Your Digital Marketing Coach with Neal Schaffer

Master Delegation and Outsourcing for Marketing and Business Growth with Dave Kerpen

• Neal Schaffer • Episode 373

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Are you struggling with delegation, holding yourself back from achieving peak success in your marketing and business ventures?

In this episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast, I sit down with Dave Kerpen to unravel the secrets of mastering delegation. We'll explore how effective delegation, including outsourcing, can free up your time, reduce stress, and drive unprecedented growth in your business. In fact, it's so crucial that I have an entire chapter devoted to it in my book, Digital Threads. From overcoming emotional hurdles to leveraging the right platforms and people, we'll provide actionable strategies to help you delegate with confidence.

In our conversation, we delve into Dave's transition from Likeable Media to his new venture, Apprentice. Learn how connecting entrepreneurs with talented college students for business tasks has proven to be a game-changer. Dave shares why effective delegation is crucial for both personal and professional growth, and how it can help you scale your business while reclaiming precious time for personal passions and family. Overcoming the fears and challenges associated with delegation is also a focal point, with practical advice on taking the first steps, including using platforms like Upwork to find the right fit for your needs.

We also tackle common objections to delegation, such as budget constraints, by highlighting cost-effective solutions like Upwork and Fiverr. Explore the "share model" for delegation and learn about the five C's of empowered delegation, starting with choosing the right person carefully.

This episode is packed with actionable strategies to revolutionize your marketing and business through smart delegation, so you won't want to miss it!

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Speaker 1:

Are you struggling with delegation, holding yourself back from achieving peak success in your marketing and business ventures? In this episode of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast, I sit down with Dave Kirpin to unravel the secrets of mastering delegation. We'll explore how effective delegation and this includes outsourcing can free up your time, reduce stress and drive unprecedented growth in your business. In fact, it's so crucial that I have an entire chapter devoted to it in my book Digital Threads. From overcoming emotional hurdles to leveraging the right platforms and people, we'll provide actionable strategies to help you delegate with confidence. Discover how to revolutionize your marketing and business through smart delegation.

Speaker 2:

So stay tuned to this next episode of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast P-P-C-E-M-E-L-L-M-A-R-K-E-T-I-N-G. There's a lot to cover. Whether you're a marketing professional, entrepreneur or business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert advice. Good thing you've got Neil on your side.

Speaker 1:

Because Neil.

Speaker 2:

Schaefer is your digital marketing coach, Helping you grow your business with digital first marketing, one episode at a time. This is your digital marketing coach and this is Neil Schaefer.

Speaker 1:

Hey everybody, this is Neil Schaefer, your digital marketing coach, and welcome to my podcast. Before we get to today's interview and in lieu of industry news this week, when I sometimes record back to back, there's not much new news to share with you I want to share with you some recent experiences I've had with the social networking site Alignable. So over time, there have been a number of social networking sites that have tried to compete with LinkedIn as a B2B social networking platform, and many have come and gone. Recently I found out about a platform called Alignable. The spelling is A-L-I-G-N-A-B-L-E and it is a legit platform. I think the user base is very small. When I uploaded my contacts, compared to LinkedIn, I would say the user base is very small. When I uploaded my contacts, compared to LinkedIn, I would say the user base is very small. It's very USA centric, but I will say it is a lot of small business owners and service providers, consultants, coaches, agency owners and it almost seems to be an online version of BNI or LaTip for those that might be familiar with those sorts of organizations. So I signed up. I actually had an orientation call with someone from their team who happens to also be based here in Orange County, california. So that was pretty cool and it just reminded me of the power and value of any social network.

Speaker 1:

So Alignable, specifically, is really made for business referrals. If that is your thing, if you're really into referral marketing, I think it is a fantastic platform. But like anything else, you upload your contacts, you get connected with people, you send them an icebreaker question. I've already had people say, hey, I'd love to talk with you, do you ever have any referrals? And it gets into those sorts of conversations. But just like with the LinkedIn, in fact it's funny I seem to be getting more engagement unalignable these days than I do on LinkedIn, for crazy reasons, unknown. But it just goes to show you it doesn't matter what social network you're on. If you consider a social network, as I talk about in digital threads and elsewhere, as being a place not to promote yourself or your business but as a place to truly develop relationships of value with other users.

Speaker 1:

There is value everywhere, even on a niche network like Alignable, and really my experience recently has proven this point. For instance, there is a local group here in Orange County. It's actually headed by someone in Huntington Beach and I just said, hey, I'd love to meet other business owners from Irvine get together, love to talk marketing, and immediately I had a few other people that said, hey, we'd love to meet up with you at a Starbucks and I just think, on LinkedIn. Now this was posted in a specific group. But even on LinkedIn, in groups just aren't the way they used to be and there's no concept of like a city community, which Alignable has. So you know two things here. One, if that sort of fits your demographic in terms of you know, wanting to network with other business owners, then I highly recommend you check it out.

