The delegation hack that eliminates endless questions!

Are you tired of endless emails and confusing task requests slowing down your team? I get it. Delegating can be a nightmare—misunderstandings, constant follow-ups, and wasted time. But what if you could eliminate all that with one simple tool?

In this episode, Alane Boyd and Micah Johnson share their favorite quick win for delegating tasks without the frustration: video-based communication. Whether it’s a quick Loom video explaining what needs to be done or a team member showing you what they’ve completed, this approach cuts down on confusion, saves time, and gets things done faster.

What’s more, these simple videos can serve as reusable systems that make delegation and feedback a breeze, helping you scale faster and more efficiently.

Here’s what you’ll get from this episode:

• How to delegate tasks in a way that eliminates confusion and saves time
• Why video feedback from your team will make your life easier
• The secret to building SOPs that are simple and scalable with videos

If you're ready to stop wasting time on miscommunication and start working smarter, this episode is for you.

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For more information, visit our website at biggestgoal.ai.

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Transcript

0:00:00 - (Alane): Welcome to Automate Your Agency. Every week we bring you expert insights, practical tips and success stories that will help you streamline your business operations and boost your growth. Let's get started on your journey to more efficient and scalable operations.

0:00:18 - (Micah): So, Alane, this topic is a my favorite quick win that I like to share with our clients or basically anybody that'll listen to me talk.

0:00:30 - (Alane): Well, what is it?

0:00:32 - (Micah): It is the whole concept of when you're trying to delegate or when you're trying to give something, make a request of somebody on your team that you don't just make a task, give it a task name and leave it at that. It's that you actually use loom or another video recording type solution and talk just like this. Like I'm going to walk through exactly what I need done. Blah, blah, blah, blah blah. Here's the video, here's the, you know, step one, step two, step three, I'm sharing my screen.

0:01:07 - (Micah): It eliminates so much back and forth, so much time and so many questions on the person for or from the person who's getting the request.

0:01:17 - (Alane): I, I do love this one too. And you feel like it's redundant in the beginning and you feel like it's unneeded and you're like, why would I waste time doing this? Well, that I quickly learned is not the correct way. That even though it's a two to five minute loom video or maybe shorter, it feels redundant because we feel like we already articulated that in the task. Completely different for the person receiving it and getting to hear the extra thoughts that you had that you don't realize that you're even maybe saying anything.

0:01:52 - (Micah): Yeah. I tell you what, I don't know if you've had the same situation happen to you, but every time I don't do this, then it's like I'm going to spend 10 times the amount answering the questions that I thought were obvious in lieu of just recording a one and a half minute long video, just explaining what I'm looking for. That's it.

0:02:15 - (Alane): Yeah. That's why I don't think it's a waste of time at all because you save like for every minute worth of Planning is like 10 minutes saved or something like that. I can't remember what the time correlation is, but that extra couple of minutes does save 10x the amount of time by just explaining what you're thinking and what you want.

0:02:38 - (Micah): Yeah, I mean it is my favorite and I'm still guilty of not doing it because I still think do I really need to do it? For this one. But it's such a good habit to get into. And it is one of my best tips that I love to hand out. But that's just part one of the tip. Alane.

0:02:55 - (Alane): Yeah. Okay. What's part two?

0:02:57 - (Micah): The exact same thing, but from the person who you delegated or made the request of. They record a video back on what they did and what they built, and just basically a walkthrough video. So if they created a document, if they created a spreadsheet, if they created a marketing asset design or draft. Right. Have them record a video walking you through what they built. And again, it does the inverse. It saves you so much time from asking all these questions.

0:03:31 - (Alane): So this is something you've been doing for longer because of working with our development team or production team where they are explaining a solution that they built so that we're able to articulate it to clients. And I started doing this more recently with my team because I didn't have the time to meet with them. I'm running in between so many meetings, so many things that I needed them to articulate what their findings were, what they did, what they wanted my feedback on. And so, so I started doing that where they're recording a loom on what they did, explaining it.

