When you hire your first staff person you will lose money!

It’s unavoidable! So how can you lose less money when you hire an assistant? I’m not just talking about their salary, but more importantly, potential income. When you hire someone you have to train them. The time you take to train them is the time you lose prospecting, hence the loss of income. While seeing a dent in your income is unavoidable, you can control the size of that dent, significantly.

Something else you have to deal with is delegation.

You started your business yourself. You know exactly how you want things done because what you’ve been doing, works! It’s working so well that it’s time to get an assistant. Is it going to be a little tough to let go? Many people have a problem with delegation. If you want things done right, do them yourself! Right? Not any more. Now you have to trust someone else to do it right. The question is, is there a way to do it so that they get it right too?

Using Activity Plans/Workflows tackles both of these!

Before there was software, I was an operations manager in a computer room and print shop. One challenge was to make sure the people on my team knew what was expected of them. It was either verbal training or an operations manual. Both took a lot of time. When I was an agent, the same challenge applied.

If you’re using a CRM and Activity Plans/Workflows, you can create an operations manual, but it’s a very different kind of operations manual. A conventional operations manual is essentially a book that you create that details every action that everyone must take and exactly how to do it. The problem with a conventional operations manual is that day-to-day details change, frequently. Then you have to go back to the manual and make the necessary changes. Then you have to distribute it. As much of a pain as that is, the more difficult part is getting people to read the changes as they are made.

If you’re using a CRM with the right capabilities, that changes dramatically. When you’re creating an activity in an Activity Plan/Workflow, there is spot to make informational notes. In the Activity, you can say how you need it to be accomplished in detail. You can even add scripts if the activity calls for it!

If possible, the goal is to have your Activity Plans/Workflows created before you hire your first staff member, even if it’s a buyer agent.

If you have them set up before you hire anyone, you’ll save a tremendous amount of time. The new person will have a to-do list with explanations in each activity about how to complete it.

Another benefit is that you only have to change that activity and you don’t have to distribute those changes. The next time a staff member opens that activity in their to-do list, the new instructions will be there. This is far more efficient and effective.

The bottom line is that training and delegation take much more time if you do it without activity plans/workflows. If you want to minimize the loss of income when you hire new staff, introduce to a well defined set of steps, replete with instructions on how to accomplish them. Take control of your business plans. Remember the old axiom; failing to plan is planning to fail!

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