Vancouver Entrepreneur Group

Date: June 10, 2015

Name: Delegate and grow rich with Dan Lok

Presenter: Dan Lok

As business grows, many entrepreneurs are caught in the hamster wheel and they cannot get off. Moreover, they are looking for ways to increase productivity and reduce workload. Dan Lok, the Founder of Vancouver Entrepreneur Group, will share his strategy to turn entrepreneurs’ business lives to be more productive. In addition, entrepreneurs will discover their limitation and Dan Lok will help them break those limitation beliefs. The strategies Dan Lok provide will benefit many entrepreneurs in their journey of success.

Dan Lok believes all entrepreneurs must go through the stages of the success cycle. It starts with attraction, retention, optimization, systemization, delegation, automation and then expansion. The first 3 stages will determine how business can maximize the values for entrepreneurs’ clients. In this presentation, Dan Lok will focus on the delegation stage.

Dan Lok shares a story of a successful business entrepreneur who are exhausted with the business. Lok provided a vacation advice to the entrepreneur and the entrepreneur was freaked out with the suggestion because the entrepreneur believes it is important for him to be present in the business. Without any doubt, the entrepreneur took the advice. After the vacation, the entrepreneur felt the business will collapse without him. However, the business got better.

Lok believes entrepreneurs are the ones who are choking their businesses to death.

The objectives for entrepreneurs are to create values, look for opportunities and focus on what they are good at. Entrepreneurs cannot maximize their values if they are in stress.

“Less control is more control”

Lok defines a business as a commercial profitable enterprise that works without the owner. Moreover, Lok defines an entrepreneur as  a person with a vision who orchestrates other people’s time, talents, and money to make their vision real. In other words, entrepreneurs act as the coordinator in business. Entrepreneurs need to communicate their vision. Lok emphasizes earning money is not a vision. Vision should be precise and quantified. Therefore, entrepreneurs need to find a way to measure their vision.

Business is a team sport and business is competitive. Entrepreneurs should always open up and receive help from anyone they can.

“If you are the smartest person in your team, your business is in trouble”

Many entrepreneurs have a to-do list. However, as business grows, entrepreneurs will involve with other people’s to-do list, and their lists will get smaller and smaller. Lok suggests entrepreneurs to focus only 5 primary tasks per day. Many entrepreneurs will find other things to do after they complete the list. Furthermore, Lok believes that is a bad habit. Instead, entrepreneurs should set a time to think about their business. They need to let their minds go blank. When they are in the relaxation mode, they will discover ideas come when they are in peace. Lok mentions he will take an hour a day to think and talk to himself about business.

Lok shares 4 questions entrepreneurs should ask themselves before doing anything.

1. Can it be done cheaper?
2. Can it be done faster?
3. Can it b done better?
4. Can it be done by someone who like it better?

“As a leader, your job is not to do the job, but to make sure the job gets done”

“Your time, knowledge, and energy are your most valuable commodities”

“Everything in business is replaceable, but time is not”

Lok believes there is a question all entrepreneurs should ask themselves every single day. The question is how do they protect their time, energy and money so they are only spending them on things that will make them close to their goals.

Many entrepreneurs are not charging enough to their clients because they have doubt on themselves. Lok indicates it is important to charge others the amount more then they can provide. The charge should be as much as the market can play. This shows seriousness and entrepreneurs are more likely to get the result faster.

How much the time is worth?

Lok provides a simple calculation formula for entrepreneurs to figure out what their time is worth. Entrepreneurs need to forecast the total amount of income they want to earn per year. If entrepreneurs work 220 days per year and 8 hours per day, there will be 1760 hours per year. By taking the total forecast and divided by 1760 hours per year, entrepreneurs will discover the magic number. However, Lok mentions entrepreneurs need factor their productive time, so by taking the magic number and multiple by 3 will be the final magic number.

The magic number shows how much entrepreneurs is worth per hour. Every hour entrepreneurs do unproductive activities or tasks, they will lose that magic number. If entrepreneurs are not working, they are not meeting that number. Therefore, Lok wants entrepreneurs to always think about the return on time invested (ROTI).

Lok believes if entrepreneurs do not know how much their time is worth and what it needs to be worth, they cannot make effective decision or what activities they should be spending their time on and what activities they should have others do for them. Examples of non-productive time tasks are talking to friends surfing on internet, checking email, or organizing desks; nevertheless, examples of productive time tasks are creating products, closing sales, marketing products, managing money-making projects, setting up joint venture deals, and create system.

In average, if entrepreneurs can be productive for at least 1/3 of the day, they are considered as good productive. In business, there is only 2-3 critical success events that will make business successful. It is essential to ensure entrepreneurs are focusing on those events.

Many entrepreneurs are lacking of self-esteem and they are avoiding the productive tasks. Lok believes if the “why” is strong enough, they will discover a way to work around the tasks they need to get it done.