0:04:07 - (Alane): Whatever feedback they need from me is then articulated in context. And my favorite thing that most team members know about me is I do not like to read long winded things. So if you give me a four paragraph thing to read through, I like, I'm shutting down. I can't do it unless you give it to me in three bullets. Like, I can't do it, but I can watch a video, pick up what you're putting down, and then give you the feedback I need. And I mean loom, we have no affiliation with LOOM other than we use it and we love it.

0:04:39 - (Alane): But even being able to comment on the video where they have questions, it's like another extra time saver where like they're asking a question. Hey, I'm not sure about this. Okay, let me just put it in right there. But I'm also giving positive affirmations too, like, man, what you just did here is brilliant. It's awesome. And they get to see that. That was awesome where they built it so they know what they're doing. Right? So I feel like just like from a person that you're delegating to that wants to make you happy and do a good job, that this really does dot a lot of I's and cross.

0:05:13 - (Micah): A lot of T's, Yeah, I, I, you know, I didn't even think of, like I could add a part three to this now because what you just said reminded me. And I kind of just have been taking it for granted because I've been doing it for a while with the team. But I find that, and I'd love to hear if you're, if you see that on your, you know, your team and what they're sending you back. But when they send you looms, sometimes they ask questions to you in the looms like they haven't quite figured out. They're like, well, it's thinking about going this way, but maybe I'd go that way.

0:05:48 - (Micah): You're able to answer that in a comment in the loom in context. So like it's almost like asynchronous meeting and communication where instead of having the meeting and then spending 30 minutes going, well, I was thinking about this and here's the thing that I made. It's five minutes and then you get to watch it on, oh wait, this is part four. Watch it on 2x speed. So we now have four parts to this quick win solution.

0:06:16 - (Alane): The 2x speed too. Because you can't communicate in 2x speed unless it's in a video.

0:06:22 - (Micah): So some people communicate at 0.5x speed, but there's not too many people that communicate at 2x.

0:06:29 - (Alane): Yes, I mean, there's fast talkers, but still that you're able to get through these like asynchronous meetings if you want, in half the time because you can put it on a faster speed. I don't always like putting things at 2x. Sometimes I put it at 1.7 if they're a fast talker. So, you know, give or take 1 1/2.

0:06:50 - (Micah): I listen to things on 2x from our team members so much that when I speak to them normally, not in a video, I'm like that. They don't sound right. Something sounds funny. Why are they talking so slow?

0:07:04 - (Alane): Oh my gosh, that is terrible. So one of the things that I also do with this is sometimes I'm a bit long winded if I'm trying to explain something. And it was something recent where I wanted some updates to our webflow website. And so I was basically walking through what changes I wanted and then moving forward. Let's use this as a structure. And so it was, I might, it might have been 12 minutes long, which is a long video for me.

0:07:32 - (Alane): So I took that transcript and I from the video and I supplemented the video with a checklist. I asked ChatGPT to create a checklist for future times so that there was a framework for that person. And I use that same thing too with our team. So if I send them and I'm like, hey, to make sure you caught everything, you can run this transcript through trans, through ChatGPT or whatever AI you want to use and make sure all the questions are answered. And what I'm trying to do is get them in the habit of doing that because I don't always want to have to do that step myself.

0:08:11 - (Alane): So if I always do it for them, then they're not going to do it. So hey, make sure you guys should catch everything, ask it to create a checklist for you. Bam, bam, bam. It's done.

0:08:22 - (Micah): Yeah. Well, and I think this, part 5 I think I'm up to now.

0:08:26 - (Alane): Yeah.

0:08:27 - (Micah): Is once you get good at recording these types of videos. These are perfect for SOPs. Like you can make a baseline SOP with a single video and just give that to your team to watch, to repeat and reference every time they're trying to do something, every time they're trying to learn something.

0:08:48 - (Alane): Yep.

0:08:49 - (Micah): So easy.

0:08:50 - (Alane): I mean we have them in our arvo playbooks, we have them pinned in ClickUp at the top of a list. Description or project. Like these are housed in so many places along with a written step by step guide because it walks you through how to do something and you're not having to recreate the wheel, reinvent the wheel.