Speaker 1:

And really it is what you make of it, right. How much you engage with others, communicate with others. You may learn a thing or two. I've already downloaded a free ebook from one of the group owners on AI, so you know they're always learning. But it's also, you know, a reminder that no matter what social network you're on it could be Instagram, it could be TikTok, you know, it could be Facebook it comes down to your proactively reaching out to people and starting conversations, and that is where the magic of social media is, regardless of of your objective. So I just wanted to remind you of that as I go through Alignable. I'm not sold on Alignable yet, but it is sort of another cool avenue to explore building relationships, and most of the people that I'm connected with I'm connected with in other social networks but it's helped me rekindle some relationships that we haven't talked in a while, and the algorithms can sometimes dilute our relationships. Right. You have people who just never see your content for months, if not years, if not a decade. So it's another. You know, it's another touch point that you can add to your arsenal.

Speaker 1:

Like I said, especially here in the United States, I do believe it is international and I do believe it has a little legs. It does have a paid service. I'm not part of the paid service. It's, I don't know, like 50 a month, but it does give you access to analytics, being able to tag people like in a CRM, some other advanced features, and I will say there are some large groups there. I want to give a shout out to John Paduchak. He's part of my Digital First Mastermind group. He's also the head of the business operations group on Alignable. That has 40,000 members. So if that's your thing, definitely check it out. If it's not your thing, you may want to check it out as well. And if you do, make sure you connect with me. You can find me Neil Schaefer, or I think a lot of people are registered actually under their business name. For me that would be PDCASocial.

Speaker 1:

On personal notes, we're still slugging through digital threads. This really is the last call. If you want to be part of the launch team, I recommend, in lieu of me sending out the URL, that you basically DM me on social media or send me an email to neil at neilschafercom. The members of the launch team have already received an advanced reading copy. They get to read the ebook before anyone else and we're going to start to do weekly Zooms where I cover the book with them and go through the companion workbook exercises as well.

Speaker 1:

When I get back from London in a week's time I'm also, today and tomorrow, be receiving the final Amazon proofs for both the paperback and the companion workbook. So, assuming there are no issues there, those will be ready to roll and then just waiting for the Ingram Spark versions of the paperback, hardcover and companion workbook and then those will be finalized. Just have the audio book to go. So getting excited. The Kickstarter campaign does go until August 8th. If you're interested, would love your support. And you buy a paperback, get a free ebook for free. Just, I'm able to offer things there that I can't do on Amazon, so make sure you check it out.

Speaker 1:

Neilschafercom slash Kickstarter, and then we're going to move on to the interview with Dave Kirpin. So I've known Dave for man I want to say a decade, because he was the first keynote speaker at my Social Tools Summit, the conference that I co-founded many years ago about social media marketing technology, and he has a new book out called Get Over Yourself how to Lead and Delegate Effectively for More Time, more Freedom and More Success. Delegation is a general business productivity theme, but when it comes to your marketing, as your digital marketing coach, you need to delegate, and often, if you don't have a big enough team, that leads down to outsourcing, and that is the dedicated chapter in Digital Threads really does cover that, and it has been a boon for my business as well. So, hey, without further ado, let's get into the interview with Dave Kirpin.

Speaker 2:

You're listening to your digital marketing coach. This is Neil Schaefer.

Speaker 1:

Hey everyone, neil Schaefer here. Welcome to another live stream broadcast of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast. So in my upcoming book, which you will hear a lot about in the next few weeks, I have a dedicated chapter. This is a digital marketing playbook for small business and entrepreneurs and I have a dedicated chapter on scaling through outsourcing your work, on scaling through outsourcing your work.

Speaker 1:

We live in a global economy where there are a lot of experts. There are a lot of people that have been there, done that and, frankly, when I was recording a TikTok video for an ad that I was gonna do, I ended up hiring a UGC creator on Fiverr to create the video for me. You can actually go to my TikTok and my Instagram and see that exact video that is promoting my free LinkedIn ebook. So, as smaller businesses, there's a lot that we are able to do, but there's only so much we can do based on experience, based on people, and that's why I believe, if you want to be successful at this, that outsourcing, or we can also call it delegating, is a really, really critical piece.

Speaker 1:

So when bestselling author Dave Kirpin, who I've known for more than a decade hopefully you remember him from the likable social media books, some of the best all-time books on social media marketing. He reached out to me because he just wrote this new book called Get Over Yourself, and it is about delegating and delegating effectively. It's obviously about more than that, but I think it is a book that is aligned with the times, especially as we now go into not just short form video but also AI. Well, we may not be experts on certain things, but there's a heck of a lot of people that are already creating custom GPTs. You know, on chat GPT. What have you so really, really excited today to have Dave Kirpin as my special guest? Dave welcome.

Speaker 3:

Thanks so much for having me, Neil. Great to see you. It's been a while. It's great to reconnect here and congratulations on your new book coming out.

