STp 31 | Scaling Your Therapy Practice by Helping Your Directs Make Better Decisions
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Do you like to get things done quicker, faster, and with less effort? So do I. So I created a Facebook group called assistants, automation and AI for mental health providers. You can search it in the Facebook search panel. And I created this because I love to talk about this topic. I love, , talking about assistance and how to hire them and manage them.
I love automations that do things for me quicker, faster, better. And then AI is just exploding on the scene. And I feel like I'm talking about all the, about it all the time and my friends are talking about it. So why not create a community group where we can discuss these things together, share ideas and get things done quicker.
I'd be humbled. If you joined the group and started contributing your favorite tips and tricks on assistance, automation and AI for mental health providers.
Go to the show notes, find the link for the group, or just search up assistance, automation and AI for mental health providers in the Facebook search bar. We'll see you there. over. Hello. Welcome to the Scaling Therapy Practice.
James Marland: This is James Marlin with uh, Dr. David Hall. Hello David. Hi James. Welcome back to the show. Uh, this week we're gonna talk about delegation and decision making. Uh, we have an interesting framework to review with you, especially when working with vi virtual assistants and other people, how to get things off your plate and how to keep them off your plate.
James Marland: So, uh, it's very excited. Talk about that. First, we're gonna do our tool tip and tech of the week. Uh, David, why don't you go first? Um,
David Hall: so in the past few weeks, I've, I've gotten really on Pinterest and that is, and, and that may feel strange for, for people any, so I, I've not been, Pinterest has not been really a thing of mine.
David Hall: Uh, when I remember when I first heard of it years ago, it was a friend of my wife and mine, like she was into it and she, for, it was a lot of like kids clothes and recipes and home decor sorts of stuff as I realized what people used it for and all that stuff feels just kind of, You know, it, it's not very inspiring to me.
David Hall: I'm not typically into that most of the time, and, and I don't like shopping and that, so in some ways I'm like the least ideal user for Pinterest because I don't, um, I don't like, uh, new chores at, at home at least. And I don't like to shop. I don't even like shopping for things I like for the most part.
David Hall: And so that's, but what's got me back into it is I use Trello a lot for business and which I think it was a tip of the week for me once, but it's a Trello's just an organizational system and tool. Uh, and I use it for course creation and other work projects. And in it you make lists and, and have different tasks assigned to different lists.
David Hall: And you have a combination of lists on different boards. But, um, Trello's very, uh, word driven. It's very much about kind of what's written down. And I find it really great for verbal word driven task, but. I started using it for some personal things recently, and I found just the visualization worked so much better.
David Hall: So I, I just shifted what I was doing over to, to Pinterest and some of it has been my wife and I are considering some remodels to our home, and so that's got us looking at different things. And so I'm, and, and Pinterest, you know, feeds you things. I start looking at hardscapes designs in my backyard and Pinterest like, oh, have you seen this?
David Hall: And then it just, you go on this Pinterest hole. And I, I've found, I've, you know, there are other things I do enjoy. I enjoy seeing people kind of DIY things. I, I was watching somebody who's creating fishing gear out of bicycle wheels, and it's not the sort of thing I would actually do myself, but I, I, I get intrigued by people's ingenuity and, uh, so yeah, you create a board,
James Marland: you create a board for your ideas.
David Hall: Oh yeah. I've got so many boards on, so like, I, I've got. Um, a a a a Trello board that's just called David's Brain, and it's just for any number of things that don't have a permanent board yet. If they, if they, uh, incubate long enough, sometimes they get their own board. But, you know, I've got tons of Pinterest boards on, like camping equipment to mm-hmm.
David Hall: Automobile things that I think are interesting and, and, and it's less about, it's funny, like for some people they do that. It gets 'em really excited on buying and it doesn't, for me, I just like getting the ideas and it's a process of elimination. Like, again, I, I don't like you, I, I feel blessed in that.
David Hall: Like I don't have a lot of fantasies about having stuff. Um, often I have fantasies about having less things. Hmm. Uh, like the decluttering, uh, aspects of life that that's an easy thing to, for me to, to buy into and to feel. But, uh, Yeah, so this has been, Pinterest has been driving more things in my personal life, but honestly, depending on what you do in business, it's, there's a reason I realize that people who do more design based sorts of things, if you're doing graphic design or video or a lot of visual things as an organizational place, Pinterest is really cool.
David Hall: So yeah,
James Marland: I found it as like a, a visual shortcut to what the words were saying. Mm. Like, it just keep, it's the reminder. And I, I had a board when I was redoing my basement, like, what, what you wanted it to look like and colors and what you're gonna put down there. And, and, uh, it was fun, but what it ended up, I don't do it anymore, but what it ended up doing being was like, Godzilla pictures, like some of my teenage uh, uh, uh, science fiction type stuff.
James Marland: It'd be like, oh, you like, you like this comic book? What about this thing and what this thing? And it just went on and on it, it started to become a time sink. But I had some fun curated boards of just different artsy stuff that I really, really, uh, uh, I, I enjoyed it. Like, now you're making, you're giving me the itch to go back and, uh, start some boards.
James Marland: Um, it's
David Hall: been a fun thing and some of it is you, this is, I don't have a lot of recommendations in this tip of like how it will help you scale your practice necessarily. Yeah. I mean you can use it for that I'm sure, but for me it's even just a certain amount of self-care. It helps shift my brain out of, cuz for the most part, what I'm using it for is stuff not related to work.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. And the percentage of my cranial hard drive that's spent thinking about work-related things is a lot. It's a pretty high percentage and I have to work a lot on getting my brain off of it. And it's good when I do. Yeah, I, I, I feel pretty good about that. What's your
James Marland: tip, James? So, so my tip is just, uh, uh, is be, be mission driven, um, to be your authentic business, I guess.
