How to Overcome the Fear of Delegation

I remember when I gave birth to my adorable son, I don’t ever want to leave him even just for one second. I want to be with him all the time- cuddle him, feed him, and watch him fall asleep . As much as I want to be just an inch away from him forever, I know at some point I have to go back to my life and my work and do the stuff I normally  do. 

The thought of entrusting him to someone else makes me go craaaazy. But I know that if I don’t back to my work, it would mean that I will eventually be financially incapacitated.I didn’t hire just anybody to babysit him for me. I had my aunt look over him and she has been a great help and she gave my heart peace of mind that my little one will be taken care of with love and affection whenever I am away. 

Delegation can be a tough thing to go through. To any entrepreneur, their business is their baby. And you wouldn’t just entrust your precious gem to anybody, would you? But if you want to be successful in your business and have the time to focus on growing your business and spending time with your clients, you know in your heart that in time you need someone to do certain tasks for you. 

Knowing the progress of your project and its corresponding tasks will give you an eagle’s eyes view of things . This will give you power and put back control in your business.

What are the usual fears that surround delegation? Identifying these fears is very important. Let see what some of them are: 

Work may not meet your standards 

The work may not be done on time with the quality you want

The feeling of not being in control 

Work may lack consistency 

I ’ll address those fears one by one.

Work may not meet your standards

It is important that you always test-drive the abilities of the person you hire. Check out her portfolio and see if she is a good fit to what you are looking for. Look for someone who is competent and confident. Scheduling an actual voice interview will absolutely help you know your VA and discern if she is competent enough and meet your standards. Delegate a task or two (buy the minimum number of hours) before committing to your VA full time to make sure that you are getting the person you want and the job done in the manner that you want.

The work may not be done on time with the quality you want.

How do you make sure that you get your project done on time? I suggest handing your virtual assistant an ‘advanced deadline’. Which means giving a deadline that is one or two days ahead of your actual deadline. This will give you a lee way to check work quality and have your VA edit or redo the work if you are not satisfied. If your assistant did not meet the deadline, at least you have a day or two-day margin.

The feeling of not being in control

This fear arises if you fail to organize delegated tasks. Create a to-do list for your VA and add a deadline to each task. There are tools that you can use like Basecamp that can will help you get an overview of what’s being done and what’s not being done. Knowing the progress of your project and its corresponding tasks will give you an eagle’s eyes view of things . This will give you power and gain back control in your business.

Work may lack consistency

If you want tasks to be done in a certain way, the best way to do this is through videos. Screencast is a good tool you can use to record your screen when showing your VA how to do a specific task. This is very effective versus just explaining and writing things down via email. This will help you get the consistency that you want. If you are delegating design jobs or content work, showing your VA some samples on how you want the project to look like will absolutely help a lot.

How about you? What are your fears in hiring a virtual assistant or delegating tasks? Share it on the comments below and let’s find a way to erase that fear.