close connection with them, or texting. But the number one thing that happens a lot is that you may hire someone on, but you don't know exactly what you need or how to pass it over. So that is where that time audit comes back into play.

Camille: 10:35

Okay, you can also record gloom videos of how to do things and then share it with them. Another idea is that you could do a recorded audio on ChatGPT and then ask ChatGPT to turn it into a SOP for you, which can then help guide and help kind of work through what it is that you do, because sometimes we're so close to the thing that we're producing or the business and how we're running it that it can be hard for us to even put it down pen to paper. So using audio can be really helpful with that If you are feeling a little stuck. Another way of keeping track of things together is to have a shared Google doc. This is one of my favorites because it is interactive. You can see when someone is adding or changing something. You can be on the same Google doc at the same time. When someone is adding or changing something, you can be on the same Google Doc at the same time and it doesn't disrupt things.

Camille: 11:24

There are a lot of other management systems that work really well, like ClickUp, slack, trello and so on. I mean Asana. You go on and on. There's so many, but starting with a 30-minute check-in weekly is a great place to start, depending on the workload that you're dealing with. Sometimes in the first week it's every day for 30 minutes and that's okay. But remember that clarity breeds confidence for both of you. So if it's something that you need to work on daily. That goes to weekly, totally okay. Or if it's where you check in with texting, that's great too. Just remember that it takes communication and it takes building that trust. You can't expect to bring someone in brand new and have them read your mind I think that that happens a lot too is that people assume that they understand your business as well as you do, and that's just not the case. It will take clarification, patience and knowing that as that confidence grows, you can give that person more and more tasks to fulfill.

Camille: 12:31

Step number four is to communicate like a leader, not a micromanager. Tell them what success looks like and let them know that they own it. They own how that happens. Giving feedback early and praising often is important. If something's off, don't ghost. You need to coach. Avoidance is never going to help anyone and so many times, especially if you yourself are busy, or perhaps you're a people pleaser or maybe you don't exactly know how to manage yet, own that and say, hey, we're doing this together, and there are some projects that I want done a little bit differently. This is an example of what it would look like. This can be done through email. This can also be done through email. This can also be done through a video conference like a zoom call or something like that. Another really helpful way of doing this is through loom.

Camille: 13:27

If you are creating physical product, that's a way that you could record it and send it back. Marco Polo is a nice option because you can record it like a walkie talkie video. There was one time when I was designing a journal and there were a lot of physical layout elements to this project, and so my designer would take a video of the project that she was working on and saying, well, this is what it looks like right now. What do you think about this or that? Do you like the spacing, do you like this font? And then I could look at it in my own time, because as a busy mom, sometimes it's hard to have multiple meetings. You don't want, you, don't? You just don't have time for that. So Marco Polo was a cool way to visually be able to see and kind of tag team and be like Ooh, I like that. Maybe make this part a little larger and add this element on the side. And it was awesome for us. But do not ghost Whatever it looks like for you. Find out a way that makes the most sense.

Camille: 14:26

I have told virtual assistants of mine that I've worked with in the past I am much more likely to see a text message than I am to see an email. I have so many emails. I get a lot of PR and spam and real emails. Even my kids' emails get lost sometimes so I say text me please. That's the best way to get me.

Camille: 14:47

Number five is to let it be messy at first. You will probably still do some of the tasks out of habit and you'll be tempted to just do it yourself. That's very much, as a mother, the mindset that we take on a lot of times where we know we could do it better because we've been doing it forever. And I use this analogy, which is kind of silly, but it makes a lot of sense to me. It's like teaching your kids how to clean the bathroom for the first time and when they are first learning to clean the toilet, and it is not done the way you would do it, it's just not. But it takes the patience of the positive critiques and to also allow delegation to grow and commit to letting go, because eventually those tasks will become better. Repetition breeds better results, just like you do, just like you need reps at the gym. Letting go is going to feel difficult. It's going to feel hard, especially when there's a big mix up. It will happen, and so that is a conversation that's important to have at the beginning of the relationship is that mistakes are going to happen and that's okay. Clear communication from yourself and from your assistant is key to success for long-term relationships. That's where your time and peace and scalability begin is when you were able to accomplish these five steps.

Camille: 16:12

So delegation isn't just a productivity hack. It's a leadership shift. It's the moment you stop being a solo operator and start becoming a true CEO, because you allow yourself to step away from the day-to-day tasks and look at the big picture. The best place to start is now. If you're thinking and listening to this is to find a dream VA and to get systems in place and stop the hustle that you've been doing for years, so that you have time to step back and really enjoy the business that you've built.

Camille: 16:48

And this is where I can come in and help you. I can help you to delegate and figure out what you want to delegate, how to hire and actually how to find team members for your business. You can DM me on Call Me CEO podcast and DM the word team. You can also message me at camillewalkerco on Instagram and in the notes below I'm going to make sure to put in that free time audit and I also have a cheat sheet that's only $27. It's a toolkit for hiring your first virtual assistant and if you need someone to take you through the steps or even to figure out what would be the first thing to hire out for you to create this team, I have a free discovery call and we could look at it together. So I would love to go over that with you and I am here for you. You just say the word.

Camille: 17:44

Thank you so much for tuning in. If you found this episode helpful, please share with a friend and know that you are amazing. Whatever this business is that you're building right now, it is required of you to continue because that stirring is within you and it has purpose and you were called to it. Thank you so much for being here and I will see you next time. Hey, ceos, thank you so much for spending your time with me. If you found this episode inspiring or helpful, please let me know in a comment and a five-star review. You could have the chance of being a featured review on an upcoming episode. Continue the conversation on Instagram at callmeCEOPodcast, and remember you are the boss.