Speaker 1:

Well, thank you very much. I've kept it. You know I'm self-publishing this time, so when I flip the switch I can let everybody know and I'm just a few weeks out. But thank you so much. So, dave, you were the first keynote at the first Social Tools Summit, this event that I ran, and it's literally been 10 years. So good to see you after so much time. Obviously, those days you had likable media books, social media, marketing agency and I believe that you still have those things going on, but obviously you're doing something new. So can you tell me about the journey from likable and you're still extremely likable, don't get me wrong but from likable Dave Kirpin to the get over yourself, dave Kirpin? What's been going on last decade?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, sure, I do remember that keynote that was up in Massachusetts, right, and was it in Boston?

Speaker 1:

It was in Boston, massachusetts, that's correct. It was at the really nice hotel, the Omni Parker. I forgot what it was, but yeah.

Speaker 3:

Very nice, very nice. Well, I'm actually not likable anymore, not uppercase likable at least, and I'll let others judge whether I'm lowercase likable still. But my wife and I sold that company, the social media agency, three years ago to a global consultancy for an undisclosed eight-figure amount.

Speaker 3:

We were delighted with the outcome and very fortunate in that way. And while the books live on, we've moved on company-wise now and my business focus is a company called Apprentice. And my business focus is a company called Apprentice. We had realized, as we built Likeable and a couple other companies along the way, neil, that we would tap into college students to help us because we couldn't afford full-time staff as we started and as we grew. And it was really effective that we got really smart, driven, ambitious people and we didn't have to pay them full-time salaries. And so I had one student that came to me a few years ago and said Dave, I think there's a business model here connecting entrepreneurs and small business owners like you with college students like me. I said you're right, and we started a business called Apprentice and that's four years old now. We've worked with over a thousand businesses and college students to do just that connect really smart college students with top entrepreneurs and small business owners in a wide variety of areas marketing, business development, operations, data analytics, some coding and it's been great.

Speaker 3:

And I've also written a number of books. This Get Over Yourself is now my fifth book and I think I only have one more left in me, we'll see. But I wrote Get Over Yourself because through those 10, 12, 14 years of entrepreneurship and several companies, I saw that time and time again small business owners struggle with this issue of delegation and they either try to do it all themselves or they delegate and then micromanage and drive people up the wall. And so I wrote this book to help entrepreneurs and small business owners better change their mindset in order to better delegate and scale and, most important, to have the time and freedom back that is so valuable and so precious to all of us.

Speaker 1:

Amen, brother, and it's funny because I know that you have a child that's entering college. My oldest is now a freshman in college and you know, when we have babies it's like, oh, we think of all these baby product ideas. And then when they're in school and I have one in high school and you know internships, and I know that we'll talk a little bit more about how Apprentice works, but Internships, and I know that we'll talk a little bit more about how Apprentice works, but high schoolers or I'm finding my son as a high schooler marketing internships and it's become a big thing and I've thought why isn't there an organization that helps high school students find internships? So same thing with college students.

Speaker 1:

I think that's awesome and obviously we're going to look at it from the other end, from the entrepreneur, from the business side. But let me first ask you and I think over these four years of running Apprentice, you've obviously learned a heck of a lot but one thing we were talking about before we hit the record button was that embracing delegation and when we are bringing in outside resources to help us like interns, you say it's a proven strategy for personal and professional growth and success. So I want to ask you to go a little bit deeper on that theme of how delegation and not just, you know, delegating to micromanaging, but really effective delegation, how. That is one of these critical sort of keys to success in business.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean, you can't do it all on your own. You know you just can't. And I also think it's strangely arrogant and narcissistic to think that you're the best person to do something anything. There's six billion people in this world, so I'm a pretty good marketer, you're a pretty good marketer. There's people that are way better at marketing than I am. They're certainly way better at TikTok or Instagram or graphic design or SEO or paid ads, organic.

Speaker 3:

The list goes on and on and on, and I can say that about every single possible task or project that I do. So if I'm not the best person at something, why should I be the one to do it? Because I think I have to do it. Maybe, I guess Sometimes people are able to convince themselves that they are the only ones that can do things, but if you take a step back, it's just kind of ludicrous, frankly, to think that you are the only person, or you are even the best person, or you're even in the top 1% of people to do any given task or project.

Speaker 3:

There's so many other ways to get that job done and when we really just take a little bit of time and a little bit of space, we will see that one of those ways is nearly definitely, if not definitely, better than you doing it yourself, because, again, we just have limited time and capacity. We can't possibly build something bigger than us. If it's us all the time, and even if we want it to just be us, we can't possibly live the life of our dreams and have the time for our children or our passions or our health or whatever it is that's most important to us. If we're working all the time. The math doesn't add up, neil. So when I talk about a proven strategy for professional and personal success, I just can't see a way, a path to professional success certainly not on scaling and personal success or happiness with respect to whatever's important to you, without being able to delegate work to others. I cannot see a. There's, to me, no other possible path.

Speaker 1:

I share this story a lot, but my father was a successful entrepreneur and when I launched my own business this is back in 2010, his accountant for decades. We had a conversation. He goes Neil, the reason why your father was successful was because he hired other people to do his job right, and it's just some common sense. But, as you said, to become bigger than yourself and I think everybody wants to leverage digital marketing to build and grow their business but in order to do that, there is a lot of work that needs to be done and if you limit it to just your capacity, or even the capacity of the team members that you have and their experiences, it's still just a subset of what is possible if everybody learns to become a better delegator and you have the right people on staff.