Traditionally, many entrepreneurs do everything on their own because they are taught to believe delegate means lazy. However, Lok wants entrepreneurs to only delicate and master 5 things that they are good at and delegate everything else to other people.

What exactly is delegation?

Lok defines delegation is asking another to do all or part of a task they wish to complete. However, delegation does not mean to give away the responsibility. Entrepreneurs should always be in charge.

The purpose of delegation is to ensure entrepreneurs can be themselves to do things they love to do. The benefit of delegation can help entrepreneurs to enjoy life, do less things they do not like, stay away procrastination, and have more freedom. When entrepreneurs delegate their tasks out to people, these people can benefit from enjoying the tasks, get paid for, learn the experience and expose to different interests.

Lok mentions if entrepreneurs think it is a trouble or bothering others when they ask others for help, they are robbing their opportunity of satisfaction.

There is a misconception from entrepreneurs that people can only delegate when they are rich. However, it is the opposite. Entrepreneurs have to delegate to get rich. It is important to start the habit of delegation early.

Many entrepreneurs do not like delegation because they think they can do it better by themselves. In addition, they do not trust other people to do their tasks. Lok believes these are just mental belief and they can be change.

Entrepreneurs can delegate many things. These include responding to email, receiving phone calls, responding to customer service, scheduling appointments, data entry, bookkeeping, graphic design, programming, website design, tracking expense and paperwork. The list can go on. However, what holds back from entrepreneurs to delegate is the fear of losing control. They are afraid of asking someone because they are fear of rejection and fear of being thought of as inadequate.

Hiring others can be a skill for entrepreneurs. Lok wants entrepreneurs to know that many people will treat entrepreneurs as paycheques, and only true friends will work for free.

Lok shares many ways to delegate for free

• Barter the services
• Ask friends or family members
• Ask an employee
• Ask someone who already works for them
• Sometimes paying is actually cost less than doing it by themselves

What is a rugged individualist?

Many entrepreneurs think they are on their own and they need to do everything by themselves. Lok demonstrates a chart that shows most companies will hit glass ceiling when their business are grown to certain size. Most companies will fail when entrepreneurs are burnout from trying to exceed the ceiling. Lok believes the skill that makes entrepreneurs successful is exactly the thing that holds the back from being successful.

It is difficult for entrepreneurs to let go their mind because they witness their success from their skills. However, when business are at plateau, they need to talk to other entrepreneurs’ perspective to gain insight. Lok suggests entrepreneurs not to be rugged individualists.

There are six levels of abilities: brilliant, great, good, average, bad, and terrible. When entrepreneurs discover their top 3 brilliant abilities, they need to find ways to master and upgrade those abilities. When entrepreneurs discover their terrible abilities, they need to delegate those out. At first, they need to delegate only the terrible abilities. They need to learn the lessons of delegating with their terrible abilities. By working their way up to the next level, they will earn the right to delegate higher tasks.

“if you spend your life working on your weakness, your life will fail with many weaknesses”

To discover the strength, people around the world will tell entrepreneurs.

Lok recommends entrepreneurs to delegate as much as they want. The question they should ask is what is stopping them from getting the task complete. Even if the task is small, but little tasks can add up. Entrepreneurs can retain people who are already brilliant at the tasks. By retaining these people, entrepreneurs will earn responsibility, leadership and relationship.

Lok shares many ways to find the right people for delegation.

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freelancer.com

Lok designs a 4 step system to find the right people. The first step is to check their references and feedback. The second step is to have a big task and break it into smaller tasks. The third step is to be very specific in the job description. Lok suggests entrepreneurs to have this phase in the job description “This job should be easy for you if you know what you are doing”. This phase will filter out many unqualified candidates. Moreover, the last step is to use the private message to communicate their qualification. Remember to ask many questions.

The difference between out-tasking and outsourcing is that out-tasking is only for try out and one time only. However, outsourcing is to create long term business relationship.

The 8 rules of effective delegation

Lok discovers 8 rules that will help entrepreneurs to make delegation successful.

Rule #1: Clarify the task in your mind.

Rule #2: Delegate to the right person with the right brilliant ability

Rule #3: Always have a deadline that should be challenging but also realistic

Rule #4: Communicate orally and in writing the plan in action

Rule #5: Ask pop to provide progress reports

Rule #6: Be sure to delegate the authority along with responsibility

Rule #7: Give praise and feedback at the end of the project and additional responsibilities

Rule #8: Do not be a perfectionist

“People do not do what you expect, they do what you inspect with respect”

“It is about progress, not perfection”

7 effective tools for managing a virtual team

Lok provides top 7 tools for entrepreneurs to use to managing their team.

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It is difficult to keep good people in the team. Lok shares 3 secrets that will help entrepreneurs to keep good people in their companies.

Secret #1: Respect them

Secret #2: Pay them well

Secret #3: Praise them