0:09:09 - (Micah): Either one works.

0:09:10 - (Alane): Yeah.

0:09:12 - (Micah): So I will say, you know, I've spoken to a lot of people about this, this tactic and, and you know, sometimes there's a little, I wouldn't say pushback, but fear. You know who you are. No, I'm just kidding. I don't, I don't know who. I just, I thought that would be very dramatic for this episode. Yeah. So no, it's. And I have to admit, I do know who I am. I was super scared. I don't know if you remember this, Alane, but when we first started using Loom, I would be on like take seven for one one and a half minute video. It was effing awful.

0:09:54 - (Micah): I hated it. I did not want to do it. I was completely opposed to getting video involved in our workflows. I just did not see the value. Who wants to watch a frickin video when you can just read something? But I'm, I'm all in now and it only takes me six takes to do a one minute. Just kidding.

0:10:16 - (Alane): You don't even edit.

0:10:17 - (Micah): You just like I go in after it. And that's it. And whatever happens, happens. It's a very big. I'm a risk taker now.

0:10:28 - (Alane): You are. And it is a muscle to exercise. It takes practice to get to, like, to hear your voice. Takes practice to be able to succinctly say things even though, like, we all ramble on them. But I've had to be like, okay, what am I actually trying to get? What's my goal of this video? So that I'm more organized when I'm articulating things. And my God, I was trying to think, when did we even start this?

0:10:53 - (Micah): This was like years, years ago.

0:10:55 - (Alane): It's been years because we've been using it as part of our complete request for years now. But I don't even remember what we were, what we said, like, why this was going to be a change for us. We started doing it and it worked. And I don't know what happened in between.

0:11:11 - (Micah): I think we were trying to just communicate, but I don't remember either. Once we had the team do it back to us, that's when everything that was game changing. That's when everything changed. You know, just going back for the people that, you know, maybe are a little hesitant to record themselves on video, there's. There's another option here, which is you don't even have to have your camera on. It can just record your voice and record your screen, and it's not even showing you in there. So, you know, if you're still in your PJs and you get the idea to record something, don't worry about it. If your hair is messy like mine is today, don't worry about it.

0:11:50 - (Micah): You can just go right after it, turn the camera off, and you can't change your voice. So don't worry about that part. And if you really do screw up, it's easy enough in Loom to go back and just cut out pieces and clip it right out. You know, if you have a big loud burp because you're drinking grape soda, it's fine. Clip it out.

0:12:12 - (Alane): Nobody's even getting jokes today, Micah.

0:12:15 - (Micah): Well, I want to keep this interesting. This is like the world's second most boring topic, so I thought I'd liven it up a bit.

0:12:24 - (Alane): Yeah, well, and loom, really, like, we are big advocates. We've been using Loom for years and it is so simple to use. And I love the updates that they've been doing with adding the comments, the transcription. They're in place. Like, there's just so many little things. The URLs are embeddable. Like it just so simple. I think about back in the day Micah, when I started doing this for clients because we were doing social media and reputation management for car dealerships and clients were just like we were speaking another language and how difficult it was.

0:13:00 - (Alane): I would. I would start a loom or not a loom, I'm sorry, a zoom. Too close of words. I would start a zoom by myself and record me walking them through something, download the recording, put it in Dropbox and send them the URL. And even that was just like they were so grateful when I would do that because it would help explain things and hear my voice instead of a typed email. But how with this technology?

0:13:25 - (Alane): Oh my gosh, like every business needs to be using a loom or loom equivalent.

0:13:30 - (Micah): Yep, yep, I totally agree. All right, so there's a five part quick win tip for this episode for.

0:13:39 - (Alane): Systemizing and delegating in your business. Thanks for listening to this episode of Automate Your Agency. We hope you're inspired to take your business to the next level. Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and leave us a review. Your feedback helps us improve and reach more listeners. If you're looking for more resources, visit our website at biggestgoal.ai for free content and tools for automating your business.

0:14:03 - (Alane): Join us next week as we dive into more ways to automate and scale your business. Bye for now.