Speaker 3:

That's right. And so, yes, about professional and professional growth, but I just want to underscore a final time. For me, the stakes are, even so, much higher than that, because, like I did deathbed research for this, for this book, and the percentage of people that said on their deathbed they wish they had had built, built a bigger company, or worked harder, worked longer hours, it's, um, it's negligible, it's like, it's right, it's less than 1%. The percent of people that said they wish they had more time with their children, their family, their close friends, time to pursue their passions, time to pursue travel. It's much, much more significant. And so delegation and giving work and opportunities and projects and tasks to others allows you to have the time and freedom to spend with your children, with your friends, with your passions, with your health, with all, whatever it is you want to prioritize.

Speaker 3:

And that's to me what the even bigger stakes are than building a better, bigger marketing plan.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yes, yes, yes and yes, and Neil, yes and yes. You will be able to build a much better digital marketing strategy and plan by delegating the work to others that are smarter than you and more experienced than you and more skilled than you and have more bandwidth than you. And yes, yes, yes, and also oh, by the way in addition to building a better marketing plan and building a bigger business and having a more better functioning team, you can give yourself the gift of time and freedom to spend it however the heck you want for the rest of your life, and that's what the stakes for me are about. You know, I will stop work at three o'clock today and I will pick up my son off the bus, like I do every single weekday, and I will spend the entire afternoon being a dad, and that, to me, is what I want to prioritize.

Speaker 3:

Now, anyone that's listening or watching that might not be what you want to prioritize, but I'm guessing, from here till the rest of your life, you do not want to necessarily prioritize your job or your business 24 seven. Right, that's that's gonna going to go out on a limb and guess that. Whatever it is you want to prioritize, it might not be picking up your son off the bus every day at three, but it's probably not working 24 seven for the rest of your life.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, amen to that. And I'll give a shout out to Daniel Pink, because I know that he I saw him speak about a book that he wrote about regrets and he interviewed, just like you, people on their deathbed and what was the number one regret? And it was exactly as you said having the time to have those experiences to enrich our lives. So really good reminder.

Speaker 1:

And even from a professional perspective, this 80-20 rule, I mean 80-20 rule applies to so many things, but you hear about the companies like Google that give their employees 20% of time just to think, just to have that free time to be creative, to find inspiration somewhere, for that might lead to something in business or in personal right, and I think it's always important that we have that yin-yang balance. And maybe it's not picking up your son at the bus stop, maybe it's making sure you go to the gym every week, or maybe it's seeing your parents a little bit more often this year than you did in the past. So so, amen to that. So, with all the benefits, though, of delegating, dave, what holds us back from doing more of it? Because you're not the first one that's brought up this topic and I think a lot of us when we hear it, we completely agree, but yet we never end up doing it. So what's the gap, you think?

Speaker 3:

Yeah Well, the reason I wrote entitled the book Get Over Over Yourself is that what holds us back is it not knowing the tools or systems or people out there, Because those things are out there and they're not that hard to learn. What holds us back is what I identify in the book as four emotional detractors mindset issues. The biggest ones are fear and trust. The others are control and perfectionism. We are afraid, we are distrustful, we have a need to control and we have a need for things to be perfect, and those four things ultimately hold us back.

Speaker 3:

And we've got to get over ourselves and come to terms with our fears, our distrust issues, our control issues and our perfectionism issues in order to proceed with courage in the face of those emotional detractors, to delegate, to take a chance on people, to take a chance on others to help us with the work that we want to get done. But that's powerful, powerful stuff. I mean, fear is probably the number one thing that holds and fear in general is the number one thing that holds all of us back. But the answer isn't to be fearless, because we all have fear. The answer is to come to terms with our fear, understand our fear, be self-aware about our fear and our trust issues, et cetera, and then have courage, which is literally acting in the face of our fear, to make decisions and take action.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, I mean, that's obviously a lot to come over. You know, seth Godin has this, or Godin I never know how to pronounce his last name but he has this concept of the lizard brain, that there's something in our brain that just makes us want to reject any change and just stay, and I mean, is this sort of the same thing?

Speaker 1:

At some point, you almost have to revolt against your normal way of doing things if you want to grow, and this is one case of that. Is that a great way of just summarizing it?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think sometimes we can process our feelings and move through them, and so other times we have to act first and train our minds to follow suit. It doesn't really matter which we do, but ultimately we have to be able to take the action necessary to take a chance again on this. And why are people afraid? Because they've been burned before. So what happens is someone finally delegates, but they do a poor communication job or they choose the wrong person, or lots and lots of reasons. It doesn't work, and just like when you're in a relationship with someone early on in your life and it doesn't work, and just like when you're in a relationship with someone early on in your life and it doesn't work out. It takes a little time and sometimes people frankly never get over it. But it takes a little time to jump back in and to date again and to try it again. It's the same thing with delegation, but sometimes somebody will get burned and then they'll oh, I can't do that. I can't ever hire a CMO again. That was a disaster. I can't do that. I can't ever hire a CMO again. That was a disaster. I can't do that. I can't ever hire an agency again, I can't. And you know.

