I am so jazzed about the Virtual Earn Your Worth program that I can barely stand it. I simply love teaching women how to earn their worth. And for me, this is about spending time in the inner circle—you’ve all heard the circle analogy from coaches. The inner circle is full of things you love, you are good at AND make you money. Then the next circle may have things you are good at but don’t love. Then the outer circles are full of those things that you aren’t good at, don’t love, and don’t make you money. Emptying your own trash probably fits there. (If you are a coach out there, chime in and help me explain the circles.)
For me, the key to being successfully self-employed has been to slowly delegate the outer circles. For example: web development. I simply hate it. And besides, I can’t really do it. So as soon as I was able, I hired a web developer. And I hired an assistant (gotta love having a virtual assistant—oh yes!) to help me keep moving towards spending more time in my inner circle. The trick has been delegating to her some of the things that I COULD do, but simply don’t love doing. Could I submit articles to article data-bases around the internet? Yes, I could do that. But is it a good use of my time? Besides, I don’t want to do that!
Teaching the Virtual Earn Your Worth Program is definitely in the inner circle. But even then, my assistant has helped with many tasks. She helps me place the members into their accountability mastermind groups, as well as deal with the shopping cart and registration. And my web developer developed the forum that the members use to communicate between our 90 minute phone training calls. So even though this program sits in my inner circle, there are piece of it in the outer circles. Those I delegate.
The key is to spend your time at the intersection of what makes you good money and what you love doing. If you get clear on this, then over time you can delegate those tasks that are in the outer circles. It is true that this takes money. Delegation costs. But could you make more money if you freed up some of your time?
I completely agree with your thoughts about delegation. As a self-employed person for well over a decade, I know the struggle to delegate and focus on the higher earning activities. But if you are to be successful and reach your full potential it is a must.
Thanks for the reminder!
Kathleen Burns Kingsbury
How do you get a virtual assistant!? I’m curious becuase I’m at that point where I feel like I need some help and am trying to figure out the best way to do this.
The next greatest thing I’ve done recently is hire a Laundry Service!!! I found it on Yelp, this guy comes and picks up all my laundry, and the next day brings it back all clean and very neatly folded – I was thrilled! And I bought myself an afternoon of focused delight! : )
-Mimi
Seriously, how do you get a virtual assistant?