James Marland: Uh, I'm sure there's a better way to say that, but I, I'm, I'm taking, I'm taking some, uh, teachings on marketing and finding your, you know, finding your dream client. And one of the big, one of the big tips there is to be authentic, like be mission driven, not necessarily profit driven, because mission driven people attract people who are on the same mission and profit driven is more transactional.
James Marland: So I, I wrote a blog about how to assess if you're mission driven or, um, money driven. For example, the, the, um, the main activity of a, a money driven organization is just the transaction, like the sale process and the mission driven. If you're on a mission, your main activity is transformation. You, you measure the transformation.
James Marland: You, you celebrate the transformation. In a profit driven, money driven organization, you celebrate the sale, the transaction. Nothing wrong with sales or profits. In fact, I, I highly believe all therapy businesses should be profitable. Thank you Julie Harris from, uh, green Oak Accounting. Um, but, but, uh, it's just a reminder, reminder to me about, you know, why I am doing this and where do, where do I find my authentic self and where do I get the most joy out of doing business?
James Marland: It's when I focus on the mission, like, where am I helping people? How am I helping people get to their dream destination? Um, And, uh, that, that attracts, that solves the problem of finding people because if they're, if you're going to where they want to go, they're gonna find you. Mm-hmm. Like, they're gonna, they're gonna jump on your bus because of where you're going.
James Marland: Not necessarily because you tried to market to them or to sell to them. Um, and I, I just, I just, it takes the pressure off a little bit to me. Cuz, cuz the big question in selling is like, where am I gonna find all these people? How am I gonna get people to buy my stuff? And it just turns, it turns the helping service into it.
James Marland: It feels icky a little bit sometimes. I'm sure you've seen ads online that make you feel icky. You know, like, oh, they're really like mm-hmm. Trying to, you know, bait and switch people and, and, and the, the therapists and the helpers I deal with aren't like that. They don't wanna sell to people. They wanna help people.
James Marland: And so this, mm-hmm. Just being focused on being mission driven just really aligns with. My, my, my heart, I guess. And, um, I wanna share it with other people. And, and I think for the most part, we start out mission driven, but then the, the, the, the cares of the world and the profit driven kind of like tear us down and, and we, we start celebrating the transactions rather than the transformation.
James Marland: So that mm-hmm. So that's my tip. I wrote a blog. Uh, it'll be in the show notes. Uh, but it's, it just helps me enjoy work more when I'm mission driven. Mm-hmm. So that's, that's my tip. Did you have any questions?
David Hall: I mean, that all sounds great. The, uh, uh, I do think it, it's the, um, people listening, it, it could be even thinking about like, what is your mission?
David Hall: And how's that, how's that defined and how's that communicated through the organization? And, uh, a practical thing of I've, um, I was talking to a supervisee of mine yesterday and she works in a different city. We're in the same state, but I do virtual supervision with her. And she is in a different city, works for a different organization.
David Hall: She works for a, a pretty well established nonprofit organization in her community that has a lot of therapists and serves a lot of people, particularly people that could not afford or access therapy services otherwise. And she was talking about not in an overly, uh, ungracious or gripey sort of way, but some of a frustration because, uh, she was very much driven.
David Hall: Like I really, as a therapist want to get very qualified and skilled within a certain way of doing therapy. And I feel that this organization pushes us to. You know, see as many different sorts of cases or clients and do as many different sorts of therapies. And so they can reduce their wait list of people waiting to get in to see a therapist.
David Hall: And she goes, I really want, I, I wish it was more developmental, was basically like, I wish it was a lot more developmental focused on therapist. And I reflected with her saying like, well, but what's their mission? And you could have multiple missions, but I do believe there has to be an order to them, a hierarchy.
David Hall: Um, like what is subordinate to what? And my thought for where she works, I go, I believe how I understand their mission is they wanna provide quality counseling, therapy, services to populations, groups that otherwise would have a hard time accessing it. That's their mission. And so in service of the mission, you know, they want to keep as short of a wait list as possible and these other things happen.
David Hall: Now that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt or have issues. For you in this, but at least there's clarity in like, but this is what they're doing and why. And I think there's an issue, like you said, like money's one of those things James said. I, I think of it like it's, it has very practical value in how we're able to sustain our lives.
David Hall: But as a business, um, it typically is not ever really good as a target by itself. It's, it's very good to have as a outgrowth
James Marland: of success. I have a, a minor story about that. My, my father was a, or my father-in-law, um, worked for a trucking company and they did something that destroyed a lot of morale in their drivers.
James Marland: They said, our goal this year is big profits. Big profits, big profits. And then all the drivers are like, that doesn't help me. You know, uh, the goal for the company this year is big profits, but how does that, How does that motivate the, the, the, the worker? And I think they, they lost a little bit of, you know, engagement with their drivers when they made their focus on just the, the, the big profits.
James Marland: Mm-hmm.
David Hall: Yeah. Um, yeah. And that's, you know, you, you gotta speak to again, what's gonna motivate people. And even for yourself, like, the problem with money is your goal as your only goal, like, like money is, I want, uh, money to be a, um, an after effect. In some ways it's, it's kind of the points system for certain things that you're doing.
David Hall: And so in that sense, it's, it's relative. It's it's, or it's relevant the same way you play any number of games you wanna get points, but the game also has to be worth playing. Right on that, because there are other things to do to make money. There are other things to do. You know, if, if I was kind of unconcerned about the value or ethics of my activities, I have a lot of different things I could think to do that would probably be more profitable for me.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. But there are other drawbacks to that. So, um, and, and I think for most therapists, you know, because this doesn't have to be belabor that much, most therapists aren't generally super money driven. I find you don't become a therapist if that's your main goal. Right. And oftentimes therapists will feel guilty in having financial goals.
