304: Why Delegation Feels Hard (and How to Finally Do It Well)

Are you trying to do everything in your business yourself?

In this episode of Call Me CEO, Camille sits down with entrepreneur and operations expert Elizabeth Eiss to talk about what it really takes to scale a business sustainably—without running yourself into the ground.

Elizabeth brings decades of leadership experience from Fortune 500 companies and now helps entrepreneurs and small business owners build smarter, more supported businesses through virtual teams, systems, and strategic delegation.

Together, Camille and Elizabeth unpack one of the biggest mindset shifts for women entrepreneurs: growth doesn’t come from doing more—it comes from building the right processes, tools, and support.

If you’ve ever wondered:
• “When is the right time to hire help?”
• “What should I delegate first?”
• “How do I grow when I can’t afford a huge team?”
• “How do I stop being the bottleneck in my own business?”

This conversation is for you.

Connect with Elizabeth

Website: resultsresourcing.net
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/elizabetheiss/

Connect with Camille:

• Instagram: @CamilleWalker.co
• Podcast: @CallMeCEOPodcast

Schedule a free discovery call with Camille!

https://calendly.com/callmeceopodcast/discovery-call-with-camille

Transcript

The Show Mission And Stakes

Elizabeth 0:00

And so we are a technology platform today, but we lead with the human conversation. And I find that you know many small business owners have a lot of needs, but they have a hard time articulating or breaking down exactly the skills they need to accomplish whatever goal they have.

Camille 0:22

So you want to make an impact. You're thinking about starting a business, sharing your voice. How do women do it? Did it handle motherhood, family, and still chase after those dreams? Listen each week as we dive into the stories of women who know. This is Call Me CEO. Welcome back, everyone, to Call Me CEO. This is your host, Camille Walker, and here we celebrate women building businesses and more importantly, creating lives that they love. This episode, we are going to be speaking specifically about the value of our time, how we are resourcing our time, and what we can do moving forward so that we are living the best life possible, which is ultimately our goal. Elizabeth Ice is our guest today. She is the expert in scaling business operations, including talent optimization and operational effectiveness. She helps businesses scale by leveraging a hybrid approach of human virtual assistant teams and AI resources with an extensive background in operations for Fortune 500 companies and as the CEO of Results Resourcing, a company that provides vetted professional operational support service teams. Her insights empower small business owners to effectively invest their time and through her delegation engine framework, delegate, innovate, and achieve sustainable growth. Which isn't that what we all want? I mean, this is absolutely something that you know I'm passionate about. I built 60 Days to VA to help women to learn how to build their own virtual assistant businesses. And in turn, for my clients that I'm coaching, I help line them up with virtual assistants who have graduated from my course. So what Elizabeth is doing is working with a doctorate level of operation of what that looks like, where I am offering one-to-one connections. She has teams that she's built for many years. So she's going to talk to us about how that can look for you and how we can look at developing a process that looks at process first, utilizing tools next, and then hiring people to help you effectively use your time and build the business that you want. So, Elizabeth, thank you so much for being on the show today. Thank you so much. That was a great introduction. Appreciate it. Thank you. I've been working on it for a long time. We're joking because I did it on the fly. Hey, if there's one talent I have, I can be pretty, you know, quick-witted doing it in short turn. So I appreciate that. And I really appreciate having women on the

Elizabeth’s Path From Corporate To Startup

Camille 2:52

show who make our lives easier. And this is something where I want to emphasize our messaging is similar, but I do not see Elizabeth for one moment as a competition to me. I see her as a sister in trying to help other solopreneurs and entrepreneurs live a fuller life. That's ultimately the goal here. So, Elizabeth, I'm so thrilled that we are, you had the vision way before I did. Tell us about how the delegation engine started, results resourcing, and what year it was. Like take us back into a little bit of your history, how you got the idea and moving forward, what that looks like now.