Speaker 3:

So we get burned by some poor delegation experiences. We blame delegation itself and it makes it harder and harder to try it the next time. But ultimately, what other choice do you have? I guess you could just be a solopreneur for the rest of your life and maybe that can work for you, but even so, it's so hard to do it all yourself. I mean, I really I hope that everyone that's listening or watching can see even if you're struggling with the concept of delegating, outsourcing, insourcing etc. Can see there is a path where you can do more by doing less with respect to delegating and finding others to help you, yeah, amen.

Speaker 1:

I want to go a little bit off script here, but I've heard the advice that if you wanted to get started, okay, I'm going to go forward on this and that the first step is often just record what you do every day, what you spend your time on doing, how much time it's taking, and then look for an area where you can start to delegate. Would that be your advice as well. If the listener, the viewer, says I want to overcome that fear and get started, what would be that first step they can take that can hopefully give them an early win?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, good question. I think there's two possible areas here. If I think about the burning building concept, the first area to delegate is like what's on fire, like what is the most important, urgent thing, because you know it's really truly keeping you up at night, and that's the thing that is probably worth delegating first. On the other side of the coin, many, many people have trust issues. On the other side of the coin, many, many people have trust issues, and the solution to a trust issue is delegating, starting very, very small. So I think you can go in either direction. You can either start with what's burning right now. You can start really small and say, yeah, to your point.

Speaker 3:

Do an inventory of how you're spending your day in and day out and say what's one task that's lower impact, but I'm spending a lot of time on that. I can delegate. That is lower stakes, so I'm less fearful of the impact. So, for example, maybe it's social media posts, personal social media posts, or responding to LinkedIn messages, or responding to certain types of email. There are certain tasks that might feel like they're more of a chore and less impact, and maybe those are the first tasks that you could potentially delegate. So I think you can go in either direction with respect to where to start, but either way, it's important to start somewhere versus to put it off and procrastinate and not deal with it, because people just burn out. They burn out. You cannot do it all. You will burn out if you don't start to delegate.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to add a third rule to that, because I'm a big fan of Marie Kondo. So if it doesn't spark joy, you don't enjoy doing it, then it's the time. And I also want to let people know. I mean, I work with man. I have an internationally distributed team of like a dozen people, probably on various continents, and I started on Upwork minimum five hours a week. There are people out there that have helped people like you.

Speaker 1:

So you begin with the conversation what have you done for other people like me? What is your skill set? These are the things I'm having trouble with. Do you think you can help me or not? What would be your approach?

Speaker 1:

And I think, if you were to interview like five people doing that, along with these tasks that you have, I think you're going to be able to find someone that's going to be able to help and I think you're going to be able to start and ease your way in. And it doesn't. I think what I got wrong, what a lot of people probably get wrong, Dave, is they read you know the four hour work week and they're going to hire that one VA that's going to do everything for them, and that person just doesn't exist, just like us, we all have our own unique skill set. So I that experience, but I also, dave, wanted to go into. You know you were saying that delegation can help strengthen the boundaries between work and life and I think with remote work, with AI, with the gig economy, with social media, I think we need more of that separation and I'm curious as to how you see that working.

Speaker 3:

Yeah Well, first let me just let me respond to what you said about Upwork. I think it's a really good point. I think one of the biggest objections I get is I don't have the money. I can't afford it.

Speaker 1:

How much is your time worth Right?

Speaker 3:

And right. I mean the thing is also Upwork and Fiverr. Like it's really, it's really not expensive, Like do go on, spend some time and look at that. And then, on the other end of the spectrum, if you are looking for senior talent and you feel like you can't afford it, you can afford it. You just might not be able to afford it cash wise. But where there, I would say to people you know, explore having a bringing in a partner and to delegate work to. You can have, you can always share. I mean, I'm a big, big fan of having a smaller piece of a bigger pie by building companies with founders and co-founders and more partners. Right, that? That to me, is the solution on that end, on the senior talent. So on the junior talent end of the spectrum, it's Upwork and Fiverr. Fiverr literally started as $5. If you can't afford $5, then we have a big issue. And, by the way, even non-entrepreneurs can. People. I know people that outsource their entire job on Fiverr. That's brilliant, Outsource your whole job and then go to the beach. I mean, who cares if you get the job done right? So on the junior level you've got Fiverr and Upwork and on the senior level you've got bringing in partners.

Speaker 3:

But to address your question about boundaries, it's become in many ways the pandemic, and the bringing them about of sort of the hybrid world of work is a good thing, but one way that it's been very challenging is around people setting boundaries around their personal time, around their work environment. Right, Because people can literally work everywhere and they're expected to work everywhere. They can literally work all the time and are sometimes expected to work all the time. Well, you set the rules for yourself and certainly, if you're a leader, you set the rules for your team and it is so important. We actually changed one of our core values at Likeable before we sold to Work-Life Balance because we wanted to build an organization where it was first, it was a priority, it was a true core value for people.