David Hall: And I, I think it's very good to have that and, and to look at very practically of how does this, because, because these things do affect your life. It affects, you know, what your home can be like. It, it can affect what schooling could look like for your kids. It can affect what your vacation or time off looks like.
David Hall: It can affect where live, where you live. It can affect your charitable giving. It can affect, um, Even staying well sheltered and fed. Mm-hmm. Even to that level. So those are very like, practical, tangible sorts of things. It just, I find it's not very fulfilling if that's the only thing you do in the sense of the, if all you're doing is kind of meeting a first level material needs mm-hmm.
David Hall: And then after that material wants, like, stuff can be fun. I know for a lot of, for for people myself included as I tell. Cause
James Marland: that's the, the lowest level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Right. Like your base needs. Yeah. But there's more to life than just your base needs.
David Hall: Yeah. Um, anyway, moving into our conversation today cause Sure.
David Hall: This is where I'm gonna lead because this is, this often is James interviewing me about certain experiences in as a therapist and supervisor and having worked in therapy business. But so, but we're gonna talk about delegation today and. The productivity or lack thereof that happens to it. And specifically the, what we're gonna talk about today could apply to the delegation process as opposed for anybody that you would be delegating to, whether it's a business as associate or partner, or somebody who physically works in your office.
David Hall: We're gonna take it through the lens, quite a bit of, of virtual assistants. It's something that part of James's background in, in managing and working in that space. It's something that I'm interested in quite a bit because as, as this, uh, as of this point of when we're recording, I've worked very minimally with virtual support.
David Hall: I've, I've had one va, um, who it was a very fruitful relationship, but the nature of this VA was much more like a coach to me in teaching me how to do a lot of things. And it was, the relationship was less focused on the fulfillment of continual. Task and needs. And so that work with that person ended up having a certain season that wrapped up.
David Hall: And that was, I wrapped up with him almost two years ago at the end of, yeah, I wrapped up with him in 2001 and so that, so over a year ago, and again, it was a really good relationship, but I haven't done a VA again. And part of it is, is it taught me enough to know that like, oh, I could really use a VA for this, but I'm not a great delegator.
David Hall: I am. Part of it is, is it takes me a lot of work to sit down to explain some things and I'm of the sort where I'd rather just do it myself or, or rather even too strong of a term, but I just end up doing it myself. I also feel bad if I have the sense that I'm not, if people, other people aren't completing task, I'm asking, I'll both become mad at them or at myself.
David Hall: Which generally leads me to, to disengage and be avoidant of the thing. And so then it's just easier not to, not to do it. Um, or I'm, or I give somebody a task and they do it wrong and I don't wanna make them feel bad to say like, well, this is not what I was asking for, and then I have to go back and fix it or explain to them how to fix it.
David Hall: And it's like, well, this just been easier if I had done it. So, but I look at that and I look at the nature of my life right now, and I am out of time. Mm-hmm. I am out of time. I see clients, I supervise therapists. I have a counseling business. I'm the co-owner of that. I have certain ongoing roles in, I have a continuing education online course business, and now I'm the executive director of a new nonprofit.
James Marland: Oh, you were ta Sorry, you were talking about that, uh, a couple months ago,
David Hall: right? Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's still, it's, it's still, it's still in the formation process, and I'll probably talk about more in few, but the point is I don't have time. Yeah. And I, one of the things that I need help with right now, James and I were talking about the softline, or I want help in, is I want to, uh, have, be running ads to online courses that I do specifically.
David Hall: I've been interested in Google AdWords and, uh, YouTube ads, so both same companies, alphabet, same company, and I've been interested in, in learning that platform. And so my discussion with my wife about it, I'm like, Hey, I, I think I wanna like sign up for a Skillshare course or a Udemy course on how do you Google ads?
David Hall: And figure it out myself. And she looked at me, we were driving, I was driving, and she turned and looked at me and she was just staring at me and she goes, why in the world do you think that's a good idea? She goes, that will take you so much time. And, and she goes, you just need to bring on somebody to do that.
David Hall: And sh I, there wasn't anything logically in me that disagreed with her, but there's still this hesitancy because of my difficulty and delegation and kind of things like that. So let's walk through this process, James. So I am, I, you, you've met me. I'm, let's say that you're working as a virtual assistant consultant.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. That, that, um, and you've met me and I've told you to my best diagnosis what my problem is. Mm-hmm. How would you help me? Get better grips with that. What are the steps that you would wanna take me through and, and to give to and how, and to, to give me structure and how I would set up somebody I would bring on as a va.
James Marland: Yeah. So, so first off, your, your feelings are not, uh, they're normal. They're, they're, they're just normal. I can, that's a good therapist response too. I've worked with therapists for a while, so
David Hall: your feelings are valid
James Marland: and with a range, you have a valid, you have valid feelings. Yeah. You know, you don't wanna waste time.
James Marland: You have trouble being the bad guy. You don't wanna, um, uh, you, you, you get mad. You, the, some of those difficult conversations are hard. Like they think you missed expectations and then, then you just, you store it up and you're like, oh, I'll, I'll hope it gets better or I'll try to get it better. Um, and then I can do it better myself.
James Marland: And then, then the thing, uh, the thing about you going, signing up for a, a course to try to do it better yourself is also a classic response. I'll just figure it out. I'll do it better. But then you run up against the, the thing like, I'm out of time. I just don't, I just don't have time. And shout out to the, to the wives and the partners who give us wisdom that we don't.
James Marland: That just the, the like, what are you, what are you thinking? Yes. Oh, it's, it's classic. I get that. I get that, uh, uh, from time to time too. So thank you. Thank you to our partners for that. Yeah. So, uh, uh, I have something I learned from, uh, the run like clock workbooks that I used in the virtual assistant company, uh, to kind of take out the bad feelings from it and to set up a framework where you don't have to micromanage.
