[00:00:00] Hey there! Welcome! Thank you so much for tuning in to this brand new episode of the Teaching Business Success Podcast. My name is Eszter Godor. I'm the creator of the JUMP [00:00:15] program, where I help kids activity providers and academy owners leave the overwhelm behind and live their best life. So if you run an academy, if you are an educator about [00:00:30] to start your own center, whether brick and mortar or online, if you run an after school, if you have a language school, a music school, a yoga studio, where you mostly work with
families [00:00:45] teaching kids where the parents are your primary clients, paying clients, then you are at the right place.
Recently I have run [00:01:00] ten private one hour focus sessions. Maybe you participated in one of them. There have been so many areas uncovered in those sessions [00:01:15] that I want to share with you some of my views, some of my advice I have given to those people who participated in those sessions. I wholeheartedly believe that you are [00:01:30] not alone with your problems.
We are all going through the same journey. Some of us are more ahead, others are just starting, and maybe I'm just starting out on [00:01:45] something that you are already advanced on. I really believe that sharing these findings will bring all of you tremendous value.
This is what I'm gonna dedicate some [00:02:00] of these upcoming episodes to. Actually, this was supposed to be a YouTube video. I'm about to create more content for YouTube, [00:02:15] but I've been, I don't know, I've been writing and it took me so long to get these sessions prepared.
But yeah, I've been writing the content and it started to get dark and now I... I'm [00:02:30] like, okay, I don't want it to get pitch black while I'm recording, so So this is not gonna be a YouTube episode. This is gonna be a podcast episode and hopefully soon new YouTube episodes are coming as [00:02:45] well.
And if you like what you hear today, definitely click the follow button. and come along with me. So today what I want to talk about is delegation. When are [00:03:00] you ready to delegate? What it is that you should be delegating? Who you should delegate to? What happens when everything goes freaking wrong?
It's a very recent experience for me[00:03:15] when things totally go downhill one of my VA's deleted the 21 days to CEO challenge completely two days ago by mistake [00:03:30] And yeah, , I'm still affected
We managed to recover it. So if you want to take the opportunity and get started with it and you haven't yet, [00:03:45] then
just navigate to the URL 21 days to ceo.com and that's where you can get started. recently recovered or crispy and fresh [00:04:00] just for you. Anyway, I'm going to talk about this at the end. So when I first started with my school and let's say the physical school because before that I did [00:04:15] have the school at my living room and then after a while I rented out.
physical space. So when I first rented that space, I was still convinced [00:04:30] that I could take care of everything myself. As if it was possible, you know, being at the physical space. Taking care of all the shopping, everything. [00:04:45] Taking care of all the works, like painting and all that. And then even teaching, and then running the admin, doing the cleaning.
Um, what have I forgotten? There are hundreds [00:05:00] of things. we all know it's not possible, but for some reason, most of us... start out thinking that it is possible. And we still pretend to actually live [00:05:15] a life, have a family, meet friends, sleep, eat. And, yeah, it's just, it was just, it's just way too much, but we still think that [00:05:30] we can handle it all.
So, the questions you asked me, in this, in these private sessions recently, were how can I get started? I've been running this for three years, [00:05:45] five years, nine years, by myself and some of you have teachers working for you, but still all the rest of the work you handle it by yourself and you're still a teacher too, [00:06:00] so this is what I wanted to talk about today.
So when I started out, my main reason for thinking that I should take care of everything was, on one hand I thought I had [00:06:15] limitless energy. On the other hand, I had no money. Or rather phrase it this way, I thought I had no money, and I thought I had to [00:06:30] save. I thought I couldn't spend because then my business will grow more slowly.
And I couldn't have been more wrong, to [00:06:45] be honest.
And let me share with you one story from that time. So this is a, like a 60 ish square meter, corner office space on the street. [00:07:00] It has two rooms and a bathroom. It has beautiful windows, crystals, it has huge beautiful windows and a glass door. facing two [00:07:15] streets, so corner office,
Somehow, to me, Besides taking care of everything, the only way I could imagine the cleaning of this place to be done was [00:07:30] if I did it by myself. And let's talk specifically about the windows, okay? They were tall, they were wide, and I was like, it's only really [00:07:45] three windows. Right? They were each like, 6 by 2,50, or whatever meters, so they were pretty huge.
