Episode Summary

In this episode of the Make Space for More podcast, Melissa Swink tackles a challenge many growing businesses face: Effective delegation. Because when delegation isn't working, it's usually not a people problem; it's a process problem. You’ll learn about the foundational systems that transform delegation from a simple task handoff into a strategic business advantage. Melissa explains how proper systems bridge the crucial gap between expectation and execution. Discover practical insights on implementing tools, documenting standard operating procedures (SOPs), and leveraging templates that create clarity and consistency. 

Whether you're struggling with delegation right now or looking to scale your business more effectively in the future, this episode provides actionable strategies to build support systems that enable sustainable growth. Learn how to create an environment where your team feels empowered, tasks are completed independently, and your business can truly scale, all through the power of systematic delegation.

Key Highlights:

• Process gaps, not people problems, are often the hidden barrier to successful delegation - addressing these systematically transforms team performance.
• Effective delegation requires a strategic foundation of tools, templates, and SOPs that bridge the gap between expectation and execution.
• When you build robust systems around delegation, you create a self-sustaining cycle of team empowerment and reduced management overhead.
• Strategic documentation transforms tribal knowledge into scalable processes, enabling faster onboarding and consistent results.
• Implementing the right project management tools creates clarity, accountability, and measurable outcomes for both leaders and team members.
• Creating systematic handoff processes ensures your team understands not just the “what” but the crucial “how” and “why” behind tasks and responsibilities.
•  Well-designed templates and SOPs serve as silent team members, working 24/7 to maintain consistency and reduce decision fatigue.
• Building delegation support systems isn't just about task management. It’s about creating a framework for sustainable business growth and scalability. 

About Melissa:

Melissa Swink, Founder & CEO of Melissa Swink & Co., has a team of virtual assistants who provide administrative and marketing support for small businesses and non-profits.

Since 2012, Melissa and her team have helped more than 100 businesses grow through the services they offer, and she is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs create profitable, scalable businesses they love.

Her work is all about doing what works (and eliminating what doesn’t) and driving real, measurable results. Visit www.melissaswink.com to learn more! 

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Hi everyone, welcome to the Make Space for More podcast where we talk strategies for growing and scaling your business in a way that's authentic and aligned for you. I'm your host, Melissa Swink, and in today's episode, we're gonna talk about systems that support delegation, tools, SOPs, and templates that work. And why are we talking about systems and tools and why are they important for delegation?

I have owned a virtual assistant services company for about 13 years now. I've worked primarily on my own for the first six years of owning my company. I now have a team at this recording of about 25 people, including myself. I have worked with a variety of clients. I have worked with a variety of team members over the years. And I can honestly tell you that oftentimes when things aren't going well, it's often not a people issue.

it's usually a process or a systems issue. There's oftentimes just this little gap that is missing that once we fill that gap, things just work so much better and so much more smoothly. And I really think that it's the key for having a team that functions like a well-oiled machine. To demonstrate my point, I wanna share with you a story from a previous client that we've used to work with. It's been a couple of years now, but.

Our team was working with her on a variety of marketing tasks, social media, email newsletters, blogs, and things like that. And she got very frustrated with our team because she said, I keep having to go in and fix my email newsletters. And we're like, tell us more. We want to get your feedback. Well, it turned out that her software that she was using for email marketing had the ability to do A and B subject lines.

and our team was only writing one main subject line. So she would review the emails, approve the content, and then for whatever reason, she would go back in on the back end to maybe take a look at it one more time and then notice that the B subject line wasn't filled in and she got really frustrated about this. Over and over and again, week after week, she was going in and filling in the subject line and just it got to a point where she just kind of had some bottled up frustration and my team and I actually,

once she had expressed her frustration, invited her to a call and I shared with her the same thing I just shared with you, like, hey, let's identify what's going on with this process because she still hadn't articulated exactly what was going wrong with the email newsletters. So once she explained to us that she was going in and seeing that this B subject line was constantly missing, we went, okay, wait a minute. I can tell you honestly,

that very few of our clients, even to this day, use AB subject lines. They usually just have one main subject line and they send out their email newsletter. But this client wanted one step, one next step of having an AB subject line, a secondary subject line. So what we did was once that light bulb got turned on, like, okay, that sounds great. We can help you with that. What we did then was we went into her email newsletter templated document. So we had an internal document.

where we had the email content basically written out and then images linked before we would populate that into the system. That's where our content writers were actually writing the email newsletters and sending them off for approval. So what we did was we put subject line A and then subject line B into that template and the client was thrilled. It was just, it was that simple fix that all we had to do is modify our templates so that

It was very clear to those writing the emails that we need two subject lines. And so when I think back on it, there was so much frustration on our client's part and our team had no idea that this needed to be done. And so by fixing and making one small modification to a simple tool, like a document template, then it was able to solve that issue.