James Marland: The virtual assistant is learning, uh, And people have a framework of how delegation is done, decisions are made, and then a way to like talk about it when expectations aren't done. Um, let's talk about, uh, how a, a virtual assistant makes a decision. And you can ask me questions as we go on
David Hall: this. So what's the frame?
David Hall: So give give us, give us a high level of the framework first. What's, what are the steps of the framework? And take us through each step.
James Marland: Yeah. Okay. So, uh, the decision making framework is just three things to make a decision. Everyone needs permission, like they ha it has to be within their role to make that decision.
James Marland: Two, they have to have the right information to make a correct decision. You have to have the right information to make that decision. And then three, the, the third thing that kind of trips up people when they're making a decision is they don't have the confidence to make that decision.
David Hall: So, so, so as a, as a contractor or, or somebody mm-hmm.
David Hall: Who, who's contracting a person for this? One of the key things that I need to be thinking of and go, won't go into that work relationship is how am I thinking through and giving them, you know, permission mm-hmm. Information. Mm-hmm. Is that the second? And, uh, yeah, confidence.
James Marland: Confidence. Yeah. Uh, right. Um, and when, when people have all three of those things, the decisions are easier.
James Marland: What happens if you're missing the permission to make a decision or you're making information as often where there's a lot of, um, a lot of, uh, pitfalls. Uh, when, when you don't have that, you get stuck or you don't make the decision, and then you go to the, the therapist or the manager and you ask them to solve the problem for you.
James Marland: And then, then it becomes the, the like, oh, I should have done this myself, type of thing. Or it's taking too long. Um, for the, for the. Virtual assistant. So permission, so permission reli, uh, relates to, you know, is it in my job and can I, do I, are the doors unlocked for me to make this decision? So, uh, for example, if you're having somebody schedule, schedule in your, in your practice, uh, permission would be you set up the boundaries.
James Marland: I take people from this time to this time, these are who I see, these, uh, I see this insurance. It's like unlocking all the doors for them to make a decision on who you see. So if you tell them, I see children up to 18 and somebody is like 17 and a half, and they're gonna have one session with you before they turn 18.
James Marland: Mm-hmm. How do they make that decision? You know, do they have permission to do that? Uh, and they, it also could be confidence because. They're, they're not a hundred percent sure if they can make the right decision, because in the past maybe you've done it and then another time you've changed your mind. So, um, the, the permission aspect is, uh, something that they have to sometimes keep up updating.
James Marland: The other thing with permission, it, it could just be passwords. You know, do they have the right passwords to make it, do they have the right, uh, tools and technology, the, to make that decision? But it has to be within their role. And if they're asked to make a decision outside their role, outside of their boundaries, it, it gets difficult for them.
David Hall: Hmm. So what are the practical ways that you give those things? And so when you're onboarding somebody, what are the ways that I can do this? Well, and I guess to, to maybe prompt, like in the sense of, should I be thinking. Even writing down in the process, like, what are the things that I want this person to be doing, and how do they access that?
David Hall: How do they have, you know, and how do I verbalize that in such a way? So for example, you, you talked about the, the scheduling. Mm-hmm. And you know, I say I see 18 and up and this person, it's on the line. And so I want them, what, what I would want in that situation as somebody who'd be willing to take a certain amount of initiative to, to make that decision.
David Hall: Yes.
James Marland: So the, the key point to all three of these missing things, uh, uh, if, if the virtual assistant is missing either permission, information or confidence mm-hmm. They attempt to find the information on their own, or first they recognize I can't make this decision. That's the first thing. They, they, they recognize.
James Marland: I don't, I either don't have the ability to do it, the confidence or the information to make a correct decision. Then they, they ask themselves why not? And if they ask themselves, so this is what the, the, this is what the therapist is helping them teach. Learn themselves. They're l helping them learn this process.
James Marland: Do I have enough information to do, do I have, um, do I have the information, permission or confidence to do this? If not, why not? And in that, why not? They might answer the question themselves and you will never get, you will never get the question cuz they can say, oh, uh, David made a, David sent me an email.
James Marland: I just have to go back to that email and read what he said about it. If they can't find the information themselves, then they connect with the manager and say, and they use the framework. I don't have permission to make this decision because you told me you only see 18 year olds or, you know, 18 and above.
James Marland: And they're about, or 18 and below and they're about to change. I either don't have enough information to make this decision, permission or confidence, and they tell you what it is. And then the key critical part for, for learning and growing is I think from what I know about you, you would see them for six months or something.
James Marland: Is it okay to schedule? So the key to this whole framework is they give you the solution that they think you would do. So you're helping them think through the process and give you a solution. And what happens there is, uh, either you're gonna say yes, do it, or you're gonna tell 'em how to do it. And now they have learned how to do it next time.
James Marland: It's like a learning process. And they're not gonna come back with the same unless you tell 'em, Hey, this was a one-time thing, come back with a different decision. But now they, they've built their own confidence in how to do it. So the key thing. For, for any of these things, when anything is missing is the follow-up process.
James Marland: Don't just make them come back to you for everything. Oh my word. What a, what a nightmare that would be, right?
David Hall: Uh, so but to, to the point you're, you're talking about what the VA needs to do. Yeah. As the therapist, how do I do, how do I instill that in them? Is it simply saying like,
James Marland: I want you Yeah. You hold 'em accountable.
James Marland: Like, this is the framework I'm gonna use for decision making. I've given you the instructions, I've given you your role. We've had trainings. Hopefully you've taken notes, you know, uh, and when, when you can't make a decision, you need to use this framework. You have to tell me what you're missing. Cuz there's a, according to this framework, there's three reasons
David Hall: why.
