How Delegation and Prosperity Work Together – Episode 416

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[00:02] Hello, partners. In this episode, we’re going to be covering one topic from a favorite book of mine. Kim is going to be surprised about what this is, but she has so much information and knowledge on it. Are you ready to hear, Kim? I am. Wonderful. So this comes from a book by the author Felix Dennis. Unfortunately, he passed away a number of years ago. This book was written in 2006. It’s an amazing book. It’s called How to Get Rich, and he has eight secrets for getting rich. And at the end, I’m going to pull one of those, which is about delegation. He says, hire talent smarter than you. Delegate. Share the annual pie. So Kim, the conversation with you is how do you delegate from a prosperous thinker, prosperous world?

[00:57] I love this. Absolutely. So I want to add in something that I heard Dan Sullivan say a couple of years ago. This is my strategic coach, who I have gained so much wisdom about delegating from. And it applies to personal lives as well. So if you don’t own a business, stay with us here because there will be lots of good. And he said something in the effect of, I just want to earn more money so that I can hire more talent, which I thought was so cool because there is a gift that every single person in the world gives to the world. And some of us are super clear on our gifts and others are still working on getting clear, which is a whole awesome activity in and of itself. And of course, the working doesn’t really

[01:41] ever end. What is so interesting about the area of delegation is that it enables you to have that classic one plus one equals 11 environment. So what I mean by that is most people say one plus one equals three, right? Okay, we all know it equals two, but the saying is one plus one equals three, implying that if you put two good things together, you get a third goodness. Well, I think one plus one equals 11. Now we know if we literally put a one on a piece of paper next to a one, that it actually does look like the number 11. And that implies the exponential aspect of combining goodness with goodness. And it is truly indicative of the multiplier effect that occurs when you bring in goodness with

[02:35] goodness. So let me use some examples. On our team, many of our listeners are well aware of a gal named Teresa Sheridan. She has been with me for 10 or 15 or 20 years. I can’t remember. I don’t remember ever not working with her as kind of how I feel because she brings to the table skills that are completely opposite of mine. While she also brings to the table skill of appreciating those opposites. And that’s so important. Because in delegation, typically, we want to bring in somebody that has opposite skill sets because the whole point of delegating is that the person that you’re having do the work is actually better at it than you. And so we learn things about our skills via, for example, the Colby profile, KOLBE, B as in boy, if

[03:35] you’re not familiar with that best 55 bucks you can ever spend. We also learn things about our skills with maybe it’s Ray Dalio’s principles, you or it’s Myers-Briggs, or it’s whatever other things out there, the disc, DISC, those types of profiles, I’m going to use the word carefully because none of them are tests, you can’t really fail them, you just get clarity on your skills. And when you delegate for strengths, in other words, you find somebody that’s actually better at whatever it is that needs to be done than what you’re doing. You get that multiplier effect of one plus one equals 11, because you’re freed up to do something that you’re really good at. They now get the excitement to do

[04:19] something that they’re really good at. And whoever is the benefactor might be the business or it might be some third party, which is the whole win, win, win thing that I love all the time to think about gets the benefit of whatever the job is getting done better. So like back to me and Teresa, she is so amazing at getting the life insurance from an idea on to the table and in the paperwork to actually get it implemented. And there’s a whole process that surrounds that called underwriting or the approval process that she is gifted at. And she loves picking our clients up after they’ve had a strategy session with me, and taking that idea out of the space of mental strategy work on to the paper or

[05:11] the computer screen to get it done. And there’s no way that I could ever be as proficient or as efficient with that work. And the other cool thing about delegation is that it’s not me up here and Teresa down there, like you might think of from a hierarchical standpoint in the corporate world. In the entrepreneurial world where prosperity thinkers reign, it is an equal I am getting help. And the person that I’m getting help from is better at that thing than I am. And consequently, the clients are going to get better results. And Teresa gets to do what she loves to do. And I get to do what I love to do. So good to think about that. Was there ever a time when you weren’t delegating? Take us back to that and what it looks

[06:01] like? Absolutely. I remember like it was yesterday, when I started strategic coach, and that was literally one of the very first things that we talked about. Now understand I’m 24 years old, I think 25. I have come from three years working at a bank. And the first thing that it dawns on me to delegate so this is where I said if you’re an individual and you don’t have a business like hang in there, I’m going to have some specific ideas for you is my bookkeeping. Now that seems a little weird. I’m a banker. And I’m now a financial advisor. And at the time I was even working on getting my CFP designation. So I’m I’m working into the quote financial planner space. And I’m not going to do my own books. Now this is also before online banking existed or

[06:49] the internet even existed. And my answer was yes, 100% I literally came back from that first day in Chicago where this idea of the utter criticalness of delegating was so well laid out. And I said I have got to find somebody to take over my personal books, not my business books, my personal books, because I knew that I wasn’t doing a good job. And I also knew that it was very, very important for that area to be clean and efficient and well organized, etc, etc. And so I found Carrie Putman who you all have heard us talk about before. And in the early days, I think there might have even been some trading going on i.e. if I didn’t feel especially when I added some of the other businesses, if I didn’t feel like I had enough to pay for it, then I was

