Previously on … The Delegation Deception
- Delegation doesn't get multi-6 and 7-figure business owners out of the weeds (it's not just you!)
- The volume of decisions, not just tasks, are what turn you into the bottleneck
- Your team could be making more & bigger decisions than they are right now
- To make it happen, you need to design your team's roles based on the decisions they make
Dream Team Design is a process for organizing your team based on the decisions they make, rather than a constant need to delegate tasks.
When you structure your team up this way, two amazing things happen:
1
Your TEAM gets freed up to do the work they’re best at …
2
… and YOU don’t need to micromanage every step along the way.
Let me show you how it works ...
Instead of constantly delegating tasks to your team and hoping that everything works out…
Dream Team Design is about defining your team’s roles in a way that empowers them to use their skills and expertise to get results.
Of course, to do that you need to know what roles your business needs. And that means you need to know the decisions—not just the tasks—that happen in your business on the daily.
This gives us the three-part Dream Team Design Process:
The first thing is to build a list of all the "how" decisions that happen in your business.
We start with the "how" decisions because they're the ones most likely to get you sucked into the day-to-day ... plus they're the easiest ones for your team to take over!
Define The DecisionsOnce we have the "how" decisions laid out, we sort them into the kinds of responsibilities that your team will need as it grows. Then, we add in the "what", "when" and "why" decisions ...
And reverse-engineer the whole thing into the set of roles that is suitable for your business as it is today.
Design Roles & ResponsibilitiesWith the new decision-based roles designed, we can transition your existing team into their new responsibilities—and officially get the decisions off your plate.
Bonus: by involving your team in the process, getting their buy-in will be easy. After all, Dream Team Design means creating dream jobs for you and your team!
Align Your TeamThese three pieces are the key if you want your team taking ownership rather than waiting for work to constantly be delegated to them.
But it’s critical that you do each of these steps in order and not skip them.
Here’s why…
Imagine that all the decisions in your business are like Jenga blocks.
They’re stacked up in a tower, with the whole thing resting on one, single, solitary block.
(Hint: that’s you)
Remove that one block, and the whole business topples.
Move too many elements around on the top, and the whole business topples.
And let’s be real: even if you just leave it exactly how it is…
It’s Jenga. It might still topple.
Now imagine … instead of Jenga blocks, your tower is made of Lego bricks.
Same tower, same elements, same everything —
Except that because the blocks are all interlocked and interconnected with each other…
You can build higher and stronger than ever.
You can move bricks around, and even remove the brick from the bottom and put it on top (or wherever else you want it).
And the tower won’t crumble to the ground.
This is what Dream Team Design produces: a team that is strong. A team that sticks together. A team that is, in aggregate, better than you could ever be on your own.
Dream Team Design ...
- ... frees you up from endless to-dos, micromanagement, and chasing people around.
- ... frees you up from the top-down, hierarchical, outdated models preached by influencers and corporate big-wigs alike.
- ... frees you up from being “stuck in the weeds,” to having a business that can run itself at $1M, $5M, $10M and beyond.
Because while most online business owners are out there focusing on the tactical decisions—how to get more leads, more sales, more clients, more marketing channels and more work …
We know that this outdated approach only ever leads to one place; with you:
- Unable to step away and take a real vacation, lest some emergency arises
- Broke and out of cash, trying to cover all their ever-increasing expenses
- Spending all your time micromanaging and putting out fires, with only duct-taped systems and processes holding everything together
And what the rest of the world doesn’t realize (but you now do!) is that the very solutions they’re telling you to implement only compound the issue, making it worse instead of better.
That’s why we take a completely different approach.
Because it’s not just about making more money with less effort.
It’s about creating a limitless, scalable company that will have an impact far greater than you ever could on your own.
That is when you get stories like these:
Anna Wolf
Marketing Agency
Delegating had taken over Anna's life. She'd tried hiring someone to take it off her plate four times: an Integrator, a COO, an OBM, and a project manager. Every time, the work landed up right back on her plate. Turns out, she didn't need any of those...
"What I really needed was a managing editor, because that's what I was doing that every single day. I didn't have time to do anything else because I was editing all of our writers' work every day." (Visionary CEO Podcast, S03E04)
As a result of restructuring her team, Anna went from stuck at $800k, down in the weeds, spending too much time managing people ... to $1M collected in a year, with a new team structure that finally got her out of the day-to-day.
Linzy Bonham
Online Education For Therapists
Being "everywhere" on social media was driving Linzy (and her team) to distraction. That is, until she started letting her team drive some of the decisions around marketing...