Speaker 3:

Again, you will burn out, your people will burn out, if you do not set the standard for boundaries. So what might that look like For me? It's turning off my phone at three o'clock when I pick up my son and I'm not answering emails for those for the next five hours. It's all of our family turning off our phones at dinnertime. It's setting time to exercise, where, again, I'm not working on my business. It's scheduling emails sometimes instead of sending them right away, because I know that the person I'm going to send them to, if I send them right away, is going to drop everything, no matter what I say, and I don't want them to drop everything. So it's sort of being cognizant about our own boundaries and helping others and our team set boundaries that allow us to better have lives. Right Again, if we don't have lives for ourselves, if we don't set those boundaries for ourselves and allow our team and require our team to set boundaries for themselves, then in the long run we're not going to be able to get the best job done.

Speaker 1:

And I guess it just comes back to that time. And there's another book I want to reference and I'm forgetting the exact name, but it was something like 2,000 Weeks, which is like your lifetime is finite. Right, time is finite, and that really should define everything you do. And if you think about it that way, and there's so many things you do and you don't have enough time, you either reduce can do or you need to find help with that, and obviously that's delegation. So I want to ask you and at the end I also want you to talk a little bit about the company that you've created, which now, in addition to Fiverr and Upwork, we have another alternative that I'm excited to hear about.

Speaker 1:

But you also say that there are five C's of empowered delegation, and I believe that it's probably the framework for get over yourself, which obviously, if anyone's interested in this topic, they should go out and buy today brand new book on the subject. But can you help define what those five Cs are? So people want to go through with all this advice. What would that look like for them?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, Well, before the five Cs, we've got the share models. Very briefly, the share model tells us what to focus on, what not to focus on. The S, H and A are the three things, and the three things alone, that an ideal leader is focusing on strategy and vision, hiring the right people in the right seats and accessing enough resources and cash to get the job done. Those three things alone. The R is remind ourselves if it's not one of those three things that we need to E empower. And then we go into the five Cs of empower delegation First C and the most important C and, to be honest, to be completely transparent, the hardest part of the process is to choose carefully the person or group to delegate the work to. I mentioned earlier. What often happens here, Neil, is we don't choose carefully. What often happens here, Neil, is we don't choose carefully, choose the wrong person. It all blows up and then we blame delegation itself versus taking accountability for the fact that we probably didn't choose the right person. And it's going to happen. It's going to happen no matter how hard we work. Sometimes we're going to miss for sure, but it's still really important to choose carefully, to look at all the available options. Number one mistake people make here is the person they choose is the person that's most convenient, the person that's already working for us. Well, you're my assistant, so you do it. You're my next door neighbor that's 21 years old, so you do social media. You're my accountant cousin, so you're my accountant now because you're my cousin. Don't choose the person based on convenience. Don't choose the person based on ease. Don't choose the person based on what seems like the simplest way to go. Choose carefully, using all of those available resources, whether it's Upwork or Fiverr or Apprentice, or hiring a new person or somebody that's existing or recruiting, or an agency or a consultant or a freelancer. Those are eight possibilities that I just rolled off the tip of my tongue. So choose carefully. That's the first C.

Speaker 3:

Next, communicate clearly. Ideally, not every single step they need to take, because that becomes micromanaging, but instead communicate clearly the ideal outcome the finish line. What does the finish line look like? I don't care. I don't care how my people get to the finish line. That woman that ran there was a woman that cheated on the marathon. This is kind of a funny example, and not necessarily the best example, because I don't, of course, none of us us want our employees to cheat or do anything illegal or unethical. But she took the subway in the New York City Marathon, like like five, six of the way, and then she jumped in and ran the rest of the way and like nobody noticed for a couple hours it's like a Seinfeld episode, isn't it?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, but, so, but, but, but. But. I bring it up because we sort of think that we know the best way to do something, but again, we probably don't. Instead of communicating clearly exactly what somebody needs to do to get the job done, communicate clearly what the ideal outcome looks like to you and empower the person or team that you hire to get there the way they think they need to get there. And they may make mistakes along the way. That's okay, because you're gonna do number three coach them along the way.

Speaker 3:

A great leader is not a manager. When I think of a manager, I think of somebody in my face telling me exactly what to do. When I think of a coach, I think of a cheerleader somebody that's there to teach me, to support me, to help me when I have challenges along the way. Somebody that's there to teach me, to support me, to help me when I have challenges along the way. So, coach and cheer on your person to success via C. Number four regular check-ins, not hour long. I just met with somebody I'm going to keep it anonymous. It was someone. I mentor a lot of people. One of my mentees comes to me. He's so excited. He's so excited he's delegating, he's listening to me. He says you know, and I hired somebody and I'm checking in with him and I go.