David Hall: So, yeah. So this is an ongoing framework that. Basically the VA is using, or whoever assisting you is using in their decision making process, which the framework is. Yeah. Like do I have permission to do this thing? Yeah. Do I have, uh, the information to execute it and do I feel confident in my ability to do it?
David Hall: And that if I, and so basically this is something, if I'm contracting with somebody new, hiring somebody new, this is a framework, I, I walk them through first thing I go, this is forever and here's your, here's your responsibility in this role. Mm-hmm. Depending on where you get stuck. Cuz basically if a task is not completed, it is because something is stuck in one of these three areas.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. It's your job to figure out where you're stuck to come and get whatever you need from me, whether permission, more information, and let that, and then let that be normative data. In going forward. Yeah. Unless I say otherwise. Like I say like, hey, the normative data in this is, I'll see a 17 and three quarters year old in this idea that most of when I'm gonna see them is gonna be over 18.
David Hall: Or I'll see them cuz they're a senior in high school. Yeah. And um, and that feels different for me. Or I'll see them because they're a college student even though they're under 18 or whatever. Yeah. And, but I wanna make this exception so it's my responsibility to, to say like when a rule or when a a a construct or an idea should be generalized versus specific.
David Hall: Like this is, Hey, I appreciate you asking me this, in this case this is the answer, but if this comes up again, I need you to ask me again cuz it may be different. Yeah. And so that's the responsibility
James Marland: of the therapist. Yeah. The, the therapist has to file the framework and hold the, the assistant.
James Marland: Accountable. Otherwise, the, if you don't make it simple, you're gonna get hung up in a lot of different, like if then what decisions. And, uh, if you can keep it to simply, you know, information, permission, confidence, then, uh, then they know how to talk to you about it. Mm-hmm. Like virtual assistants don't all, don't like to tell their manager boss that they don't know how to do something either.
James Marland: Mm-hmm. But this makes it safe for them to like, engage you in the process. And also a lot of times these, these, um, if they've been working with you for any length of time, they, they kind of know how you make decisions. Mm. And they kind of know your process. Uh, and what they're gonna suggest is gonna be just as good or even better than the decision you make yourself.
James Marland: They're the professional at their job, so. That, that kind of like giving them the ability to share their answers and what they do builds their confidence, builds their capacity. It also takes the decision making off your plate. Like, uh, man, how many decisions in a day can you make? I think Steve Jobs wore the same outfit every day because he didn't, didn't wanna think about what he was gonna wear.
James Marland: I like what I wear, I like how it fits. I like how it looks. I'm gonna buy 50 of these and not make another decision about what I wear again. Mm-hmm. And, uh, and, and the virtual assistant, if they give you the answer often, it's gonna be a good answer. Like, often it's like, oh, I think you should do this, and you're gonna be like, great.
James Marland: Oh, that's one less decision I have to make.
David Hall: Hanging on permission still for another second. Um, sure. What are some practical means of permission? Because one of the things that comes to mind when you say permission is even access, like physical access to mm-hmm. Accounts and things like that. And you and I have talked offline about this and you know, one of the things you've talked about using historically is something like LastPass, right?
David Hall: Um, which is, for those who aren't familiar, it's a, it's a password encryption program. Um, you'll have it on your phone. I have a version of it, but, you know, we live with so many different passwords and things like that. Um, so that would be a practical tool just in, in setting up a LastPass account with a va, giving them access to things.
James Marland: Yeah. And, and another thing with permissions is, uh, I, I, I don't know, this is slight, slight tangent, is, is, uh, I had some offices who didn't want to make extra. Accounts for people Google phones and stuff, and it made their job really hard. Mm-hmm. When they tried to like, you know, save $6 a month on creating a Google account and $10 a month on a phone account.
James Marland: Mm-hmm. The, the, the, the, um, the therapist kept getting all the, the emails and the messages, even though they had a virtual assistant. And it, it, uh, the, the, there are reasons to have extra accounts for people and just set up the password managers.
David Hall: Who's the principal of being Penny Wise and Dollar Fool. Oh man.
David Hall: I, I've seen that. I was talking with somebody about that yesterday and they were a little confused. They were like, well, well, what do you mean? I'm like, well, you can, you can save money on this thing in this moment, but it will create more headache or even cost for you later because there
James Marland: were, there were people that hired us.
James Marland: 20 plus hours a week to do insurance. Things that they would've saved 10, 10 plus hours if they just would've turned on the whatever was in the e H R. Like they were, they were saving a hundred dollars and spending 300 or a thousand dollars. It was like, uh, okay. Mm-hmm. Anywise, uh, pound foolish, I guess.
James Marland: Yeah.
David Hall: Uh, so that's anything more in permission?
James Marland: No. Uh, I think, I think having clear boundaries and then a way to, to come to you when things go outside the boundaries are, is key. And, and not to make anybody feel bad, like, don't make 'em feel bad that they're coming to you and you don't feel bad that they didn't know.
James Marland: It's just your, this is how we figure out the, the rules, the permissions. Mm-hmm. The next one's information. You're ready to go to that one? Yeah. So information is, uh, it's a funny one because, uh, the, the classic example is, David, if you told me to order pens, could I successfully do that? If you sent me an email, James, order me pens
David Hall: if you knew the sorts of pens I liked.
David Hall: Yeah.
James Marland: Oh, what do you like the p the, the gel pens. I like gel pens. I
David Hall: use the main pens I use. It's the tool brand and their gel. Yep. And I'd use blue, which is less important now, but I've been in the habit of always using blue because when I worked in a psych state hospital, everything had to be in blue because they, they wanted, yes, because they wanted to be able to distinguish the difference between an original and a photocopy.
David Hall: Oh,
James Marland: that's interesting. Um, I worked, where I worked in the, the, the mental health hospital, they wanted everything to be in black.
David Hall: So it looked the same.
