Agritourism Managers' Boot Camp Accelerator FREE Delegation Series. Video 5 of 5

"Adventures in Delegating - Episode 5, Delegating for the Long Haul"

Long term gains in efficiency come from delegating, but not daily delegating tasks, long term delegation of responsibilities. With those responsibilities, you must invest in training. 

Upfront, training looks like a bad deal: You take your time, plus an employees time to do the task in twice the time it would have taken you to do it, BUT if you seldom have to do the takeover again, you keep winning day after day, week after week, month after month. 

I’ll share an example... 

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This is a series for business owners with employees, staff, a team. Delegating is the joy and pleasure of off-loading tasks so you, the MVP, The Most Valuable Player, can work ON the business, instead of working IN the business.

Here’s the "Adventures in Delegating” series line-up:

1. Delegating: Do you own a business or a job?
2. What to Delegate and When
3. Hugh’s Monumental Delegating FAILS
4. Battling the Monkey
5. Delegating for the Long Haul: Your system for multiplying effort

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When we launched our winery, I knew immediately that the paperwork to stay up-to-date with the Fed & State taxes would kill my time and sap my will to live. We brought on a 2-day-per-week bookkeeper, Janelle, to take on this responsibility. 

The first month was a monster time suck. It took my full attention, Janelle’s full attention, then both of our time to check and double check. Terrible. Month 2-3 Janelle had a template and she could get started, then we’d work through calculations together for an hour. After that, the task was down to Janelle completing, me reviewing, signing and sending. 

Another example from the world of Maize Quest: Game Sheets. We design corn mazes for 80+ farms, and we believe in making each game sheet work best for each farm. That’s a LOT of graphic design work for each farm, each year. 

Previously, I personally did ALL the game sheets myself. The layout program is very complicated, you can’t make mistakes, each farm has quirks, so I naturally thought, “No one else can do this but me.”

“No one else can do this but me.” is fine, when you are small. At 30 farm designs per year, sure. At 50, what a headache. At 68, sleepless nights. At 80, no way. 

Michelle had long been organizing and growing my capacity and efficiency by lining up all the details I’d need for each farm, but then she got so frustrated with my delays (Hey, I was busy doing other stuff!), that she did one fo the easy game sheets by herself. 

Then I started investing my time in showing her the tricks of the software, often taking more time than it would have taken for me to do it myself.

This year, she did the majority of the game sheets solo, with me skills only needed for the super custom or rush orders. I had successfully delegated a task “No one else can do this but me.”

The big question is: What jobs, tasks, repeatable processes are you clinging to that you need to unload to FREE yourself to do more of what you love or just do LESS for the same results?

Could you give up payroll? I know many farmers up until midnight every Thursday because “There is no possible way I could ever have anyone else do payroll.” Newsflash, I haven’t done payroll since before the Year 2000.

Could you give up spraying? “No one else could possibly mix a tank of spray and drive the tractor up and down rows.” Really? Don’t give up the tank mix decisions, give up the driving!

Could you give up social media? Facebook, instagram, twitter, SnapChat - it’s exhausting! I handed that off and have a once a week meeting in season, then make my silly Farmer Hugh videos as needed, inspired and scheduled. 

You have people who can take things off your plate, and quite possibly would be better at completing things on-time, because they aren’t as distracted as you are. 

Follow our formula:

Do it yourself, and write every single separate step.

Make a checklist.

Do the task WITH your employee watching and you explaining every step.

Do the task together, but the employee does the work.

Watch the employee do the task, while you are silent.

Let the employee do the task alone using the updated checklist.

Assign the responsibility of the task, the authority to do the task, give the checklist, set the deadline, move on to the next task and fend off the monkey!

You can do this and your staff can help. If you’d like to use our complete system of employee management, join Agritourism Manager Boot Camp NOW and SAVE $300. 

Questions? Give me a call.

Hugh