Speaker 3:

Great, how frequently? Oh, we have an hour long meeting every day. An hour long meeting every day is wasting so much of your time and their time. It is not an appropriate check-in. I like 15 minute a week check-ins. If you need to check in a little bit more in the beginning as you're building trust, great, but over time get to a place where it's a quick check-in. How are things going for you? Any stumbling blocks, any challenges? I can help you with Great job. Keep up the good work. Like check-ins don't have to be like long. You know boring meetings and when they become that, ask yourself are you really doing this to help them, to empower them? Are you doing this to put your own self at ease that everything's getting done the way you need it? You want it done.

Speaker 3:

And then the fifth C, which some people forget too, is when the process is done. Congratulate them on a job well done, no matter what. Congratulate them. Look at all of the great things they did and do the praise sandwich. Find opportunities for improvement next time around. People are going to make mistakes. That's totally fine, as long as they don't make the same exact mistake over and over again and as long as they don't make a fatal mistake that ends your business. Chances are neither of those things can happen, but they are going to make some mistakes along the way, just like you would make mistakes along the way. Totally fine. What can you learn from that? Congratulations on a job well done. What can we learn from this? How can we do it better next time? And then we repeat the process.

Speaker 1:

So those are the five C's Choose carefully, communicate clearly, coach and cheer, check in regularly and congratulate and look for opportunities for improvement next time around yeah, that's really fantastic advice, david, I wish and I'm sure there's a lot of people that are nodding in fact, my book editor, when he read the chapter on outsourcing, seems like I've never had any success with fiverr or op work, and I'm like you know, I'm sorry. I wish I'd written this chapter earlier, and now you have a book and you have a framework, because that does not exist. People don't know right and they get burned and they don't follow the advice and they fall out of touch with the people they work with. They don't congratulate them. Those people move on or they don't do what could be their best. You're not set up for success.

Speaker 1:

So I'm really excited that you provided this framework. That's going to help a lot of people. I also want to ask you as we close out obviously, get Over Yourself is sold anywhere. That fine books are sold online or offline, but you mentioned at the very beginning that you started this new company called Apprentice and we already talked about Fiverr and Upwork, which a lot of people know about. Maybe not a lot of people know about Apprentice. So I'd like you to just sort of describe Apprentice and how do you position yourself in comparison to those two other platforms that we discussed?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so look, I love Fiverr and Upwork for relatively low value tasks at a great price, and the way I position Apprentice against that is higher value tasks and more longer term relationships that you can build. So our core value proposition, neil, is we're taking students at the top schools in the country students that one or two years from now will earn $100,000 a year working for McKinsey and Google and the top firms in the world and we're bringing those same students to you, the small business owner and entrepreneur, for a much smaller price to do high-level tasks like social media, marketing, business development, data analysis, website development, documenting processes, all of those types of tasks and projects. And the core difference, too, is that talent level People listening wouldn't have access to this level of talent. Frankly, I wouldn't have access to this level of talent.

Speaker 3:

After they graduate. They're not coming to work for me unless I build a relationship with them while they're in college. They're going to work for those top tier big brand name firms, and so I wanted to help give access to smaller businesses and entrepreneurs to this great, smart talent that I've been very, very fortunate to tap into over the years of my entrepreneurship life. What they lack is experience, for sure, but they are super fast learners and they're super smart and driven and I personally I love working with them, so it's been really fun for me. And it keeps me young too, because I'm surrounded by hundreds of college students and I'm the only old person here at the company, so that's a lot of fun.

Speaker 1:

Very cool. Yeah, it's really interesting. My daughter we mentioned she's involved in social media marketing, influencer marketing. She has an internship now that helped her find a LinkedIn and the company really wants to tap into her. Just being a Gen Z spending a few hours a day on TikTok. What are the trends that you're seeing? What's the trending type of content? And that is, if you think about it, dave, that's extremely invaluable data, intel.

Speaker 1:

If you're not part of that world and I think you know, I think you'd agree, especially in social media you know Facebook, linkedin, twitter and I'm done. Well, that's not the case. You know, today, and the communities have become so different and within the communities there are niche communities and really and that's obviously where influencer marketing comes in but just, you know, you can imagine the various ways in which you can leverage. You know college students who are extremely intelligent and they want to learn, they want that experience and they're willing to do a lot more for you than, and able to do a lot more for you than you might think. So I just want to, you know, congratulate you on that, and you know what types of businesses that are listening to this podcast do you think should be reaching out and then do they just go to apprenticecom and fill out a contact form and someone contacts them, or how does the process go?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, I'll walk through that in a second. I do want to say tell you kind of a funny joke You'll appreciate this as a longtime marketer, and especially we started talking about the keynote that I did a while back One of our core values at Apprentice Neil is bi-directional mentorship. We believe that while our clients and I have a lot to teach these apprentices, they have a lot to teach us as well. And the perfect example that I use all the time. I jokingly say I wrote a New York Times bestselling book on social media 12 years ago. When I wrote Likeable Social Media, I was one of the world's foremost experts on social media at the time. Neil Well, here in 2024, I couldn't make a TikTok to save my life. That's not my thing. I don't understand it, I can't do it. I can't. And thank goodness for my apprentices because they teach me things like how to make a TikTok, like understanding that. And again, it's so presumptuous of any of us to think that we're the smartest or best at anything.

