A lot of businesses are born out of need. An entrepreneur solves a problem for themselves… and realizes others in the same situation could benefit.

Emily Morgan was looking for ways to work while still having plenty of time to raise her young son, when she came up with the idea for Delegate Solutions. 

The company provides strategic workforce options for entrepreneurs to help them grow their businesses efficiently and effectively… while giving employees the chance to have a flexible work schedule. 

This is remote working and flexwork, which uses tools like automation, project management, designing processes and systems, office management, scheduling and more to grow businesses while giving entrepreneurs time and financial freedom… which is why you went into business, right?

We talk about all of that as well as…

• How to overcome the challenges of managing a distributed team
• Spurring creativity and productivity with remote working
• Strategies for integrating in-office team members with those working at home
• Her ambitious 10-year goals… and what she’s doing now to achieve them
• And more

Listen now…

Mentioned in this episode:

• www.delegatesolutions.com 
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/delegatesolutions
• https://www.facebook.com/DelegateSolutions

Transcript

Doug Hall: Hi, everybody. This is Doug Hall, host of Doug Hall’s Go for Growth Podcast and I’m very happy today to have an outstanding entrepreneur and a solution provider for folks like us in the world that are driving the growth of an entrepreneurial business. Welcoming Emily Morgan, the founder of Delegate Solutions. And Emily is a proven solid entrepreneur who is driving the growth of her business and for the benefit of all of us, I’m happy to say she’s providing a solution in her business to help us drive the growth of our businesses. So, Emily, welcome to the podcast.

Emily Morgan :Wow, that’s a great intro. Thank you. Thanks for having me. 

Doug: But it’s all true. It is true. So, now I’m really excited to have you on. Folks, Emily and I have known each other for a while in a community in which we both work. And I’ve been eager to have her join the podcast to share her insights from her business and what she sees helping entrepreneurs driving their business. So, Emily, tell us how you got here. And you know, tell us some Delegate stories, tell us your story and then I’ll interject if I got a question here or there. So take it off. Take it away, go for it and tell us what you got.

Delegate Solutions Origins

Emily: Awesome. Thank you. So Delegate was created to operate as a 100% remote and flex work company. So 12 years ago, when I started my business, I was about to have my son Nathan, and I was looking to eliminate the traditional nine to five commute and be available to raise him. At the same time, I knew that I also had a skill set professionally that I wanted to continue professionally, and the answer had to include remote and flex work from home. So at that time, I went on an interview and the woman running the interview shared that she had a virtual assistant. 

And having spent my whole career in support of others, the idea intrigued me as a way to work from home. So I went to figure out what is a virtual assistant and how to become one. And after Nathan was born, I started my company thinking that would be a great way for me to earn income, maintain professional work and be available to him. But honestly, entrepreneurship was never what I envisioned for myself growing up. I was raised by a stay at home mom, most of my family had and still has careers in education. So by default, I always thought that I would become a teacher because that’s really all I knew. 

And my mom used to tell me, she thought I was going on to business one day, but no one in my family really knew what that meant. And I never really was exposed to entrepreneurship. So as I started learning about the VI industry, I learned that there really was a need for the service. And I kind of just chased after that as it continued to grow. And we really, over the years, have expanded the service into a really unique model specific for helping entrepreneurs. But I built my company as a single mom. 

I’m a champion of this whole flex remote work model and have really spent my career and support of other small business owners, which, you know, my mom was right. I wound up in business. So now our team has over 30 people. We are spread all across the US and our sort of mission is to create freedom for people to do what they love and have a big impact.

Doug: The first question that comes to my mind is, in a way, you are an accidental entrepreneur. I mean, it wasn’t like you set out to conquer the world with your own business, right? 

Emily: You are correct.

Doug: So okay, and I think there’s probably more than one of us listening that could identify with that. So tell me, first of all, what you love about being an entrepreneur and driving your own business

Emily: Yeah, I mean, for me, it’s about freedom. Honestly, you know, take away the freedom, and I don’t want to do it at the end of the day no matter what it is. But, you know, we’re not just creating, I’m not just creating freedom for myself in terms of how I set up my time. But we’re creating freedom for our team to be able to do work that they love in a more flexible way and we’re creating freedom for entrepreneurs to better leverage their time so that they can focus on what they love. So freedom is what drives me.

