I had a great conversation with an Academy member yesterday where we talked about delegating roles to our staff. So many people lack qualified staff in the beginning of their journey. In fact, I was the same. We had some great coaches, but these people were busy with school and some even had second jobs. I felt so bad asking them to come in and do extra work outside of their coaching hours, but something had to give. I couldn’t continue doing all the things AND grow our gym.

Back then, there weren’t really any mentors in cheer. There were some old guys who owned gymnastics gyms that were helping others, but when I heard their advice, I thought they were so far past where I was that they weren’t all that helpful. So, we had to figure it out on our own. Here’s what I did: 

1. We started a cleaning chart. At the end of each night, every coach had a 10-15 minute cleaning task they had to do. The chart was kept at our front desk. When they were finished with their task, the front desk girl would initial next to their name on the chart. That meant she had checked their work and they were good to clock out. If she didn’t have time or chose not to check their work, guess who was now responsible for doing it? That’s right – the front desk girl. So, at the end of every night (or when I came in the next morning), I only had one person to talk to when things weren’t done – the front desk girl. In turn, she was responsible for others and her pay reflected that as she continued to do a great job. (P.S. Her name was and is Melanie…but she was just a part-time ‘front desk girl’ at the time. Now she runs the whole gym!) Here is a similar template for our cleaning chart that you can use. Complete it as you need, print and laminate. Then use a dry erase marker and delegate it to your front desk. For several weeks check that it’s getting done and coach your front desk (or head coach) on how to check these areas and communicate with staff if they’re not done correctly. Then – put them in charge of following up with staff and making corrections in regard to cleaning. It’s no longer on you.
2. Set up a quarterly staff meeting that happens on a weekend. After the meeting (while people are still clocked in), buy them pizza and go through a list of equipment inspection items and deep cleaning tasks. We usually pull out the paint and touch up walls, clean baseboards, dust top-shelf trophies, put up new banners, and use all the vacuum attachments at this time. Between #1 and #2, your cleaning is pretty much done!
3. Use the Google template feature to start templating responses to the most common questions. You can also just copy and paste your responses into a Word document. Start training your front desk on how to reply to these people. When emails come in for the next few weeks that they could answer with those templates, “label” the emails with their names. If it’s something only you can answer, then reply and copy over your response if it’s a question you think you’ll get again. After a few weeks, stop checking the emails first. Let them tell you if there are emails they need help replying to. The catch here is – you’re ultimately responsible for making sure people get replies, so hold them accountable for using Inbox Zero and make sure it’s done at the end of every night.
4. Do the same thing for your phone calls. Every phone call can be answered by a front desk staff member who has a phone script. Teach them how to place someone on hold (I once had a front desk girl who would just put her hand over the phone, so be clear on this 🙄) Let someone else screen all your calls. Today, my front desk is aware that I’m always in a meeting. They take a message for me 100 percent of the time, and I call people back when I’m batch processing – meaning I call everyone back during the same chunk of time rather than stopping what I’m doing to do something else.   
5. Applying and processing monthly tuition payments isn’t rocket science. In fact, if it is rocket science, you need to simplify your pricing. (Your coach can help with this.) One of the first tasks I gave away was billing. My front desk girl (Melanie back then) was taught how to apply tuition payments to accounts. I then would take a quick scan through to make sure nothing looked crazy (no $1 payments and no $1,000 payments – either of those would be red flags). Then, I taught her how to process. The last step was the biggest step. I taught her how to call those whose payments had declined. She was kind, professional and used our script. This saved me so much time each month. If someone was five days overdue and was ghosting us, I got involved. As we grew, we saw 2-3 people per month who would do this. Over time, they realized if it had elevated to me, they had better pay pretty quickly or they would be removed from practices until that payment was received. This is one HUGE way to save yourself time. Today, our part-time front desk girl does a lot of these phone calls as time allows at night. With a good script and some training, this is a huge thing that can come off your plate

So, your goal in this group is to delegate over at least two things you were previously doing. I’d challenge you to pick something from this list and get to delegating. With your newfound time, focus ON working ON your business!