Speaker 3:

And these kids are, and they hate when I call them that, these apprentices, these young people are really really smart and capable, and so I love how open our clients are and I'm very proud of how open I am to learning from them. So, to answer your question, we do a lot of work in professional services businesses, so law firms, accounting firms, a lot of work for marketing agencies. We do some work in tech and e-commerce Basically any business that has at least three, four or five employees up to about 100, that's really the sweet spot for Apprentice. That's where we've seen a lot of success, and our that has at least three, four, five employees up to about a hundred. That's really the sweet spot for Apprentice. That's where we've seen a lot of success. And our website is chooseapprenticecom, so anyone that goes to chooseapprenticecom can learn more about that and meet with one of our rockstar apprentices and learn more directly from them.

Speaker 1:

Awesome, Dave. This has been incredible and I will make sure that that link is in the show notes and that people reach out to you, because I know you're one of the kindest but also just really intelligent and interesting and I know from your previous books and outside of social media that you just have a lot of really, really interesting life. We didn't even talk about the Mets, right, and I'm obviously a big Dodger fan, but respect for Dwight Gooden, Daryl Strawberry and the good old days of the Mets. I still remember those days.

Speaker 3:

I was just in retirement. It was wonderful, and Daryl's retirement is coming up and, yes, we could have talked about many, many other things. Since you mentioned connecting with me, I started doing Office Hours Meal 10, 11 years ago Probably, I think I posted in my first book and I continue to do that every single week. So anyone that wants pro bono coaching, asking me anything really, you can go to scheduleddavecom and every single Thursday afternoon I meet with anyone on the planet that wants to meet with me. I did a count before we launched this book because I reached out to them for help. I've met with 837 people in my office hours in the last 10 years, so I'm really proud of that and I remain super open to talking to literally anyone on the planet that wants to meet with me. They just go to ScheduledDavecom.

Speaker 1:

That is amazing. Dave. Thank you so much for sharing that. I think we covered the scope. Obviously, there was a lot more that we could have gone into. Any final words on delegation or get over yourself that you'd like to share with the audience that we didn't cover?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, thanks for asking. Look, I just want to say that sometimes I take for granted that it's easy because I've been doing it for a while. But I just want to say I get how hard it is, I get how hard it sounds to some people. So I'm certain there's some people listening and watching and thinking, yeah, dave talks a big game, but it's it's.

Speaker 3:

This is too hard for me. I'm too scared, I'm too. I don't have the money, I don't, I don't feel comfortable outsourcing, I, I, they're going to mess it up. I just, I just can't do this. I've been burned too many times before. And I just want to say, if that's what you're thinking, and that's okay, it's okay to feel that way, it's okay and I hope you can get to a place where you can work through some of that and even if we never talk again, and even if it's not Apprentice, even if it's Fiverr because that's way cheaper than Apprentice, to be frank that you can open yourself up to the possibility that there is another way out there through delegation. So I just want to meet people where they're at, and for many people this is really scary and overwhelming stuff and that's okay, that's okay and maybe they can work through some of the discomfort and summon up the courage to go for it.

Speaker 1:

Get over yourself. I sound like your salesperson, but get over yourself is going to be the first step to getting over that. So, dave, thank you so much. You've been really generous with your time, your ideas. I hope people do reach out to you, reach out to chooseapprenticecom and scheduledavecom, and I look forward to seeing what the next few years have, look forward to having you back on the podcast when you have your next book out.

Speaker 3:

Thanks so much again for having me, Neil. Great to see you.

Speaker 1:

All right, hope you enjoyed that interview. Dave is really a special guy, like I said. Known him for over a decade, he's authored many books on social media, and nobody's really talking about delegation. I think it's a really important concept that we need to cover more, because there is so much to do in digital marketing and we cannot do it all, but there's a lot of people out there that can help us and we may not be able to hire someone full time and thus outsourcing. So read more about that in digital threads.

Speaker 1:

And, hey, I want to thank you for subscribing. I am going to be back at you next week with a conversation that I had with Instagram about best practices in using Instagram in 2024. So, if Instagram is your thing, you'll definitely want to tune into that, and if you haven't subscribed already, please make sure you hit that subscribe button. Obviously, whatever platform you are on, listening to this podcast if you haven't already, would really be honored by a five-star podcast review, a comment and those things really really do go a long way. So that's it. Hey, I'm actually heading to London tomorrow, so when you hear this, I'll already be there. If you're in London, feel free to hit me up on the socials. Maybe we'll have a chance to get a coffee or a pint. And until next week, this is your digital marketing coach, neil Schafer, signing off.

Speaker 2:

You've been listening to your digital marketing coach. You've been listening to your digital marketing coach. Questions, comments, requests, links. Go to podcastneilschafercom. Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes at neilschafercom to tap into the 400 plus blog posts that Neil has published to support your business. While you're there, check out Neal's digital first group coaching membership community If you or your business needs a little helping hand. See you next time on your digital marketing coach.