[07:41] trading for something. I’ll do this for you if you’ll do this for me. That’s a form of delegation. And it can occur with your own children, it can occur with your family members, it can occur with skills that you need or want or desire to have in your life. And there’s all kinds of ways that delegation can happen. And of course, when money trades hands, that’s awesome, too, because as we know, that gets money moving. And that’s important. But sometimes if that’s not possible, don’t give up, there are still other ways that it can happen. And again, it makes both people’s lives better. Because if we all truly understood this, there would be no unemployment in the world. That’s a quote from Kathy Colby, who says if people will use the Colby

[08:30] profile and really understand and develop their God given talent, then they will find a way to use that God given talent out in the marketplace, and they will get paid for it. And then there wouldn’t be unemployment. And more importantly, there wouldn’t be people unhappy at their work because it’s so important that we work such a long, long, long, long, long, long time. That makes it very, very necessary for us to find work we love. And when we are working in areas that we love, of course, we’re going to do a better job. And so then you have this whole win, win, win of the person that’s doing the delegating, having time freed up to go back to the work that they’re good at. And then the person doing the work

[09:13] is getting awesome work that they love to do. And whoever is the benefactor of that work is getting the best possible situation. So Kim, let’s go back when you first hired Carrie and you delegated that what happened to your wealth within a few years? I don’t remember exact numbers, but I know it increased because there were two reasons. One, it increased because I was able to spend more time doing what I was good at. And two, the wealth got tracked because I wasn’t doing a good job with an income statement and a balance sheet, a personal income statement and a balance sheet. And Carrie did a fabulous job with it. And so anytime something is important to you, it is so critical to have it measured and tracked and things that

[10:01] are measured and tracked are going to get your attention and things that get your attention can then get your intention and things that get your attention and your intention are going to improve. So, so good there. You know, the reason why I asked that question and we were talking about delegation is because this can be applicable to any of you listeners. So if you’re listening to this, and you’re a business owner and you’re looking to increase the overall sales in your company and the profitability, well, delegating to the right people is going to do that. If you’re listening to this episode with kids and you’re figuring out how you can help your family, well, delegating to the right people is going to make a difference there.

[10:45] Literally, it will work in any facet of life. So the last question is, how do you find the right people to delegate to and how do you communicate with them? Oh, so critical. So finding is based on their unique abilities. Again, a Dan Sullivan term. You can use Colby to determine that. You can go on Fiverr, f-i-v-e-r-r.com. We can include that in the show notes. You can ask around. You can find anybody to do anything. Believe it or not, there truly are people that love to do absolutely every aspect of life. It’s awesome. It’s so cool. If you think, oh, my gosh, how could somebody like to do books as an example? Well, there’s people that actually love to do that, et cetera, et cetera. And then the communication. I’m so glad

[11:34] you brought that up, because what I like to do is lay out what I want done, but not how I want it done and let them. They’ve got more skill, them figure out the how part, and that way you’re not micromanaging and getting involved in areas that you shouldn’t be, et cetera. And I also do find that it’s super important to get clear with both parties what kind of reporting back you want. So like with Carrie, I want a monthly report. I don’t want to deal with anything in between. So she knows that now this is this doesn’t happen overnight. You know, this took a while to develop, but she knows that the day to day and the week to week financial decisions that have to be made, she gets to make them. I

[12:21] mean, she literally knows more about our finances than I do. Then once a month, I get a report on everything, income statements, balance sheets, cash flow, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I look at everything and that’s sufficient for me. So there are other things that I never look at. Like I, for example, I delegate a bill to her. I never look at whether it gets paid or not. I just know that it’s going to get paid. So you could define maybe three levels of reporting back. One is monthly or maybe it’s even weekly. One is not at all. And then maybe there’s some phase in the middle and every delegation needs to have the upfront communication and then clarity around the reporting back, even if don’t report back

[13:06] at all. I just am going to assume that this gets done is one of those levels of reporting back. Oh, I love it. That’s great framework for all of us to live by. So for you listeners, if you heard this episode and you’re looking to delegate, maybe that hitting the back 30 seconds and listening to that over a couple of times and getting that framework will be key. Also, as Kim mentioned, there’s a couple of resources and finding out what those unique abilities are. Absolutely essential. Now for you and your family’s finances or whatever that may be, if you have specific questions, you can send those to hello at partners for prosperity.com. That email is just for you podcast listeners. It’s that special. So again,

[13:52] we’ll put that inside of the show notes. Hello at partners for prosperity.com and Kim, thanks for sharing these lessons and insights about delegation. Always a joy to talk with you, Spencer. Thank you for listening to the prosperity podcast to take control of your money and have it work for you. Visit us at partners for prosperity.com. If you liked this episode, make sure you subscribe and leave a review.