And so today, what we're gonna do is we're gonna outline foundational systems that make delegation smoother, faster, and more successful. Because before I dive into the three keys that support successful delegation, I wanna talk about why delegation breaks down without systems. And again, I just shared that example where there's a lot of...

unnecessary frustration and she was going in and fixing it and our team had no idea until it kind of all came to a head and it was just the simplest fix. So you might recognize some of these warning signs or you might even, you know, be listening to that story and humorously being like, yeah, I've had that happen before. I've gone in and fixed things that my team has done and I've done it over and over and over. And after a while I start feeling resentful. We don't want any of that.

So some of the signs that delegation might be breaking down without systems is maybe you try to delegate something, but it just doesn't get done or it doesn't get done well. Maybe it kind of slips through the cracks where all of a sudden you hand something off and then you never hear about it again and then you randomly remember it one day and you're like, hey, whatever happened with that? And then the person's like, okay, this and that and the other.

okay, gotcha. You know what I'm talking about? Like where it's like, hey, did we ever hear back from so and so? I sent them that email three weeks ago, but no, I guess they haven't responded. know, lack of a system, lack of a follow through. And we'll talk about how to fix that in a moment. We're not jumping to solutions yet, but maybe this rings a bell for you. Or maybe again, like our client, she got that email draft and was like, there's information missing. I need to fill this in.

They don't know what they're doing. They're not doing what I'm asking them to do. You know, where it's not quite getting done well. So it's not getting done or it's not getting done well. Or maybe you're experiencing a lot of questions from your team members or your VA or some other freelancer, independent contractor that you're working with, you know, where you feel like, gosh, by the time I explained all these things and answered all these questions, I probably could have just gotten it done myself, right? Lots of questions.

And also you have to finish not done tasks. Like maybe you're going back in and you're polishing an email or you're going back in and you're polishing a blog because it's not quite knocking it out of the park. Or maybe your team has prepared a proposal for a potential client and you are going back in and polishing and making some changes before that actually goes out. So you're the one kind of finishing, you know, projects and tasks that are like 95 % complete.

but you're taking it across the finish line and you wish you weren't. There is a distinct difference because I want to just address that there are times that I will ask my team to draft something. Please start drafting our new process for team payments. That's a real example. That happened. I worked with one of our senior VAs to kind of revamp this process. And I was not expecting her to suddenly become an expert in our internal bookkeeping practices.

I just needed her to start drafting the document based on what we talked about and the changes that we were planning to make. And then that way I was able to take that draft, work with our bookkeeper, and then continue to bring it across the finish line. That I specifically asked my team to get it started with the intention that I was going to be finishing it. So what I'm talking about here is those things that you hand off and you feel like they're 98 % there, but maybe you've got a...

fill in one more space or you've got to fill in one more dollar amount before that form is completely filled out. That sort of a thing. And I just want to address that delegation is not just handing off work, even though for those of us control freaks, and I'm raising my hand here, that feels like the hardest part is letting go, but that it's not quite that simple. Delegation is also handing off the how and the why that something needs to get done. So you need to kind of

Bring it bring more clarity to the task or project that you're handing up. You know, why is this important? Why are we doing this? We're revamping our team process because I want to be able to cross train our T our our team bookkeeper So that she can execute team payments if I'm not available, right? That's a risk for the company that is putting all our eggs in one basket That's why we want to start this project Here's how we're gonna carry out that project and having those conversations and taking that next step

not just, need you to do this. And then there's no other conversation or context around it. And then I also wanna share with you that with these common concerns that I just shared, again, systems often will fill the gap between expectation and execution. So if you have an idea of what this task or project should look like when it's completed, this is going to help clarify that so that the execution that your team does on your behalf

actually meets kind of that original expectation, if that makes sense. So with all of that in mind, I want to talk about three key supports for successful delegation. And the first one is tools. So what we want is we want to be able to assign, we want to be able to track, and we want to be able to manage tasks. And there's a variety of, excuse me, I'll be more specific, tools that can help us do that.