Elizabeth 3:32

Great. Well, you know, I kind of love revisiting the history because, you know, ideas come out of an evolution of experiences. You know, it's rare you have that, you know, firecracker moment where it just came from nothing. Um, but I spent years working in large corporate America in the insurance industry, which I actually really enjoyed. It was in commercial lines. So I learned a lot about what made a business successful and what businesses had losses and why. Um, but yeah, I was there for many, many years, and then uh 25 years ago, um, I had an opportunity to join a startup, a tech startup, and I did. And so I completely changed careers, you know. But I you're always redeploying the skills you build in in new ways. So I worked for that startup for about six years and it failed for a variety of reasons. But you know, I I discovered entrepreneurship as a result of joining that company, and I I knew I didn't want to go back into corporate America, so I actually started to do consulting, some coaching, you know, like you, Camille, for smaller businesses. And I what I found was that um I had a lot of broad operational skills, but maybe I lacked industry expertise or something like that. And this was 15 years ago, I discovered freelancers. And I was really good at finding great freelance talent out in the marketplace. And it was during a time when people thought freelancers actually just were people who couldn't get real jobs. Instead, I discovered they were people with specialties that had had expertise that they wanted to focus on and share with the world. And so I just got good at recognizing the people that were had these unique talents. And, you know, sooner or later, and this was how it all evolved, my clients started to ask me, oh, that Camille that's supporting your project is great. Can you find us a Camille that can do this or that? And that's how it started. One thing led to another, and it was kind of informal in the beginning. And then I got really tired of like making PDFs and you know, all these manual ways of sharing profiles and stuff with people. So I decided um that the people I wanted to serve most were the were the companies, the individuals that were our most numerous in the United States. And there's 129 million solarpreneurs, there's another um six million um small companies that have less than 11 employees, and those are the people that I wanted to serve because they're also the people that don't don't have my background, that if you go to some of the big platforms today, you're just talking to technology, you can't talk to a human. And so I decided that's who I wanted to serve. And to do that, I needed to have a lot of streamlined systems. And I've, you know, having worked for a tech startup, I, you know, had a a knack for that. And so I actually designed the results resourcing platform and built it with my my co my partners. And so we are a technology platform today, but we lead with the human conversation. And I find that, you know, many small business owners have a lot of needs, but they have a hard time articulating or breaking down exactly the skills they need to accomplish whatever goal they have. So that's what we start with is a conversation about that, to point them in the right direction. And then I essentially, through human beings, human interaction, and technology, match them with a team that can provide the support they need, whether it's a VA or an executive assistant or a project manager, someone who can do social media marketing or lead generation support. There's a variety of virtual assistant or in the assistance ANCE rather than as a person ANT. There's so many different people with different skills that you know want to do work for people. And it's it's that matching process that is really the magic.

Camille 7:13

Yeah, I will I can attest to that that I feel like a lot of times, especially as solopreneurs, we're wearing all the hats, we're doing all the things, and then it gets to a point where we outgrow, we put a wall up against ourselves unless we find more team members. And that's where there's a huge resistance there. I'm sure you've seen that time and time again. So, one thing that I really like that your approach is about is first discovering what the process should be and what tools we have at our disposal before we hire that team member so that we're you're really usually using that time and that resource well. Can you talk to us a little bit about what your approach is there and how that works?

The Delegation Engine Explained

Elizabeth 7:54

Absolutely. Um, I've you know, people do get they worry about loss of control and they worry about and all they can do it as well as I can, all those sorts of things. And and and so to me, this what we call the delegation engine just really helps to solve some of those insecurities because it starts with with process. And a lot of people will say, Oh, I hate process, I'm not a process person. But you know, you build a process when you when you build your grocery list or your errand list. Those are processes. So it's it's that you don't have to make it into this thing that's larger than life. But essentially, business process is critical because it's how you deliver value to your client. So whatever your business is, you do it in a particular way, and that's why people buy from you. It's because they like how you do it. So that how is your process. And it's you don't have to write down all your processes, but the the two or three that are critical to delivering the your value to the market, those are the ones you could document, you should document, because it's frankly, it's a business asset. It's not boring, it's it's it's how you make money or break profit or have impact, however, you want to determine. So to me, process comes first. And that's really where you should focus your time and effort because, in terms of the value of time, you know, people waste a lot of time on the stuff that doesn't matter as opposed to concentrating their time, investing their time in the stuff that grows their business. So documenting process helps to crystallize what those important processes are. And then once you have process, then you can pick tools that help to automate or streamline those processes. A lot of people buy a tool and then they retrofit their process to the tool, which you know eliminates the differentiation, it makes them more of a commodity because you're fitting a machine, you know, machines tools. So I think it's process, then it's the tools that help kind of accelerate your process. And then after that, you hire people. And frankly, those are the when you hire people, you're hiring people for the more specialized work that process and tools can't do, but they do better because there's a process, and because there's tools, it gives them a clear path to uh run on. And so the opportunity for error is less because it's defined what they should be doing. So I think that ultimately people bring in that human element that's so critical, but you can afford more hours and better skilled people if you start with process, then use tools and reserve the more human essential tasks for the human beings.

Camille 10:30

And I'm guessing that process of creating those processes, checking those tools, and then finding the people is that part of the delegation engine? I'm guessing. Oh, yes. Okay, so you help walk people through. Okay, how do I come up with a process? What am I actually doing when I go to work every day or create these things that I'm doing? So that helps. I'm curious, what are some your of your favorite tools in terms of like AI or just throwing it out there? Like if you were to say, oh, these

CRMs Automation And AI Prompts

Camille 11:00

are my top five, just are there some that are really standouts for you right now?