Doug: Alright, the other sort of the flip side of that coin is what do not, what do you like not so much? I mean, what’s the challenge of being an entrepreneur and driving the growth? I mean, you’ve got a substantial business with over 30 people. And what’s the other side of that?

Drawbacks of Having a Growing Team

Emily: Yeah, those are our employees too. Those are not, you know, contractors. So there’s been a lot of learning curve with becoming an employer in different states and having to sort of navigate what that looks like. Not to mention managing a completely remote distributed team. Which is really kind of the Wild West still. That’s not sort of the norm in the business world. So trying to figure out how to do that well has been hard for us. 

I think, you know, that’s really the hardest part is, is managing a distributed team. And that goes from attracting the talent to retaining the talent to growing the talent. And then also educating our market because a lot of the people that we do business with don’t even know that, you know, prior to speaking with us, don’t even know that working in this way is an option. So we spent a lot of time educating. Like, Hey, you need help, but maybe you don’t need someone full-time. Maybe you don’t need someone on-site, but you need really qualified talent

Doug: Well, tell us, let’s go down that path. So what does that conversation sound like if I’m a fairly traditional business owner? And let’s say I have a fairly traditional business with a, some kind of physical location. Let’s just say I’m running a law firm or running an accounting firm. And, you know, my conventional thinking is I need a full or part-time person in the office here. Let’s talk about that. What’s, what does virtual look like in that situation?

Emily: Yeah. So sometimes like people have staff on-site and we integrate in with maybe an existing admin. Maybe that admin is overloaded, or that admin needs to focus on specific projects and activities. Maybe the entrepreneur really doesn’t want the admin dealing with personal things, which is, you know, a large part of what we do for clients. But it’s really about wrapping your head around utilizing a fractional resource. 

So in our situation, we work with clients, you know, one to two hours a day. We work on very specific tasks, we track our time by the minute. It’s a different way of operating from a support standpoint. So for me, it’s just about helping them understand what to delegate and how to delegate and then explain, sort of paint the picture of how we plug in to support that. 

Doug: Got it. So lots of times in that case, it’s an augmentation of what the people that are there already. And then there’s that personal aspect as an entrepreneur. You know, we blend our personal and business lives a lot. So it helps create separation. So the people in the office are for the office and a virtual assistant from Delegate could be your home life. 

Emily: Yeah. I mean, sometimes, we’re like working with the spouse. We’re ordering the kid’s soccer clothes. Like, we’re booking a massage. Like, we don’t delineate on the task level what we do and don’t support, we just really try to make sure that what we’re doing is the most impactful work that we can for the client so that they’re getting the most value out of the service. Because we’re all entrepreneurs, we know how busy we are and how long our to-do list is. 

So, you know, a traditional VA is really just kind of there for you to just hand things to and like you’re the one driving the delegation. With a service like ours, it’s more about, tell us what your goals and priorities are and we will build a support strategy around that so that we’re working on the most important work. But from an onsite staffing perspective, a lot of clients say like working with us takes the noise out of the office, because there’s just, it’s pure efficiency because you’re really working by the minute.

Doug: Folks can take any fraction. I mean, they could, like you say, it can be a half-hour or hour a day. It could be halftime or whatever. What do you see most people using with your assistance?

Emily: Yeah, most clients come in at 25 hours a month or an hour a day. And, you know, we’re able to grow beyond that. I think most clients will end up around $45 a month at the most but we’ve had clients for years that stay at 25.

Doug: We’re going to give folks a way to find your information at the conclusion. Obviously, it’s delegatesolutions.com. So if you guys are curious right now punch up that website, but we’re going to reinforce that later in the program. So let’s go back more to your origin story. When you got Delegate going, and you started feeling growing pains, what, how did you deal with that? And what were some of those growing pains?