So first of all, having a project management tool is critical. It is something that I talk about frequently on this podcast. I talk to potential clients about this frequently when they are interested in potentially working with our team. Is one of the common questions that I ask is how are you keeping track of all of your to-dos? How are you keeping track of all your team's to-dos and where everything is at? And you'd be surprised at how often they're using maybe spreadsheets.

or maybe even just having regular team meetings, but they don't actually have a system that is designed to assign tasks, to create projects, and to determine timelines and due dates, and hold all the information related to those tasks and projects and deliverables in one place. So having a project management tool is critical. As I've mentioned many times before,

Our team uses Asana. We use that for all of our client projects and all of our internal projects as well. And every task in there has an assignee and it also has a due date. The cool thing is, that we're also able to set recurring tasks. Not every system can do that, or at least it's not as intuitive as it should be in my opinion. But you know, if every week we want somebody to go in and repeat this step.

then we can set that recurring task and so on. So that is one tool that is absolutely essential. Another one is file sharing, using things like Dropbox or Google Docs or gosh, I'm thinking of the Microsoft one. I'm not a Microsoft girl anymore. I left that behind with my corporate days, but I know Microsoft also has, is it SharePoint? Don't come after me that I can't name the exact Microsoft tool, but you get the idea. What we need to do,

is we need to make sure that our team has access to the information that they need in order to complete the work that we're asking them to do. They also need to have ways of collaborating in a file sharing type of a system as well. And then lastly, one tool, and you're going to hear about this one twice in this list, but you've heard me talk about it many times before. Don't come after me. Another tool that I love for assigning work is Loom.

So oftentimes what I will do is I will record a brief screen share video with my team and say, here is the project, here is, again, the background information on it, here's how I suggest that we get this thing done. And I can walk through and share my screen and show examples of what I'm looking for.

or start to outline and show them where they can pull the information from in order to get the job done. And it's just really, really easy. And it saves me from having to call another meeting and have conversations in real time. So that is one tool, again, that I can use for assigning tasks. That's also great for providing feedback as well. So for one example, if I have our graphic designer create a PDF document about

maybe a new program we're going to be offering, what I can do is I can pull up a Loom video, or I should say I could use Loom to create a video, pull up the PDF draft that she created and show her like, we make this bigger? Can we make this smaller? Can we change this color from this to that and so on? And then it's just very visual rather than writing out a super long email trying to describe visually what changes need to be made to that project. So those are some of the key tools.

that I love to use and certainly encourage all of our clients to use as well. Another key support for successful delegation is SOPs. Don't glaze over, I'm gonna share some really easy ways in order to do this, but the importance of having documented SOPs is that you need to have an outline of how something needs to get done. That's ultimately in the long run going to save you a lot of time and energy. It's also going to provide for easy training.

If you need to cross train a team member on taking over the task, or if you have a team member leave and you need to have a new person come in and have them pick up where they left off, super easy when you have SOPs. Or I should say, the onboarding period and the training period is still there. So certainly sometimes there's some slower efficiency as someone's learning a new task, but the bones are there to work from.

you're not going to be starting from scratch explaining how to do the task all over again. So what am I talking about with SOPs? So certainly you can just create a simple document of here are the steps in order to get this task done. I mentioned Loom before. I'm going to mention it again. I frequently use Loom to record a video how to get something done. And we do this for so many of our repetitive tasks that we're doing on

a daily, weekly, monthly basis, quarterly basis, and so on. Loom is great for recording how a task needs to get done. And I want to share with you if you're thinking, my gosh, I have enough on my plate already. I really just don't have the time to create these SOPs. Or maybe you're like, okay, I got it. I know that it's important that I have this, but it's always something that gets put on the back burner. And that's very, very common.

My recommendation is to ask your team to create these or at least get them drafted and then have you put the finishing touches on it. Have you review it, maybe make any changes that need to be made, clarifications that need to be made, and then use that. These are living breathing documents, by the way. I feel like there's some frustration that happens when a client or even internally where we spend a lot of time documenting a process and we create that loom video.

And then the software that we were demonstrating or mentioning in the instructions, maybe they do an update and the screen looks different now and this is over here, or now this is called that where it used to be this. And you know what I'm talking about. These are living, breathing documents. They're not going to be 100 % perfect 100 % of the time, but they're going to be a really good starting point in comparison to having nothing. So have your team help you create these.

or watch you when you're cross-training someone, have them record the call if you're doing a cross-training call. Have them make notes on their computer as you're going through and writing down the process, as you're showing them. This can be definitely a two or more person job, trust me. Okay, lastly, a key to support successful delegation is templates. I'm a huge fan of templates.

they just increase speed, they increase efficiency, and just overall consistency when it comes to the regular ongoing things that we're doing in the business. So a couple of examples of templates. Email is number one. If you are regularly sending a similar email to respond to a similar type of inquiry or a similar type of message that's coming through, go ahead and systematize it. I'm gonna give you some personal examples that I have.

in my own inbox. We are very blessed that our business primarily grows through referral. I have a template that's created that thanks the person who's making the introduction and then introduces myself to the person who has not met me before and I'm inviting them to have a conversation so we can get to know each other better. I can learn more about their company.

and share a little bit more about how our team works. And then I have, also, you know, if it's easier for them, I have a link to our Calendly. And then I just kind of close out the email with, you know, looking forward to meeting you. I say the same things over and over and over again, when these introductions are made. Again, I'm super grateful for all of them, by the way, for those listening who have referred business to us. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. And I also don't need to retype that entire message every single time.