Elizabeth 11:05

Um, yes. And I the first probably the most critical thing is a CRM, a customer relationship management tool. I mean, there's many of them out there, many of them are AI enabled, you know, but that is probably one of the most critical things to starting to organize your contacts, you know, whether it's the people you sell to or your suppliers or or whatever it might be, or your you know, prospects, your leads. And you know, having a CRM helps you start to take actions with these different kinds of groups, if you will, without you being involved, because you can build an email campaign that's going to go out to all your prospects, that might be just, hey, I'm sharing my latest blog with you, rather than you know, hardcore sales, because that's not me. I mean, I'm all about, you know, if I'm the right choice for you, great. But uh, here's what I can do for you. You know, let me know if that works for you. But I think, I think ultimately having a CRM helps helps you do more because you can organize work that the machine will take care of for you. And you can go into the machine and see reports and you see just get a lot of information, a lot of awareness, you know, about your business.

Camille 12:14

So I'm a big do you have a favorite CRM?

Elizabeth 12:17

I don't, you know, there there are so many that are frankly can be very specialized. I mean, some of the big ones, you know, are like Go High Level, um, HubSpot, you know, those are the you know, there's a there's a million of them on honestly. And it really kind of depends on, you know, there's some specialized to the construction industry or to the finance industry. Right.

Camille 12:39

Or the law industry or yeah, go it goes on and on, which is really neat that so many are being developed. So maybe just a Google search of what it is that your specialty is and if there's a CR CRM that can go with it, you know, that'd be a good thing.

Elizabeth 12:52

And there's there's plenty that offer, you know, a free start starting package where you can you know get to know the system for free and then upgrade when you're ready.

Camille 13:02

Right. Like within so many contacts, maybe the first one to 500 or something. Yeah.

Elizabeth 13:06

Yeah. Very cool. That's a great way to start.

Camille 13:08

Yeah. Okay. So CRM email, do you have a favorite email provider?

Elizabeth 13:13

No. No. I mean, if as a general rule, we work with whatever the clients have. Okay. You know, we you know, I think it's important to meet the client where they are rather than push them in a particular particular direction. So I mean, I would say tons of people just use Gmail.

Camille 13:29

Yeah.

Elizabeth 13:30

You know, but uh, you know, there's a bunch that use Outlook, but you know, there's that's that's just a commodity really.

Camille 13:36

Yeah. Okay.

Elizabeth 13:37

What other favorites of the process or the AI or well, I I like a lot of the um, you know, the systems like MailChimp and you know, that do email marketing for you. I mean, there's and those get better and better in terms of their graphics and and you know, the the different ways they can work with your CRM system. Um, so I'm I'm a big fan of of those. Uh there are also a number, and and again, I don't necessarily have brain name brands off the top of my head, but there's a lot of people need to do social media marketing. And and one of the ways to make that more efficient is there's there are tools that help you schedule that stuff. So you can build your social media plan for the week, pre-program it, and it will just run for you day, you know, based on the schedule you set. So there's just plenty of tools out there that help you communicate your ideas, you know, in an efficient way. And I am a big fan of AI. I mean, and again, there's there's all kinds of tools out there, it's changing all the time, but I encourage people to experiment with it, recognizing that it's it only is going to give you back what is out there in the world. It's not going to give you new ideas, it's just going to basically organize material that's out there. And some tools are better at doing research or analysis than others, but you know, just basic, you know, Chat GPT or Claude, you know, they're great tools to start asking questions. And the key there is the prompt. If everyone asks the same question, they're going to get exactly the same information back. So you have to think specifically about what am I really trying to get at and keep honing in the request. But you have to keep fact-checking it too, because it's it's going to take leaps of faith and it's going to give you information that might not be accurate. And, you know, when I think about our VA teams, we're always talking about how we offer the human premium, which is it's the old 80 80-20 rule. Use AI or any of these tools for 80%. And then they got to bring that human element back in to make sure that the work product of these tools is what you want. Yeah. It reflects you.

Camille 15:45

And your values and what you really find important. Yeah, I agree with that. So I would love to hear, as you've helped people for over a decade now, what are some major hangups? I would love to know kind of both ends of the spectrum where you've seen people get really hung up in something and you've seen them take that and maybe not do so well with it. And then people who've been hung up with something and they've been able to turn it or dial it in so that they have a lot of success. Can you think of examples of either of those spectrums?

Elizabeth 16:15

Absolutely.