Emily: Initially, it was more work than I could personally handle because when I started the company, I was the VA. I was the one, you know, doing the work. And as we started to grow, like, I did not go into this, like, I’m going to be the entrepreneur, I’m going to be the CEO. It was always driven by I want a flexible professional work opportunity for myself. And the entrepreneurial spirit just kind of like grew over time. You know, initially, I started bringing on other VAs to help with the work, of the client work. 

And then as that started to grow, and I started to realize, like, Hey, I really want to build out a business in a more impactful way, I hired Joe who is my integrator and COO now. At that point, he was consulting with me just coming in to help fix things, put structures together to really build out Delegate into what it is today. So he’s been collaborating with me for like, at least six years now. You know, every single day. But when I did the Goldman Sachs 10,000, small business program like five years ago, that’s really when I made the shift from working with contractors to employees. 

Because we found that when we were hiring like regular VAs to come in and execute the service, they wanted to do it their own flavor. They were, you know, I had no control over the deliverable of the work. So we shifted to employees And ever since then we’ve just really built everything around an employee model distributed team. And I learned all about opening up to do business in lots of different states.

Doug: Right, right. That’s fun, right? 

Emily: Yeah. So that’s kind of how we grew. 

Doug: Tell us about, I mean, I know a little bit about what you use in terms of resources. So what’s the, what other than the Goldman Sachs program that 10,000 small business, I’ve heard good things about that. What’s the, what other outside resources have you pulled in to helping you drive growth?

Resources Emily Uses to Help Boost Her Business Acumen

Emily: I’m a super fan of that program by the way. I’m also a huge fan of Strategic Coach, as you know. I’ve been in the coach program for at least five years now. And we use the tools and the concepts from Coach every single day in the business for ourselves, but also in our work with clients. We help people implement what they’re learning in Strategic Coach, because we found or I found, you know, they educate you on these concepts, but then there’s really not a lot of execution support when you get back to the office the next day. 

So our team has built support systems around the Coach tools to help you really integrate entrepreneurial time system and will prompt you with impact filters. And if there’s an issue, we’ll use, you know, an experienced transformer. So we just love the tool. I also run the business on EOS, which is a really clean, simplified way to operate a company and distill down sort of vision and messaging, as well.

Doug: And how long have you been running on EOS?

Emily: With an implementer, a year and a half. And then prior to that we were self-implementing for about a year and a half.

Doug: About three years overall experience.

Emily: Yeah.

Doug: So that’s your business operating system, right? 

Emily: Yeah, I mean, they say Coach is for you, EOS is for the business. That’s how I look at it.

Doug: Yeah, that’s what I tell folks to is Strategic Coach is an operating system for the mind of the entrepreneur and Entrepreneurial Operating system is for the business. So two important levels. Tell us how you, how that has come home to you, you know, in your 10 plus years as an entrepreneur. When did, tell us like how did those differences unfold in your mind.

Emily: Yeah, I mean, I think I started learning about EOS when I was doing Goldman Sachs. So the story kind of meanders that way. But, you know, as we’re speaking right now, I literally have my VTO like pulled up so that I’m making sure to, you know, make sure I’m hitting on what is our three unique? What is our core focus? You know, what is our

Doug: Exactly. So folks, what Emily is talking about, Emily’s talking about her sort of 10-year one-page strategic plan, which has a go-to market strategy in it and differentiators and kind of a vision of what her business is going to look like as far as 10 years out, right?

Emily: Yep, exactly.

Doug: So, do you want to share your ten year, what’s your 10-year target?

Emily: Our 10-year target is by 2028 free up 1.679642 hours of time for entrepreneurs.

Doug: Awesome. So to free up their time, you have to be counting that time, right?

Emily: Yeah. So we track all our time by the minute. So I can literally tell you year to date, you know how many hours a team has freed up. We’d have to run the report while we’re talking.

Doug: Very cool. Okay. So you’re on your way to that. And are you counting yourself as being three years into that so you have seven more years to go? You said  2028, right?

Emily: 2028, yeah. Year to date, we’ve tracked about 25,000 hours so far this year, the team has. So we freed up 25,000 hours for entrepreneurs.