But it was still like, [00:08:00] it's 3 windows. So, I'm not gonna spend money on cleaning them. I'm gonna do it by myself. Yeah, but, I didn't have the tools. So, I had to buy... [00:08:15] cleaning material. I had to buy tools like wiper, brush, whatever that could get that high. Then I realized that even if I can reach it, I cannot properly clean it.[00:08:30]
So I had to buy a ladder. And then I realized the windows had two sides. So it had to be cleaned. So they had to be cleaned both inside and out. What a surprise. But yeah, it's true [00:08:45] on the inside you didn't have to clean them that much, but on the outside it took a lot of work. Normally, it took me like four hours.
That's like half a day.
To clean the [00:09:00] windows. And even then, They never felt clean. I don't know, it's just... They never felt clean. So, one day, a guy comes [00:09:15] by, he says, I'm a professional window cleaner, I can clean your windows for 4 euros. And I'm like, no, thank you. And he walks away, and I'm convinced.
That I'm doing the right thing.
Then another person comes, [00:09:30] Hey, I'm offering office cleaning, window cleaning. The window cleaning , is 10 euros. I can do it for you in half an hour, and I can come every week. I'm like, no, thank you. I was [00:09:45] like, okay, so if he asks 10 euros, comes four times a month that's 40 euros. I cannot, there's no way I can afford 40 euros.
Now had I looked at this differently back then, [00:10:00] and luckily very shortly after this happened I realized that that was the way to go, was actually looking at How much money I can make in [00:10:15] four hours. Even if we calculate with a, the like lowest rate, I think at that time I was charging like 18 euros an hour.
So, in four hours I can make, [00:10:30] what is it, 72 euros?
So what really happens is, I'm not actually paying 10 euros to that guy. So if I compare the 10 euro [00:10:45] investment into the cleaning, not only am I left with my peace of mind. But I can also make 72 euros at the same time.
You could say, yeah, but [00:11:00] I do it in the morning and that's when I have no students. Yeah, but really, is your time best invested into cleaning the windows that never actually appear [00:11:15] clean, and you end up dirty,
exhausted, and by the time people arrive in the afternoon, you are in a very different state of mind. Then, if you spent the morning on activities as a [00:11:30] leader, like strategic planning or taking care of yourself, like going to the gym or not spending time at the academy where you spend already. I don't know most of your life. So basically either [00:11:45] taking care of yourself or spending time on activities that.
Bring you in those $72, are way ahead f cleaning the windows yourself. Your time [00:12:00] as a leader of a school is best invested when you are the leader of the school.
And that window cleaning, if I do it by myself, doesn't cost me... four euros or 10 euros. It cost [00:12:15] me 72 euros. So yeah, in the end I started paying that guy. In the end, I also started paying others for the cleaning
And you might think that. When you start out, you have to watch every [00:12:30] penny. But if you don't start delegating already at the start, when you have the money for that, you will still not be delegating. Because you will have the idea that no one will do it the way you would. [00:12:45] And that's another big fat lie.
Actually, when I have things done by other people, I'm not expecting anymore that they do it the way I would. I actually try finding [00:13:00] people who do it way better than I would. I believe that everyone should be doing what they are best at. And this applies to people who do stuff for me as well.
And I should [00:13:15] be doing what I am best at. And I should focus my time on what brings in money, not what saves me money.
Because your business doesn't grow [00:13:30] by holding money back. Business grows by making smart decisions and putting money into the right activities, into the right people who can help you expand, grow, and [00:13:45] exponentially grow.
So with this whole thought process I would like to help you figure out where to start delegating, what to delegate first, or if you are already working with others, [00:14:00] then what to delegate next. Because as long as you are trying to take care of everything, you will be running in circles. And... I think you are listening to [00:14:15] me today because you are here to grow your teaching business.
So one way to figure out what to delegate is to attach a price tag to each activity you are doing. But [00:14:30] before that, let's define the threshold for what. Price tag will be your limit. What will be the limit above which you are taking care of things and below which [00:14:45] you should find someone else to take care of that task.
I think I heard about this approach first from my mentor James Wedmore. I have been on his BBD program since June, and by the way, I'm still freaking [00:15:00] out that I'm, that I have the opportunity to participate BBD Live this December, which is in three weeks, in Irvine, California, and I can't wait to meet [00:15:15] him and all my fellow BBD members. And wow, that's gonna be an epic experience. I can't wait to tell you about it.
