When, How, and Why to Delegate Your Operation Management
Many financial advisors struggle when it comes to delegation. As a business owner, it can be a challenge to give up part of your organization to someone else - especially if you’re used to being the one who makes all the decisions. There are many different tasks in your business that you can delegate to an outsourced solution.
One way you can delegate in your business is by getting your operations off of your plate and into the hands of someone who has more time and expertise to streamline your business. Let’s dig into how to delegate your business operation, and when it may be a good idea to pursue.
Get Clear On Your “Why”
Before you can begin to delegate your business operations, it’s important to understand what that means and why it’s a wise business move. If you want to pursue a well-rounded business, it’s important to put the right people in the right seats. In other words - let the experts be experts.
No business owner can wear all of the hats all of the time. Chief Everything Officer isn’t an official job title for a reason! At some point, giving up control of an area in your business that you don’t feel the most confident about can have a massive, positive impact on your day to day and your bottom line.
When you delegate the management of your business operation to a specialist, you’re able to focus on the elements of your business where you shine. This can free you up to do multiple things, including:
Continuing education to hone your expertise
Being 100% client facing
Leaning into business development and growth
Leveling up your client service
Achieving a better work-life balance
A business owner who is spread too thin by trying to do too much can’t serve their clients, their team, or themselves well.
Another “why” to consider before delegating is the long-term impact that outsourcing your operation management will have on your business. By delegating your operation, you’ll be increasing your team’s efficiency, and leveling up to a new phase of your business.
When Should You Start Delegating?
Every business owner runs into a time when they wonder whether or not outsourcing their operations management is the “right” move to make. Generally, the breaking point comes when you, as a business owner, are starting to feel the symptoms of burnout. If you feel as though there aren’t enough hours in the day, or you’re starting to notice that business tasks are falling through the cracks, it may be time to consider delegation.
Do you think that you’re ready to start delegating your business operation management? Here’s what you need to consider:
Think about your clients. Think about your client service calendar and the logistics of how your firm grows those relationships. Outsourcing your operation management can help you to clarify your process, and smooth out any client-facing interactions. For example, if you work with a demographic that isn’t tech-savvy, consider outsourcing the part of your operation that onboards clients to new technology.
The Business. As a service-based business owner, it is so easy to want to hire for the client exclusively, but we forget about what the business needs. This might mean delegating parts of your operation that aren’t client facing - like billing, follow up, or managing your website or technology.
You. As a business owner, you need to take care of yourself first. Without you, there is no business! What tasks are burning you out within your business? How can those items be outsourced or delegated effectively to free up brain space for you to regain your mental balance?
How to Delegate
The truth is that there are many different elements of your operation that can be delegated. Breaking it down by how different delegation strategies impact the business can be helpful in determining what’s best for you and your firm.
Client Servicing. Delegating operations on the client side of your business could look like:
Meeting follow-ups.
Paraplanning.
Client onboarding.
Scheduling.
Data gathering.
Data entry.
Billing.
Internal Business Operations. You can delegate a large portion of your business and “back office”:
Blog writing and social media.
Process creation and management.
All other forms of marketing.
Recruiting.
Team management.
HR.
File organization.
Bookkeeping.
When deciding to delegate all (or a portion of) your business operation, it can help to ask yourself what tasks are taking up too much time without delivering a return on investment. For many business owners, this is the “back office” or business management tasks. Then, as they continue to grow, they start to outsource client facing work to improve the client experience and efficiency of their firm.
Case Studies
Taking a step back to gain perspective about your business, and where you want to grow, can help you to narrow down what tasks you need to delegate, and what solution makes the most sense for you. Let’s take a look at a few case studies.
Team Approach
Rebecca knew that she was wearing too many hats in her business and not trusting her team with key business management tasks, even though they had the skill set. After a VIP Day with an operations consultant, She decided to put herself in her clients’ shoes and evaluate her client-facing processes to ensure that they had a holistic experience with her firm from first onboarding to delivery of the final financial plan.
Rebecca had her associate advisor, Amy, in all of her meetings moving forward to assist with client communication, follow up, and setting goals in their financial planning software. She also had her office manager, John, start to help with tasks that were related to compliance, marketing, and technology. To hold everyone accountable, Rebecca scheduled quarterly check in meetings and implemented a performance bonus that allowed her employees to take ownership of their tasks and work to improve.
Outsourced Expertise
Bill was a solo advisor who was struggling to scale. He hired a consulting firm to help him build repeatable processes and create a mostly-automated solution that each client could plug into. This allowed him to leverage technology in order to grow. He has plans to hire a part time employee to assist with business operation management once he hits a specific revenue goal.
Combination Approach
Michael has a small team, and isn’t fully in the “day to day” operation of his business. However, he felt like tasks were being missed, and that his team wasn’t as efficient as they could be. Michael teamed up with an operations consultant for a VIP Day to look at tasks each team member was taking on, as well as his business processes. He determined that leveraging an outsourced operations solution for ongoing work within his CRM made the most sense. His consultant helped him find the outsourced team member he needed to fit his newly created processes and operation goals.
Closing
When it comes down to it, I recommend seeking advice from experts to help speed up the process of creating a streamlined business operation. This could mean hiring a consulting firm like Level Best to evaluate your operation and processes to create scalable solutions.
However, it could also mean working closely with a business coach, marketing team, or virtual assistant company to delegate the tasks that will have a notable impact on your team, business growth, and client experience. At the end of the day, delegation is a tool you can use to level up your business - and determining what tasks to delegate should be an empowering practice that moves you toward growth!