Doug: Awesome. Well, I’m a big believer in the four freedoms that Dan Sullivan talks about at Strategic Coach. So, you know, the fact that you’re in the freedom business for business owners is really, really important. I mean that’s. you said it upfront and I couldn’t agree more that freedom is the lifeblood of being an entrepreneur, because there are times when it’s tough to be on your own and driving your own business.

Emily: Yeah, and I know there are some entrepreneurs that really, you know, they love doing it solo. I’m not one of them. I thrive off the collaboration of my team, of using other people’s strengths. You know, like we use unique ability with our team. So every year when I do the annual review we’ll review their unique ability statement, you know, as a Strategic Coach tool. We’ll review this statement and I’ll ask them what percentage of their time they think they’re spending and their unique ability and then we’ll brainstorm ways to improve that. So, you know, I love helping people like, do work that they love and make a big impact as a leader.

Doug: Awesome so, alright. So let’s go from sort of the leadership realm and leadership tools you just talked about, and let’s zoom, change altitude a little bit and get down to management because you’re managing, and I don’t want you to talk about how you manage this, you got 30 people that are looking to for their paycheck and you’ve got a bunch of clients. 

Emily: Yes. No pressure, right?

Doug: Right. No pressure at all. And you got a bunch of clients that want the services delivered to them, you know, in a fair deal. A good business proposition. So, talk about your favorite approaches to management and share some tips and tricks there. What’s working, what’s not working, or what you’ve been working on, you know, and getting better at being the top-level manager. And I think you use that Joe is your secret weapon. Make sure you bring that out for us so we understand.

Emily: Sure. Can we not be again the question? 

Doug: Yeah. Yeah, sorry, I kind of wandered there. Management tools and management challenges. That could be software, that can be techniques from EOS, it can be stuff from Coach. Whatever you found to be the most effective tools in helping manage particularly your distributed workforce. That’s another dimension of challenge. So bring that in too.

Effective Tools in Managing Management Challenges

Emily: Sure. Yeah. So, you know, everything we’re doing starts with core values, right? So we have core values sort of happening week over week. We do weekly huddles with our team. These are 15-minute calls. We rotate the host. Imagine the Brady Bunch, but you know, 30 people in boxes on a screen. 

That’s our weekly company huddle. So, you know, we recite the core values. And then at the end of the 15-minute meeting agenda, the host gives an example of one of the core values in action. Either themselves or something they’ve observed in the team. The core values is a huge part of the DNA of the company. So from the beginning, we are looking for that in the interview process. 

And then when people are hired, they are being vetted by our team. So our team is working with them on tasks and deciding whether or not they feel like this hire fits into the culture and is able to do the work to the caliber that we need. So that’s a very extended period of time like, can be anywhere from 50 to 200 hours of training before they’re ever actually touching on clients. So a lot of that is happening like, what we call it the home grow our team. So, you know, more senior team members are evaluating newer hires and getting feedback on them. In terms of other tools, like we use Asana. So a lot of our practices are captured in Asana in templates. 

So the team knows how to execute the service like, if we’re going to launch a client there’s a whole ton of steps that happen, that we have templates that they get assigned to different team members on the account to execute. We also, this last quarter, filled out something that we’re calling packs which are peer accountability circles, and those have been amazing. We have like five to six team members per pack. They are self-led, and their one on their own L10. So they are like following an L10 agenda. 

I’m looking at a scorecard and then their idea thing. And this has been really great because it’s created a way for them to have more collaboration together since they’re distributed. Like unless they were working on the account together, they really didn’t have the opportunity to get to know each other as well. So they’re really running those independent of us and it’s giving them the opportunity to solve problems themselves and share experiences, which has been great. 

And then we also use Slack, which is an instant message tool and that’s how we communicate across the company. And then we have, you know, announcements that are going out, we have different channels for different groups. And then we have a really fun channel with things like water cooler, or, you know, books that you like to read, shows that you like to watch. And so that team interacts on those tools as well.

Doug: Got it. So let me take you back to the peer accountability. And you mentioned a couple of EOS code words. So explain to folks what is an L 10. Meeting. 