So the way to do this calculation is... You're gonna start [00:15:30] with the total amount of money you are looking to make with your business in the next 12 months.
For me, that number is 183, 000. Then you divide that number by 2, [00:15:45] 800, Which is the number of hours you work on an average basis per year. So if I divide 183,000 by 2,800, I get that in a business that makes [00:16:00] 183 K I make $65 an hour.
So, basically, if I want to get to the 183, 000 year, I shouldn't be doing any task which [00:16:15] costs me less than 65 an hour.
So that's a hard line. Anything that's, anything that costs me... More than 65, I can still take care of that, and anything that costs me less [00:16:30] than 65, someone else should be taking care of that. Just, just to give you a few examples on how much I pay people for helping me.
Canva design, 20 an hour. Kajabi design, [00:16:45] 20 an hour. Copying video, copying videos from one place to another, 20 an hour. Editing videos, 25 an hour.
So since I heard about this approach from James, I can't resist [00:17:00] hearing him shout at me here right in my ear whenever I touch Canva. To make a design for my Instagram, wherever I want to post, or for my website. Because [00:17:15] Canva Design is typically a 10 20 hourly rate, what you would pay someone who can design something for you.
And there are so many other things, like [00:17:30] copying videos from one place to another, or we have recently moved our community back to Heartbeat and the only way to, to copy the recent posts from the last 12 months was [00:17:45] manually. So like copying posts manually from one community to another.
Again, that's a 10, 20 per hour task. So whenever I touch something [00:18:00] that's of that value, I just hear him shouting and it stops me from doing it.
So now every time this happens, every time I hear him shouting in my ear, I immediately stop [00:18:15] and I reach out to someone, who is probably one of my assistants, and describe the task and make sure that they help me with it. And this is not only about saving money, [00:18:30] but when we are scattered, when we are constantly swapping from one task to another. For example, if I had to copy posts from one community to another, and I would also be working on [00:18:45] a, I don't know, a Kajabi site for a client, or a launch strategy for someone else, I might be copying the posts while doing the other task and [00:19:00] guaranteed I will make a mistake.
I actually did. I think I only copied one post from the previous community to the new one. And then I asked Irina to help me with that. And since then, Roya, one of our members, already [00:19:15] told me that all the comments on the post I actually copied belong to a different post. So, not only the saving, but the person you are going to ask, they are going [00:19:30] to concentrate 100 percent on that activity.
Hopefully, yeah. When they are doing it, they will definitely concentrate more on that activity than you can, because you have [00:19:45] so many other things on your plate right now.
Another way to define what the areas are that you are not touching is not calculating the average, just looking at how much you charge an [00:20:00] hour for what you do right now. And right now, for anything I do, I charge between 55 and 497 an hour. So, there, 55 is my, is my limit. So [00:20:15] anything under 55 really shouldn't be something that I'm handling.
And if you don't just want to look at the numbers, but also what activity actually matches you, [00:20:30] what lights you up, I like to bring in the Zone of Genius. Remember from the book, The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. He talks about four zones. four areas where [00:20:45] your activities that you're doing on an everyday basis fall.
He categorizes your activities into four areas. Into your zone of genius fall activities All the activities that you [00:21:00] love doing and you are the best at and they are attached to your unique ability. No one else could really do them better.
No one else could even do them because only you know that.
[00:21:15] So anything that's related to the DNA of your business, for example, defining your method or defining , your key dream audience, your new dream students, those are activities that [00:21:30] truly no one else will be able to do better than you. This is not something you would be delegating. In your zone of excellence, that's the next area, there are activities that you are great at, [00:21:45] but they are not necessarily your favorite thing anymore.
For example, to me, teaching was something like that at my academy. That's why I started to build a team. Then in your zone of [00:22:00] competence, there are your activities that you are able to do. You are reasonably okay at it, but others can probably do a better job. And in your zone of incompetence, the activities [00:22:15] that fall there are activities that you hate doing and you're not even good at them.
So if you want to start delegating, so if you want to start choosing the activities you delegate from this perspective, [00:22:30] start at your zone of incompetence. Because in the end, the only thing you should be doing at your job is your zone of genius. Anything that falls into your zone of genius, [00:22:45] that should be what you're doing.