James Marland: Yeah, I think, I think it was a, I don't, I don't remember why, but it like, It, everything was in black. All the pens were black and we threw away all the other pens that made its way into the Yeah.
James Marland: There'll
David Hall: be rules for things. And I, I've seen organizations that, you know, they want everything to look the same. That's why everything's in black
James Marland: pens. But so, so just imagine if you told me to order pens and my, my history is black and I order, and I blue 50 black pens. Mm-hmm. For your, all your therapists and you wanted blue.
James Marland: Yeah. Like I did not have the right information, so I could definitely not complete that. Well, pen's
David Hall: also a different sort of thing too, of, um, I don't like cheap pens. I get, it's, it's when you get swag bags. Yes. You go to conferences and get like, I hate cheap pens because Yes. Just ends up taking up space and I never use them.
David Hall: And so there's certain things that like, like, just don't buy me pens. Like, don't, if you're gonna only spend, if you're gonna get the cheapest pin possible, just don't buy pens. Just don't do it. Yeah. I don't want your, I don't want your nasty pens and, but, I'm generally a fairly frugal person when it comes to many things.
David Hall: And so if you took on different information and be like, well, David typically likes to get a bargain, and these pins are, you know, we can get 500 for $3. That's a bargain. Uh, they're only, you know, the inks made with asbestos, but, uh,
James Marland: so it's funny. Yeah. So, but you're touching on you like you get it, like when you're getting, when you use this example, you're getting it because if you didn't tell me how, what color, how many the price, oh, look for a bargain, uh, it's gonna be for everybody.
James Marland: Do you want branding on it or not? Like, when do you want them? If I didn't have that information, I could just go with my gut and, and with, with there's like 10 data points there, I would have no idea if I was making a good decision.
David Hall: Yeah, but it goes back to this. So the solution to that is having just very clear instructions
James Marland: and then a way for the, the virtual assistant, just like the permission to go back and say, Hey, I didn't know if you wanted blue or black, I think you used black.
James Marland: Mm-hmm. That's what I would say, because I think everybody uses black. Mm-hmm. I think you use black. Would you like me to order? And then they, they spell out the details. Mm-hmm. And then you would say, oh no, 50 pens is fine, but I would like blue pens. Mm-hmm. And I think their price should be a dollar a pen or whatever.
James Marland: I don't know what pens cost. Uh mm-hmm. And then you give them the information. Yeah. And so just having that framework for them to give you the possible solution and you to confirm it when they're missing information, that also removes the bad feelings. Like I know you, you mentioned it in the beginning and it's so true.
James Marland: Like you feel bad about correcting them and they feel bad about being, you know, done. I'm a bad virtual assistant cause I don't know the information. Mm-hmm. But it's, it's really just this clarity of what the task is and how to do it. Mm-hmm.
David Hall: Yep. Absolutely. So permission doing per or doing information well goes back to the permission process.
David Hall: If there's lack of information, then you, if you have good permission in place, they will ask for clarifying information. Mm-hmm. Um, and,
James Marland: and it, and it's, and with the solution, never let them say, what do you want me to do with this without providing a solution because you're training them to think. Like you, you're, you're training them to come up with a solution so that you, you
David Hall: don't have to, so you, you don't want, you don't wanna give them the solution, is what you're saying?
David Hall: Well, uh, you, you wanna invite them to come up to, with the solution
James Marland: Yes. Invite them to come up with a solution. If they're, if they have misinformation or they're wrong, it's not bad that they're wrong, then you have a chance to instruct them on what you want to do. And over time, they're gonna learn what you want them to do.
James Marland: Uh,
David Hall: so Well, but in, in going to this as well, one of the things you talk about, um, in, as you create things in your work, James, is creating SOPs mm-hmm. Standard operating procedures. Sure. And if you are a more detail-oriented person, thinking about ways to do that can be good. Like, I know for a lot of people, they'll do things like loom videos or Yes.
David Hall: Uh, Like, because in the idea like, Hey, I'm gonna do this task on my computer and share my screen, I'm gonna create this loom video, and then this becomes part of the archive that a virtual assistant has access to. But the idea of do it once and the idea of being able to repurpose it later, or if you're not that sort of person, but you're just kind of walking through this process with a VA for the first time to have them write their own standard operating procedure.
David Hall: Yeah. In this idea, like, okay, here's the standard operating procedure for ordering pens. The standard is these are how many type and all that pins to order. And the reason, and and they may say if, if you ask them to do that, but hey, as you're ordering pins, if you would write down in this shared Google doc or whatever, however you do that.
David Hall: Of, you know, pin ordering protocol or just to create a document that says office ordering protocol and write something on there about pins. And they may say, well, I know what it is. Now you say, yes, but this may not be your job in the future. It may be somebody else's job. Oh,
James Marland: that is critical. Yeah. Because the information is contained in the person.
James Marland: Yeah. And can you put it off the person?
David Hall: Yeah. And so there may be some extra time that you're paying for early on, but the benefit is that if you, if let's say this person works out great and you end up giving them higher level tasks and somebody else needs to step into this, or this person moves on, or this person isn't a good fit, at the very least you have the benefit of having a standard operating procedure on
James Marland: Yeah.
James Marland: I think that's critical that that database there is, is really critical. Uh, we, we had a, we had a Google doc and if it was a written documentation, the, the Google the, or the Google, um, Sheets had a link to the Google Doc. If it was a video, it had a link to the loom or the video that we saved. Mm-hmm. Um, if the, if it changed, then the person who noticed the change would, would make the correction.
James Marland: They would re-update the document, you know, and then note that they made an update on our Google Doc. I will see, I might not have that document anymore. I'll see if I can recreate that. Mm-hmm. As an example for the show notes mm-hmm. Of, uh, of s o p, um, we haven't gotten the delegation yet, but the last thing is confidence.