"We still have the same players in place, but they can really focus on their zones of genius and joy... It's really energized my team, because we each get to focus on something we really want." (Visionary CEO Podcast, S03E07)
Now, Linzy's not having to drive marketing forward. Her team's bringing ideas—and not just ideas, but ideas that they're excited to implement. And that means they're constantly pushing the bar upward and doing things better.
Patrice Perkins
Legal Services for Creatives
Patrice Perkins is a self-described "Type-A Personality" who really loves the work she does. The problem was, she kept getting pulled back into problem solving mode—even when someone else could have solved it better. When she started letting her team decide how to solve the problems...
"Allowing my team to solve the problem created a new sense of ownership. It led to increased confidence [in them]: 'I can not only do this role, but help make decisions that are key for the business in a way that serves us all.'" (Visionary CEO Podcast, S03E03)
But the biggest shift Patrice saw? Was in the level of competence her team started displaying. Their increased proactivity not only freed Patrice up immensely—but has led to the firm being able to take on even bigger clients and projects.
Shannon Hernandez
Online Programs & Consulting
Shannon was the quintessential online business owner: she was the face of the brand. She was the personality of the brand. She was the creator of the frameworks and IP. And clients only wanted to work with her... or so she thought.
"What I can tell you is, people want results. This [mindset shift] has allowed us to scale. This has allowed us to make more money. This has allowed me to bring in other coaches who are working with clients." (Visionary CEO Podcast, S03E01)
By shifting away from being the only decision-maker in the business, Shannon was able to finally be free: taking 197 days off, while generating around $400,000 with more joy than she'd previously thought possible.
Joe Taylor Jr.
User Experience Consulting
Early on in his business, Joe felt like he needed every member of his team team to deliver every piece of output exactly the way that he had been doing it, which meant that he was inspecting every deliverable before it went to a client. It clearly wasn't sustainable, and Joe knew something needed to change.
"I had to let go of a lot of the rigid structure that I had put in place because I'd assumed it's what our clients wanted. And the humbling realization here is that the clients didn't really care how we got the results we did or who did that work. " (Visionary CEO Podcast, S03E06)
Fast forward a few years, and Joe's running with a leaner team, compensating their team better than they ever had before, and their profit margin is consistently the highest it's ever been.
Keila Hill-Trawick
Boutique Accounting Firm
Keila Hill-Trawick had thought hiring people would make life easier. Newsflash: it didn't. She tried writing SOPs to help. And again ... it didn't. The problem, she came to realize, was that her team needed to be set up to make decisions:
"When I started this business, there was nobody but me and I did all the parts. Then I added one person and they helped me, but I mostly did all the parts and gave them some of it. [Now], I can focus on the other parts because I'm not constantly chasing behind." (Visionary CEO Podcast, S03E06)
As Keila transitioned more decisions to her team, they not only stepped up, but have been thriving with their new responsibilities. In her words, it's like when a child grows up and starts doing their own laundry: "I'm like, are you sure you don't need me? And they're like, I got it—I don't need you to touch it."
As you can see, the Dream Team Design framework is designed to free you up by tapping into the brilliance of your team.
It empowers them to make decisions in a way that actually creates bigger growth, higher profit margins, better client results, and a happier team…
All while you get to do more of the things you love, inside the business and out.
Most importantly…
…it works.
- It works for agency owners like Anna and Joe
- It works for educators & coaches like Linzy and Shannon
- It works for professionals like Keila and Patrice
From businesses doing $300k per year, to businesses doing $300k per month…
Selling direct to consumer, to other small business owners, or to enterprise…
With teams ranging in size from 3 to 15…
It works.
Why?
Because this isn’t the same repackaged version of the same “solutions” you’ve been sold before. You know, the ones built by (and for) white dude bro influencers and their corporate corner office counterparts.
No, this framework is built on actual people-first principles.
It's based on not just "having diverse voices" in the room...
But on putting those voices in places where they are able to lead.
It's based on not just "including" people in the conversation...
But on listening to & benefitting from what they have to say.
It's based on not just saying "equity matters"...
But on actually treating every person as a person—first, last and always.
And so look ...
If you’re happy to keep doing things the way you have been … then have ‘atter.
And if you want to take what you’ve learned here, and implement it on your own—you now know exactly what to do.
But if you’re done wasting time trying to figure out how to put all the pieces together on your own, and you’re ready to design your dream team in a way that empowers them, grows your business, and will actually free you up…
Then let’s make it happen; all the details are on the next page.