So what I do is I have a templated response that I can just click and then the bulk of, I should say the baseline of the email is there, the bulk of the message is there, and then I just go through and tweak and customize it as I need to. It's not something that I need to build up from scratch. Another email template that we use, there are so many, honestly, but when we have a new team member coming on board, I have a welcome email.

that is a template that I can just click, I can fill in their name, I can fill in their start date, I can fill in the person's name who's going to be training them, and all the information, I can just go through and fill in that information rather than retype the entire email every time. Same thing happens when we have a new client come on board. We have a welcome email that goes out to our client and introduces them to the team members they're going to be working with. Those are all templated emails. Just to give you a few examples,

I could probably talk an entire day about the email templates that we have. And by the way, if you would be interested in hearing more about the details of all the different email templates we have built out, certainly send me an email, hello at melissaswink.com and let me know that I'd be happy to record that for you guys. Okay, more templates that I recommend having. Onboarding checklists, this is huge. This is going to go for team members. This is also going to go for clients. We wanna make sure that we have

a consistent process throughout the board, whether it be new team member journey, client journey, we want that consistency, we want that clarity. So onboarding checklists are huge. Also content calendars is something that I thought about as well when we think about templates, because I know that even in our business, we do marketing work for a variety of clients. So we have, generally speaking, Google Sheets, basically, that we use to create

custom content calendars for our clients. And that's how we outline what type of content is going out and when we can see kind of the common themes throughout the course of a month. That's where clients can offer feedback before we ultimately create this content and get it sent out to the various channels that they're gonna be going out to. So having content calendars are gonna be huge as well. Lastly, proposals. I do have a couple of templated

documents and spreadsheets that I use for when we send out proposals to potential clients. So that just, you know, again, has the bulk of the things that we want to include, what we want to say, but then we're just able to drop in very specifically client's name, business name, the types of deliverables that they're looking for from our team, what start dates we're looking at, all that can be filled in, but we do have a template that we use in

It just makes it so much easier and so much quicker to get those sent out. So tools, SOPs and templates are the three key supports for successful delegation. So all of that being said, just to bring everything to clarification for you and kind of bring this to a conclusion is, you know, we want to talk about the benefits of building these supports because this is not a simple undertaking. I should say it's not a difficult undertaking.

It is a fairly simple undertaking, but it can be time consuming. It can require some time and effort on your part and your team's part in order to build all of this up. So why do we want to spend the time on this? So as I mentioned, honestly, it just helps you and your team get working together like a well-oiled machine. And so what exactly does that mean? It means that tasks can be completed independently because it is very clear

This is what done looks like. This is the task. This is the why behind it. Here are all the steps to get it done. This is what done looks like. So there is less of a need for team members to ask you questions or ask for your input or have you reviewed something before it is officially final or marked complete. Requires a lot less management on your part, which means that you can spend more time being the CEO of your company. We don't want to be babysitting people.

We don't want to be managing projects. mean, we're all in a different part of our delegation journey and our scaling journey, but I can tell you that that's not a place that you can live in sustainably forever if you're continuing to grow into scale. We also can enjoy some faster team onboarding and really client results too. I'm going to go ahead and say client onboarding in there as well, because when we have things really systematized and buttoned up, I think that

getting a new team member up and running with working with your team successfully happens faster. think that clients get their results faster when you are well organized and have these things in place. I would also say that your team is more empowered and efficient because they know exactly what needs to get done and they're able to just take full ownership of these tasks and projects that you are delegating to them. And then lastly, generally speaking, having systems

creates business resilience and scalability because you can be, you're not gonna be spending your time reinventing the wheel every time you need to do this task. And you're also, again, able to, you're able to just work more closely with your team and have that experience overall be more efficient for you and also your clients as well. And also, again, if we're reinventing the wheel every time,

or you are constantly answering questions, or if you are constantly having to dot the T, dot the I's and cross the T's on every project that goes out, that's just not scalable because again, that puts you in the place of being the bottleneck. So all of that to say delegation isn't just about hiring, it's about building support around the handoff itself. So I wanna hear from you.

Etara, everything that you heard me talk about today, what is one task that you plan to systematize with either a tool or an SOP or a template or maybe kind of a combination of all three depending on how large that task is? I would love to hear from you. Please send me an email. Hello at melissaswing.com. Let me know what is one thing that you are going to work on systematizing this week.

Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. I hope that you found it helpful with practical information and stories and strategies that not only does my team use, but we also use with our clients as well. And I will be back next week with another episode of Make Space for More. Have a wonderful day, everyone. Bye-bye.