Every small business eventually grows to a point where it is difficult to hire people into the roles you need to fill, they have not come through the ranks and do not know your systems inside and out, and yet it is difficult to grow your current team into the roles that need to be filled.

We spend a lot of time at Everon promoting from within and making our star performers responsible for key roles in the organization. This has worked well for us over time but it can be difficult at times as well. We all have a shortage of time in our week and it is hard to make sure you are slowing down enough to train those who will need to fill the key roles your business needs.

At Everon a majority of this development falls to Mike and me and over time, largely in part to Mike’s focus on development, we have done a good job. As we grow the personal mentoring becomes more difficult and we moved to a group roll playing model that also works well.

At this point we have outgrown this model as getting large portions of the team together for role playing can be difficult and running the same sessions multiple times can be time consuming.

We have started looking at online recorded training for our team and I am curious what other methods have worked well for you all over time. Any suggestions and ideas would be appreciated and as always feel free to email me directly if you prefer not reply on the site.

Hope you had a great Memorial Day weekend, now get back to work!

Josh

I often find that when I am frustrated someone is not doing what I want them to be doing or they are not doing a task how I would expect them to do it the reason is often because I have not clearly outlined my expectations for the person I have delegated the task to.

 

These are some good guidelines to keep in mind from the folks at e-myth:

 

If you keep doing all the little daily tasks that you’ve always done, then you’ll forever be trapped doing them and never free up the time to work on your business. If letting go of these tasks is a bit daunting (and sometimes it is, especially if you’ve always done it and have your particular way of doing it) then take gradual steps.

 

First, identify a task that you want to delegate.

Document the correct way to perform this task, step by step, including the quality control standards for each step. (At E-Myth we call this type of system document an Action Plan.)

 

Clearly specify the expected results of the delegated task. Give information on what, why, when, who, where and how.

 

Have someone follow your Action Plan. Maintain open lines of communication. Don’t micro-manage, but make sure that you are kept in the loop on progress and performance. Then revise your document until you are both comfortable with it.

 

Delegate the responsibility. When the new system document is ready, provide it to the employee responsible for that task, train them on how to successfully run this “system” and insert a copy of this process document into your company’s Operations Manual.

 

Repeat these steps on every task you wish to delegate.

 

Delegation is a critical component in the development of a business that is balanced and inclusive. It will help you discover the natural place for yourself, your managers and your staff.

 

Hi everyone,

Josh and I have been working on a project that I’m happy to say is ready to roll.

MSP Coach is an educational site for the IT service provider community, particularly those serving small and medium sized businesses and those that are interested in developing a managed services business.

We’ve really enjoyed blogging – we learn a lot from taking the time to write about what’s in our heads, and we’ve established some great relationships with many of our readers.

But we’ve realized in the process that we have a lot to share that is difficult to capture in a blog, and that there is a real hunger for good information on our marketplace about how to grow a successful managed services business.  I say good information, because there is no shortage of information these days, but most of it is from vendors trying to sell you a product.  A lot of that information is still good, but it’s definitely biased, and it doesn’t always come from a voice with experience in this industry.

We have experience as time and materials service providers, and we have experience building a managed services practice from scratch to several million in revenue over the course of a few years.  We have a lot of valuable lessons to share – and we enjoy sharing them with the MSP community.

MSP Coach is free (for now anyway!), so we hope you sign up and take a look around.  We are just getting it started and this is a “nights and weekends” gig for us, so please be patient – more content will be added as we are able to do so.

If you have suggestions or feedback, we would love to hear from you.

MRC