Emily: L10 is a level 10 meeting. It’s got a really tight agenda. It can go up to 90 minutes. We start ours with positive focus, which is a Strategic Coach phrase, I think, you know, has a different language. And then we review our scorecard, which is all of our metrics and data that we’re trying to hit for the quarter. 

We do customer and employee headline, so whatever’s new and exciting, you know, that’s happening in the company, we would do our to do. We provide accountability around rocks that we were assigned for the quarter. Rocks are like goals that we’ve agreed to. And then we move into ideas which is identify, discuss and solve. And that’s really where, like, the meat and potatoes of that meeting,

Doug: And are these weekly meetings? Okay, good. So you’ve got level 10 weekly meetings going on at a couple different levels? It’s your leadership team, I would imagine.

Emily: Yeah, leadership team every week on an L 10. We have our weekly team huddle, which is the 15 minutes, our own agenda, but it’s really a think call to make the whole company. And then we have our weekly pack meeting, which those meet at various times across the week. I mean, those are extra costs, you know, to do those meetings cost me a lot of money. This, this is the way that our team interacts, you know? And so, yes, like, you know, they’re being paid for the work that they’re being paid also to participate in these other meetings that really, you know, that’s a choice that we’re making to have them.

Doug: That’s a significant investment. Yes it is. So take us up to, zoom us up to your leadership team level, because you got me thinking about that. What does your leadership team look like now and how has it evolved to that? That’s an important growth thing for folks. 

Emily: Yeah, I mean, I really think, I don’t know how to can run EOS without a leadership team. So, you know, 

Doug: Yeah, I would agree. That’s an important, it’s designed for the leadership team as a system. Right. Okay, so when did your leadership team start forming? What, how many employees were you at and what was the first person you delegated as truly a leader working with you? 

Emily: Yeah, that’s definitely of my current leadership team, which is the original, the OG team, we had Joe first. And then we hired Georgia, who is, she’s my assistant, but she’s the, you know, she’s in charge of all the internal operations of the company. So I set up her function really as like an internal admin department. So rather than having admin across the company reporting into different leadership team members in the departmental level, we have everything in one silo in terms of admin that reports into Georgia. 

We did that so we would make sure that, you know, processes weren’t being redundant and being created in different departments that weren’t talking to each other. So she owns that seat. Right now, I also own the sales and marketing seat. Joe is owning a service operation seat. Ann Marie is our team leader. She owns people. And Chris was our controller, so she owns all finance.

Doug: So we were in the EOS world, we refer to each of these as a seat, kind of like people changing hats. Do you have leaders, which leaders wear more than one hat, which means they’re in more than one functional seat?

Emily: Me and Joe. So one of our three-year goals is that Joe and I are only in one additional seat in the next three years other than visionary integrator, but this quarter we actually switched seats. So I took over sales and marketing and he switched over to service. So it was kind of an interesting change.

Doug: Tell me what drove that and what did you learn?

Emily: I think I was having a lot of vision around where I wanted to go with sales and marketing. And he loves to fix things. And there are things on the service side that he really wanted to tinker with him and fix. So we just said, well, let’s touch this quarter. So that’s what we did.

Doug: Very cool. So that’s a lesson in growth right there. You have a vision to go somewhere and it needs to be changed. So you use two different kinds of energy, right? The vision energy and the fixing or implementing energy.

Emily: Yeah, and I mean, we may swap back in another quarter or two. Not really, we haven’t really decided. But this leadership team has been the original team from the beginning of us even doing any format of EOS. 

Doug: So were, was there a time when all of your leaders were billable?

Emily: No, no, never. No one on the leadership team other than me when I started the company was ever billable.

Doug: Okay, so you jumped in the overhead? Yeah, yeah, jumped into overhead. Alright, so that’s an interesting inflection point. At what point did you feel like, I think you invested in a leadership team pretty early, or how many VAs sid you have out there when you put these folks in place?

Emily: This team has been in place for about four years. Chris is a newer hire. So she came in, I think, two years ago. But, you know, I don’t have a lot of overhead in my company. And so that has been a really big mental shift for me as we’ve grown and I’ve had to invest in more consistent overhead costs that I never had before. That has been a scary jump for me to make because it was always, you know, we build a client, the team does the work, we pay the team. 

