Let’s face it: for many founders, leisure time appears like a faraway relic from a previous life, and worry looks like a regular companion. Your company was founded on passion and lofty goals, but somewhere along the line, the never-ending to-do lists and late nights started to wear you down.
Every successful business owner has, at some point, had to deal with a critical question: how can you maintain your company’s growth, goals, and competitiveness while also remaining sane, balanced, and present for life’s important moments?
One of the most effective—yet frequently underutilized—resources holds the key to the solution: an assistant.
Although you may have heard this advice many times before, there is a clear and undeniable connection between effective delegation and business success.
So where do you begin? That’s the next major question. Which jobs should you assign first to unlock the largest wins?
Let’s first comprehend the “why” before moving on to the “what.”
Why is this important?
Founders are accustomed to taking on multiple roles. The job entails some of that. However, things become costly when administrative duties begin to take up time that could be used for development and expansion. not only monetarily but also personally.
A few trends emerged from the poll we conducted to learn more about the impact administrators have on entrepreneurs. Regularly assigning administrative tasks to others has a positive impact on founders’ daily moods as well as their financial performance.
What is the significance of this?
Founders have a lot of responsibilities. Part of that is a requirement of the job. It gets costly, though, when administrative duties begin to take up time that could be used for development and expansion. Financially, but also on a personal level.
We conducted a study to find out how administrators impact founders, and some trends emerged. Founders who routinely assign their administrative tasks are experiencing tangible benefits, both in terms of their daily mood and company financial performance.
Companies expand more quickly.
Consistently delegating has improved the overall performance of founders.
The data revealed the following:
82% of “expert delegators” reported an increase in revenue. For delegators who are not experts, that falls to 66%.
Compared to 74% of ordinary delegators, 85% of expert delegators reported an increase in profits.
Expert delegators saw an average revenue gain of 143%. It was more like 80% for everyone else.
More balance behind the scenes
The advantages extend well beyond the figures. It was also apparent that the founders’ well-being had changed.
The numbers tell us the following:
Half of non-expert delegators report having trouble juggling work and personal obligations. That percentage falls to 43% among expert delegators.
In the previous year, 48% of non-expert delegators had not had a suitable vacation. For those who often delegate, that falls to 33%.
Of non-expert delegators, 53% report feeling exhausted all the time. It’s forty percent for skilled delegators.
These changes might not seem like much at first, but they could be the difference between you continuing in your day-to-day function and eventually taking on the more significant role that your organization requires of you.
5 important things you should do today
What should you do initially if you have never delegated before?
The problem that most founders face is that the things that seem “too small to delegate” are frequently the things that are preventing you and your company from moving forward.
You convince yourself that replying to that email will only take five minutes, or that updating the spreadsheet on your own is quicker than having someone else explain it. These five-minute jobs, however, add up to hours, and those hours add up to days of your life that you could have spent doing work that someone else could do just as well, if not better. In the meantime, you are forced to put off the strategic thinking, relationship-building, and vision casting that only you are capable of doing until tomorrow.
Let’s examine the top 5 areas where delegation can have the most significant effect on your time, stress levels, and financial results.
1. Inbox and email management
First, let’s tackle the big one: email.
Your email most likely feels like a hydra if you’re like most founders. If you remove one email, three more will show up in its stead.
It’s easy to underestimate how much time and mental energy is used by sifting through pointless communications, trying to prioritize what’s really important, and receiving continual notifications.
Additionally, if you’re not careful, email turns into the work itself instead of the platform for it.
Email assignments to assign to a helper:
Sorting and filtering communications according to your own standards
I’m highlighting the messages that need your attention the most.
- Getting rid of spam and organizing the mess
- preparing responses for your approval
- Answering standard mails on your behalf
- Handling reminders and follow-ups
- establishing procedures and automations to maintain efficiency.
2. Input of data
Although it may not be the most attractive job on anyone’s list of things to do, this is one of those essential tasks that keep companies operating efficiently.
And that’s precisely the issue.