All the rest should be done by someone else. But the best place is to start at your zone of incompetence. If you calculate your threshold, if you calculate the hourly income your [00:23:00] company generates, anything below that, which is in your zone of incompetence, is the activity you should be starting to delegate.
If it's a 10 an hour job and you suck at [00:23:15] it, first thing on your list to delegate.
For me, my number one, by far, is cleaning. Like I said, at my academy or today at my home. We have someone coming to [00:23:30] our house every two weeks, cleaning for three hours.
We pay her 30 euros. So that's 60 euros a month. And for that money, we buy an amazing [00:23:45] peace of mind. For both my husband and me. We both suck at it, when someone else doesn't do it for us, it's always the last thing on our list. It's never done, when it's done, it's not done well enough.
That was our [00:24:00] number one on our list. And we actually started paying someone to do that when we supposedly didn't have the money for it. Because it was on that list [00:24:15] that even if I don't have the money, even if I think I don't have the money, in those three hours I can definitely make more than 30. And I don't hate [00:24:30] the place I live at, how it looks.
I don't argue with my partner because of which one of us hasn't done the thing or which one of us has done it wrong.
And this is at our home, so [00:24:45] you can see that this principle is broadly applicable, not only in your business, but also in your personal life. The next thing in my business that I suck at, I don't do it [00:25:00] well and I hate doing it is uploading my invoices to my accountant so they do my bookkeeping on a monthly basis.
I always had an accountant from the very start of my business [00:25:15] 2014 when I first got registered with it.
But I always had to upload my invoices and I simply thought, no one else can do that because then I have to create a tutorial and that person will have to log [00:25:30] into various, platforms and download those invoices and it would take so much time to actually create a tutorial.
Which is wrong, wrong, wrong. So wrong! The time you [00:25:45] invest in that tutorial and the time I invested in that tutorial was one of the best investments of this year. Actually this year, since June, Irina is uploading [00:26:00] all my invoices
I was just telling her on Wednesday 2024 will be the first year when my accountant is not Chewing my ear, my neck, whatever the expression, the whole year about the [00:26:15] hundreds of invoices that they are missing from my previous year , to be able to close my yearly report. This year, only really few invoices will be missing because we might have forgotten about something. [00:26:30] But. Oh my god, the lists I've been getting up until now about the previous year's invoicing that were missing were hundreds and I had to spend weeks, full work [00:26:45] weeks, figuring that out because in the end it gets you, in the end, you can't escape from that, you gotta do it.
Irina, if you're listening to this, I love you and I love how much you've been helping me this year.
And the other [00:27:00] benefit, Which is again, tremendous, is knowing in advance how much taxes I will be paying. So it's not like every quarter , when it's tax day, your accountant sends you a message and you get a sticker [00:27:15] shock, you know, when you see the number. I actually know the number in advance and I'm putting aside money in advance
for the taxes. So, I just know it. It's just there and my accountant [00:27:30] was asking me the other day in October when we did the quarter three taxes, do you want a payment plan on the taxes so you can pay them? And I was like, no, I'm going to pay them in full. I have it saved. So it's [00:27:45] truly tremendous value.
So if there's anything that you are Repeatedly, consistently procrastinating on, you hate doing it, you're not great at it. That's the first thing. And if you think that it takes long to do the [00:28:00] tutorial, then think of how long it takes when you have to sort out the mess. Because to me, it takes hundred times longer.
So just to give you a few more examples, building a sales page, I pay someone [00:28:15] 20 an hour to do that. House cleaning, 10 an hour. professional cleaning at my academy when I had the physical space, I was so resistant. Okay, I got the window cleaner, but I was like, [00:28:30] I can't have the whole place cleaned.
And then we had a bigger place with, four classrooms and then a library, then a, this entry space. I was resisting so much on getting someone's help on that. [00:28:45] And in the end, in the end we got professional help.
There is an association here in Granada called Asprogrades., they take care of Giving jobs to people with mental [00:29:00] disabilities who can take care of actually many things and one of them is office cleaning. So they are the association we ordered professional cleaning from.
And the members came [00:29:15] to us first with the supervisor to get trained to take care of our office spaces, and then later on they took care of the job by themselves And did an amazing job and it was one of the best ever [00:29:30] delegation experiences I have ever had.