James Marland: A lot of times some of this is new, a lot of the times, you know, they're, you're gonna be asking them to do something new for the first time, so they're gonna lack a little bit of confidence. So give them a way, just like the other two, give them a way to say, uh, I think this is what I should do, but I've never done this before and I just want your, your eyeballs on this to make sure that I'm making the right decision.
James Marland: Just give them a away to, to confirm with you that they're doing the right thing. Those. You know, a as they, as they do the same role for, you know, weeks and months, those should go down unless you keep raising their responsibility. Mm-hmm. But just give them a way to say, I think I should do it this way, but I'm lacking the confidence.
James Marland: Give 'em the verbiage to the, and permission to be able to be a little bit of vulnerable. Like, nobody wants to feel vulnerable, right? Like, nobody wants to feel like, oh, I can't do this. Or, uh, I've been a virtual assistant for five years, 10 years. And then to have the, to have the therapist say, aren't you a good virtual assistant?
James Marland: Don't you know these things? Don't you know how to do my systems? By the way, that's, those are real conversations.
David Hall: Um, we've had, yeah, because it's the, at this point, um, I'm not gonna say the name of the, the E H R I use because I really dislike them as a company and I just feel like I'm being held hostage by them.
David Hall: But I use an e H R and. I had to, I, I've had to learn where things are in it. And when we make just a new hire for a therapist, ones that have either worked in a different system before, they've gotta learn the system. Oh yeah.
James Marland: Yes. They, were they a therapist before? Yes. But are they in a new system? Are they in a new playground?
James Marland: Yes.
David Hall: And there any number of things that we just do because we know them. And, um, and, and as a, as creatures generally, therapists are really inclined towards this. They, like, every once in a while I've had some therapist friends that are early adopters. I, I think of one of my close friends, he had an iPhone before anybody else did.
David Hall: I knew, like he had one of the like, but he, he, his early adoption of technology means he often ends up in really buggy technology. Uh, cuz you know, stuff doesn't work quite well. But he loves, he's very much this classic early adopter, but he's rare. Most therapists I know run fairly conservative in the systems and process that they use.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And, but because of that, we also end up being fairly competent in whatever that system is, even if it's not a great system or not a very efficient one. Mm-hmm. We understand at least how that system works pretty well. And when you bring in someone new, um, and not, they may be, if they've not worked for a therapist before, they may be learning a whole nother set of things of mm-hmm.
David Hall: Of language and lingo and things like that. But, um, acronyms. Yeah, acronyms. Like, and I forget what acronyms mean. It's like, I, I know what they mean in the sense of like, I know this acronym applies to this concept, but if you ask me like, what does each letter stand for? There's so many of 'em. Like, like I can guess like Krep is one that's, that's the main counselor accredit It stands for like counselor, the, the, the counselor Accreditation Regional, I don't know.
David Hall: Yeah. There's a lot of acronym acronyms. It is accurate. And so, and the, um, anyway, but. Going back to, so the going to review, cuz information becomes more solidified on repetition. Mm-hmm. There are the three pieces, there're so the
James Marland: decision
David Hall: making framework Yeah. Yeah. Of, of a v that, that you want to be joined with, whoever's working with you in one is permission.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. Am I giving them permission or they asking for permission? If they don't know if they have permission, how do they inquire in a way that leads to new competency? Mm-hmm. The goal is not that they ask you every time this problem comes up mm-hmm. That in the process of asking whatever it is, that they develop a new competency to know that they have permission or how to access permission to this thing and that it, it becomes less overall.
David Hall: So then there's, there's that. The information, which is do they have enough information to execute this task, so to say, like correctly, going back, going back to my thing, I'm wanting Google Ads for me to say to somebody like, Hey, I want you to do Google ads. I know enough about ads to say like, okay, to what?
David Hall: To what end? Right? Do if you do online paid advertising, is it an awareness campaign? Is it a campaign? Is it a campaign to create opt-ins? Is it a, a campaign to create sales? Because those are different in, you know, I, I know just enough to know that you, you've create those differently. So what am I trying to get them to do?
David Hall: And I can't say like, well, I want you to make Google ad words for my, for my course business. Which courses, what's the action do we want them to take? What is the, you know, the, what's the nurture sequence? What's the what, what are the keywords that they're gonna be looking for? Is there a demographic? All the sorts of things.
David Hall: Now, I may not know all these, like if I'm coming in as an office, I may not know these questions, but part of the permission early on is to tell them, Hey, I've never done this before. I don't know everything you need, so I need you to help me understand what are the things you need. So I can give you those, those things for information.
David Hall: And so you give them permission to ask. Mm-hmm. And then in the, the last bit, uh, of um, confidence. Confidence, yeah. And I guess confidence works both ways of that. Like, as a therapist, do I feel confident in handing this over? Mm-hmm. And do you feel confident in executing? And how do we navigate where confidence may be lacking?
David Hall: How do we go back to the permission and information point to increase the confidence? And it does involve risk because for me, there's a certain amount of fear of like, well, what if this happens and it goes wrong? Mm-hmm. And I can't fix it, or I can't, or I, I feel, um, but you have to, the, the solution is, is, you know, I often joke there's a, there's a really dumb movie from the nineties that is both dumb and brilliant, and the nineties had a lot of those, but movie called Multiplicity.
David Hall: It's with, uh, Michael Keaton and yes, Andy McDowell. But the, the premise of the movie is, is he clones himself, but all these clones manifest different aspects of his personality, and then later they end up doing clones of clones. And that ends up kind of degrading the, uh, the quality of the specimen. And, but the goal is that Michael Keaton in this is, he feels overwhelmed in all these different things in his life.