Data entry has the advantage of feeling productive while you’re working on it. You may feel a sense of accomplishment as you check off those boxes. Your to-do list appears to be getting smaller, and you feel as though you’re making progress. However, at the end of the day, you frequently discover that all of your hard work hasn’t helped you solve more significant issues or advance where it matters most.
The reason it’s inefficient is that you’re most likely devoting far more time to this than you realize. Knowledge workers devote almost 40% of their time to manual digital administrative tasks, according to a recent global research.
Furthermore, the average worker spends one to three hours per week simply transferring data between locations. Let’s do the math, even though that might not seem like much. Three hours a week adds up to 150 hours annually. That’s clicking, copying, and pasting for three whole work weeks.
Data entry duties to delegate to a helper:
- System updates for customer relationship management (CRM)
- Information transfer between various software systems
- Making and keeping databases and spreadsheets
- System updates for inventory management
- Maintaining mailing databases and contact lists
- Transforming documents from one format to another
- arranging and backing up digital files.
3. Calendar management and scheduling
You likely have a ton of meetings on your calendar if you’re a founder. The more senior your position, the more commonplace this becomes. Approximately 40% of business executives’ time is spent in meetings with three or more people.
Meetings alone, however, are only the beginning.
Why is it so exhausting?
Think about the normal course of a single meeting: outreach, several email exchanges to suggest times, availability check, conflict-related rescheduling, calendar invitations, handling any last-minute adjustments, and follow-up. Each meeting can easily take 15 to 30 minutes due to this process, and if you multiply it by the number of meetings you attend each week, the minutes add up to hours.
Tasks related to calendar administration and scheduling that should be delegated to an assistant:
- Arrange for team members, partners, and clients to meet.
- Managing RSVPs and sending calendar invites
- Meeting rescheduling when disagreements emerge
- Creating agendas for meetings and reminding people
- Taking minutes at meetings and following up
- Organizing logistics and travel schedules
- setting aside time for strategic thinking or concentrated effort.
4. Management of social media
Social media is praised as an essential marketing tool for startups, and in many respects, it is. It is where your audience gets to know you, where trust is established, and where your brand voice grows.
Social media management seems surprisingly easy. Post and interact, isn’t that right? However, it soon turns into one of the most annoying and demanding aspects of managing a company for a lot of entrepreneurs.
Social media has a way of making everything seem instantaneous, which is why it is troublesome. Real-time notifications appear. Every hour, trends shift. There’s always something fresh to look at, comment on, discuss, or consider. The instant you turn your head away, it can feel like you’re slipping behind.
Assigning social media administration responsibilities to a helper:
- Developing and planning content for various platforms
- Answering direct messages and comments
- tracking engagement and brand mentions
- Finding and selecting pertinent stuff to distribute
- Creating reports and analyzing performance metrics
- interacting with possible partners and industry influencers.
5. Management of files and folders
Managing a business requires making decisions all the time, frequently amid a flurry. Searching through a tangle of folders, filenames, and haphazard drafts is the last thing you want to do when you need to locate a document fast.
The bigger concern is what happens when things are out of order. Errors can occur when things are disorganized. An old deck is seen by an investor. During a team meeting, the incorrect numbers are disclosed. Before a deadline, a team member wastes time redoing something that already exists. Although these mistakes aren’t major setbacks, they can affect choices, impede advancement, and add unnecessary stress for any creator.
Managing files and folders to delegate to a helper:
- Putting digital files in order and making sensible folder structures
- naming files consistently using the system of your choice
- Making a backup of crucial records and information
- Controlling permissions for sharing and cloud storage
- Making and keeping up with templates for documents
- clearing off storage space and archiving outdated files
- Taking care of version control for crucial documents
Conclusion
It’s simple for a founder to believe that you must be involved in every task. However, there are definite advantages for those who create room for genuine delegation. Additionally, they are returning to work with a clean slate after spending more time away from it.
This has nothing to do with working less. It’s about working more intently. You make wiser choices when you’re not bogged down in administrative details. You create better things. And you begin to recall why you initially decided on this course of action.