But now there’s, you know, all these other, there’s more permanency around fixed costs than I was ever used to having just in the last couple of years. Because we’ve put in all the, you know, management, we, you know, not leadership, but like a tier below level seat that I never had to make that kind of send on before, because we were doing it. But we knew in order to grow, we have to, you know, we’d like identify buckets, and then we create jobs out of those buckets. We do those jobs, and then we hire someone.

Doug: Right. So when you formed this leadership team, about four years ago, it was probably seven, eight years into the life of the company, how many employees did you have then? Four ish, four or five years ago. Think back. I mean, it can be a rough rough idea.

Emily: I would say less than 10 at that point. 

Doug: A little less than 10. And now you’re at 30. Right, right, right. And okay, so clearly, you’ve essentially tripled the company by doing what you’re doing.

Emily: Yeah, I know that in the last three years, we grew 247%. And I know that because we won an award here in Philly, one of the fastest, hundred fastest-growing company in Philadelphia. And so I know that number, we just had to do the math on it to win.

Doug: Yay, congratulations. That’s pretty cool. 

Emily: Thank you. 

Doug: Well, and I think that around 10 employees is what I see also is that you’re,  if you’re going to break the 10 to 12, employee barrier, you got to build a leadership team.

Emily: Yeah, for sure. I think there’s, you know, entrepreneurs that love not having employees, and they’ll use a whole fractional team like I shared earlier. I knew that wasn’t for me because I want the collaboration. I love working with people who love what they’re doing and want to contribute. So that’s just my path. 

Doug: Good. Okay, so you’ve learned a lot of lessons along the way and you’ve done a fabulous job growing your company. If you had to pick sort of the number one piece of advice, somebody’s that that 6, 7, 8 employees or they’re thinking of their first employees, what’s your number one advice to somebody building a business?

Plan Well, Remain Flexible, Evolve Quickly

Emily: Yeah, I think, you know, for me my first business philosophy is plan well, remain flexible, evolve quickly. So, like, I would not want to run my company without a plan and I didn’t have a business plan when I started the company. I don’t actually have a business plan now but we do have our VTO which is our 10 year, three-year quarterly type, you know, documentation, that works perfectly. 

So I, what I have found is, you know, when I’m, when we’re doing the rock, if we have too many rocks, we either can’t get them done because we run out of time, but also, like priorities come up across the quarter that you really want to have the bandwidth to deal with. So, you know, have a plan, but be flexible with what’s actually gonna happen that quarter and make sure you have the resources to do it.

Doug: Right. Great advice. Yeah, plan but don’t overcommit, I guess is the theme there. We have a little capacity for things that pop up, right?

Emily: Correct. You know, because most entrepreneurs are high click stars. They are jumping from thing to thing. So doing your best to temper that so that you’re not driving your team crazy and having the VTO is really a great way to temper that because you’ve made a commitment to a set plan for that quarter.

Doug: Right. We’ll add some details in the show notes about what Emily is referring to, this vision traction organizer. So that’s great advice. Plan well, be flexible, evolve quickly. So, tell folks, I promised this earlier, tell folks how they can learn more about you, Emily Morgan and Delegate Solutions.

Emily: Yeah, the best way is on our website, delegatesolutions.com. There’s a page on there about me that if you want to reach out directly or connect with me on LinkedIn, there should be buttons there do that. We’re offering a free freedom analysis, which is our version of EOS delegate elevate tool. It’s a great way if you’re trying to figure out what to delegate or where to start with delegation. We will run this exercise with you for free. You can sign up, it should pop up on the website when you hit the URL, it should pop up. You can sign up that way.

Doug: Perfect. Excellent. Thanks for that and thanks for the free assessment. Folks, take advantage of that. Alright, Emily, we’ve come to the end of our time. Thank you for sharing how to get a hold of you. Thank you for sharing your advice. It’s been awesome, and I wish you another 247% growth.

Emily: I’ll take it. Thank you.