David Hall: So would it be great for him to just clone himself? And I think that constantly, what I want is, is to. Close myself. I don't really, I don't wanna deal with the moral and practical implications of, of another one of me that I'm basically treating as a, an automaton of some sort. But you want your values and you want, oh, my values, but I want my skillset, I want my knowledge, I want, oh, good, good luck, man.
David Hall: Yes. But it, but so then it becomes, since that's not possible and or moral in that way, being able to embrace different levels of admin support, virtual support is how do I take at least a piece of this and even be open to the fact that this other person may do it well. Mm-hmm. Going back to one of the reasons I didn't make the, I, I've so far not made the decision to do an ad Words course, and I, I always wanna hedge that because who knows what I, if I might do it in the future, is that one is the factor I already mentioned was my time, is that I don't really feel I have the time to do it.
David Hall: But the other is, Even if I had the time, would I be as good as somebody else that I could hire? Cuz the ideal in hiring anybody for so many different things isn't just what do you not have time to do? But who might actually do this better? Who might be a more, I'm not a very densely organized person. I'm not a very, there are lots of things that, so it's the, it's, uh, humility to even say like, I'm, there may be people out there that do this better than me.
David Hall: Mm-hmm. And how do I find them and line up with them in such a way to, to make that
James Marland: happen? And they might even like it, like a lot of the things. Yeah. Like, I can do them, but I, or do I like doing it like the, like when those align, they have the skills and they like doing it. Mm-hmm. Like, my wife likes data entry.
James Marland: Ugh. Like, that gags me, like, I hate data entry. And, but she's like, oh, I feel accomplished and I can type things out and like I help people and I'm like,
David Hall: You find effective partnerships for any number of things if you work in a therapy practice that exists because there's certain clients that you'll love or certain client situations.
David Hall: Yeah. And there're other ones, other people don't. And embracing the difference is part of the humility. So to close up this idea of delegating, here are my lessons I've learned from this James, and you can add to whatever it's okay. Some of it is, is, is delegation does get easier if I have a decisionmaking framework mm-hmm.
David Hall: That I am universally applying to myself and whoever I'm bringing in, here's the framework, how do I keep on going back to that reinforcing it. Mm-hmm. That can help me feel more confident in the process of like, okay, I'm, I'm not just giving up this thing to the ether. Um, but here's the, you know, here's that.
David Hall: I, I think there's holding myself accountable to measurables. Um, a lot of people I know that, um, For them, they'll set like a weekly time with their va. I've done that historically. But then to have this list of like, okay, what are, what have been the task, what's been completed? What, you know, what hasn't been completed, what was the expectation?
David Hall: Um, and to, to have it connected with, um, the structure moving forward. Uh, because I, I know somebody who hired somebody who to clean their house and this person cleaned their house for years, but started doing like a, a, a, a poor and poor job in it. And there was some personal reasons for it, but some of it was, is that my friend wasn't very good at holding this person accountable and didn't wanna, you know, fire them.
David Hall: And so they ended up hiring a second person to clean their house another day of the week. And so they had two people come clean their house. One, one did the bad job, and then another person came in. And did like the, the better job to clean up over. And I, I, I, my challenge my friend is what happens if the second person ends up sliding?
David Hall: Are you gonna have to hire a third person to come in after the, and and, but it came down to there was a sense, and it wasn't all misplaced. There was a sense of loyalty and a sense of like, and, and I won't even say that's a bad thing, but I do know that I do not wanna get in that situation for when I'm trying to find support because I will personally, I will become resentful and avoidant.
David Hall: Yes.
James Marland: Which, um, I, I have the delegation framework, but I'm running out of time, so I think we should probably hit the delegation framework. It's a companion to the decision making framework. Let's do
David Hall: that as another
James Marland: episode that hits that, that, that like the numbers and the metrics. Like just what you said, that is the key component of the, of the delegation framework.
James Marland: So let's talk about that next time. Okay.
David Hall: Um, what else since I did this, this is, this is any any, what's your one thing, James? Uh,
James Marland: my one thing, you know, it's, it's hard when you're like the, the person being interviewed to think of your one thing. Cuz I just think about what I think next. I think I like what you said all the way back in the beginning about, um, like, uh, uh, you, you, you, you ran, you started running out of time.
James Marland: Like time is is a constraint that we all have. And no matter how good you are or how much you do, you are going to run out of time eventually. And so the way to scale, the way to grow or the way to just feel like you're, you can manage things better is to. To learn some delegation skills, learn to offload, and also, um, maybe listen to your wife or significant other, when they give you wisdom about how, how stretched you are.
James Marland: Uh, that that might be the tip of the, the, the, the year. Yeah. Yeah. So that's my one thing.
David Hall: Uh, yeah. My, my one thing is just the idea that you, you find an agreed upon framework and there's the one that we've walked through, but other frameworks could apply to, but it's agreed upon framework of both myself and the person in the task.
David Hall: And so we have a, a shared point of reference that we're coming back to Yes. Of versus we have, if we're working from different points of reference, it's really hard to, to measure is this working? Mm-hmm. And, you know, start before anything of what's the agreed same point of reference that everything's going to be assessed and measured and corrected by.
David Hall: So that is one thing. Yeah. So, I'll send this off. So we will be, in our next conversation, we're gonna talk about James's framework for delegation. This has been the framework, I guess, for like how to, well, this framework is been decision making, decision making in that, but then how do you, how do you think of delegation?
David Hall: And so that will be an interesting conversation. But until next time, uh, this has been Dr. David Hall with James Marlin of the Scaling Therapy Practice podcast. Thanks for being with us. We'll catch you next time. Bye.
James Marland: Thank you for listening to the scaling therapy practice I hope you enjoyed the show I want to remind you that the content shared today is for general information and entertainment purposes only It shouldn't be considered as legal or tax advice If you need a professional advice in those areas please consult with a licensed attorney or accountant but thank you so much for listening The scaling therapy practice is part of the psych craft network
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