And that inspired me to do much more of this.
So when you are like, who could do it for you? Don't just look at conventional channels to find [00:29:45] help, to find someone to take care of it. Look at all the opportunities around you. We even had a student exchange program through Erasmus Plus with students from France coming [00:30:00] and working at our premises in exchange for being trained on how to run a small business.
That was also an amazing experience and they helped us so much and we've all learned so much. And they've all [00:30:15] learned tons from that experience. And if you are worried that it won't be the same as if you did that,
then think of it this way. It won't. But by not doing it yourself, you are actually [00:30:30] opening up to a possibility for it to be done way better than if you did it. Like I said, I love when everyone on the team does what they love doing and what they are best at.
And [00:30:45] that allows me to do what I love doing and what I'm best at., I hope this inspires you to start thinking of the next area you're going to be delegating. It also helps when you... Share it [00:31:00] somewhere. So if you are inside our Stronger Together community, definitely come and share it there.
If you want to send me a message, just message me wherever we are connected. I would love to hear from you.
And what if something goes wrong? [00:31:15] Because you might be like... If someone else does it, things might get screwed up. And I gotta tell you, things will get screwed up, but what I repeatedly told my teachers when they were [00:31:30] devastated when something went wrong at our school,
as educators, yes, our responsibility is huge, but we are not working in an operating room where someone can actually die on the table. [00:31:45] So whatever we screw up with a payment, a registration, group hours, those things can always be sorted. And yeah, what happened this week to us was one of my [00:32:00] VAs deleted the entire product of 21 Days to CEO inside my Kajabi platform with 90 people on it, 27 people actively actually going through the course these [00:32:15] days.
Of course, I was pretty anxious because we've been working a lot together with Irina to make this product into what it is today. It was also my first [00:32:30] gamified product with the amazing badges that we have inside it. So I really love it. So. When I saw it gone, I was like, what the hell? And there was actually a copy of it on the [00:32:45] page.
But it had no people. So we lost all the student progress. And yeah, literally everything that we and our students have done since July on it. Because [00:33:00] that was when we first published it. And I could say that I'm done. I'm not outsourcing, delegating anything. I'm gonna do it by myself, and then this won't happen. Or if it [00:33:15] happens, at least I will make the mistakes, so I won't be angry at others, so I won't be depending on others. but that's not the way I'm gonna go about this what I also see in this situation is that[00:33:30] we are lucky that she deleted The free challenge.
This is a free challenge. It has a 37 VIP version and At the same time she could have deleted the 2, 000 jump program[00:33:45] on which we have amazing comments from the last three years Which I would have gone mad if that gets deleted and there is also another learning Our backup [00:34:00] system, and yeah, Kajabi's backup system is a question mark.
They were able to finally restore this product with all the progress, so we only had to rework the email sequence that's tied to it, so the links are correct. [00:34:15] But should this happen on a bigger scale, we really need a better backup system of our own, so we don't have to rely on them to bring it back.
For example, the content of my courses, [00:34:30] besides the video lessons, there is also a lot of text inside those courses, which I wouldn't want to lose. And Yeah, another thing I'm super grateful of, that this person didn't delete a product of [00:34:45] my client. I have clients who have products that make like 42, 000 a month.
Imagine you delete that subscription with all the people who are on that subscription. So there's definitely bigger damage that can be [00:35:00] done here. This reasonably small damage, actually helps us improve our processes, helps us avoid it in the future, or enables us to be able to recover this kind of stuff more [00:35:15] easily and without having to be for two days with support online because we have ways to actually.
back those things up better. So that was our learning. So my idea here is definitely not, oh my god, I'm [00:35:30] never gonna delegate anything ever again. I'm gonna delegate more, but I'm gonna do it better. Yeah?
So this is my message to you that even when something goes wrong, That's not a reason to stop or take steps back, that's [00:35:45] a reason to look at how you can do better, how you can do better next time, how they can do better next time, and keep going. Alright? I hope I have been able to bring you value today with this episode.[00:36:00]
I would love to hear your opinion, so definitely let me know, reach out, if you have something to share. And if you haven't done 21 Days to CEO yet, then this is your moment. It's back now, it's [00:36:15] all yours, so take it, go for it, and I'll see you in there.
Have a beautiful day. Bye for now.