Trust Issues And How To Start Small

Elizabeth 16:16

And I'll I'll lead with the one that's the most positive. And it's really goes back to the value of time that we've talked about already. And it's someone who thinks about, and this really is perfect for your podcast, who thinks about themselves as the CEO of their business. If they're thinking about themselves as the CEO of their business, then they're thinking about the value of their time and realizing that they need to invest it in the stuff that matters. And that makes it really easy for them to break up work into two buckets. The core work that drives the revenue and impact of the business or that person, and the non-core work that has to get done to have a smooth running business, but isn't the stuff that people pay for. You know, your bookkeeping or whatever it is, it has to be done for a well-run business, but that's not why people buy, you know, from a bit from a business owner. So I to me it's breaking, it's just two simple buckets, core work, non-core work. And then I think that on the opposite end of the spectrum are people that are kind of chief doers, that they're just holding on all the time. And they're, they just they I understand that in any relationship you have to establish trust, but they won't even start to trust. You know, you've got to you've got to give somewhere to start trusting other people to help you. And uh, you know, we actually had a fairly recent example of somebody that wouldn't. I mean, if you're gonna have a VA help you, you need to give them passwords, you need to give them access to your systems. And this person wouldn't do that. And so nothing ever got off the ground. And she was upset actually at the VA because the VA couldn't do anything, didn't do anything because the VA couldn't do anything. Right. She didn't have access to anything. So it was, it's just kind of an unfortunate thing. But you know, people do get really caught up, you know, with being chief doer. And to me, the solution is start small. Don't give, don't try to outsource something that's that's risky. Take some low-risk thing to get used to the person you're working with and get used to building a comfortable process for both people. Um, so start small, you know, and and I you work your way into it because I think that uh you just have to get comfortable with delegating. It's it's not as scary as you think. If you know the people, you trust the people, there's a process in place. You can build all that together.

Timelines Expectations And Weekly Check Ins

Camille 18:40

Yeah. A question that I've gotten a lot, and I'm curious what you would say to this, is what is a timeline that someone should give someone in terms of building a relationship and or proficiency in knowing if that person is a good fit for that or not.

Elizabeth 18:56

Well, I think that it it starts with, if you will, underwriting the person up front. I mean, I mean, a a lot of people, because of the trust issue, they'll hire a neighbor or they'll hire somebody's nephew or you know, kid or or whatever. And and I don't think that's a a good thing to do as a general rule, because that person doesn't, or like even interns. I mean, you know, you're you when you're hiring inter, you're not hiring somebody that's experienced. Right. So I think it's really important to be to be real about what skills it is you need and not focus so much on what it costs, but what is what's the benefit of hiring somebody that's skillful at something? Because I think a lot of times things go wrong because you know, people want to work, they probably overpromise, you know, that you're kind of betting that it's gonna work, and then it doesn't work, and it's then there's a lot of finger pointing. So I think underwriting up front is really, really important. And after that, you when you you you're not questioning the skills anymore, you you know, then it's just a matter of, I mean, I I think people after 30 days, depending on what it is, if social media marketing is another animal, just because it's not the person, it's the it's the algorithms and the systems and it's the the consistency of the social media work that that matters, uh, I would that's more of a month to month, but that could be three to six months, you know, to to really know whether that work is working. Yeah, but I I think that you know, I'm a big believer in setting expectations and communications. And so you don't have to wait 30 days to figure out if it's not working. If you're if you're meeting once a week and going over what you what what should have been done last week and what's going to be done this week, I mean you can be right on top of it and and it can prevent problems. A lot of times people, um, I I see this a lot, they will really think that they, oh, they hired somebody, their responsibility ends there, that person should know how to do everything. But that's not really true. I mean, it's like people don't, people have to get to know you as the owner of a business and understand your voice. And, you know, it's the dialogue back and forth can be really valuable. So recognizing that and investing a little time in that first 30 days in getting to know the person and and not thinking of them as a as a widget. I mean, they're they're a human being too. And so

Matching Skills With Personality And Values

Elizabeth 21:20

I always look for a match that's going to work on both both sides.

Camille 21:25

How do you evaluate that in terms of like matching it up?

Elizabeth 21:29

Well, it to me it all starts, you know, with with getting clear on the on the skill requirements. But then after that, I I get a feel for people, you know, in terms of how they express themselves, whether they're administratively tight or not, whether they're responsive or not. You get you get all these signals. Yeah.

Camille 21:46

You know, and that's the human touch that AI doesn't get, because those are nuances, right? Where I when I've set people up with a virtual assistant, it's very much where I'll even ask the person, do A lot of times, and this is could be a little typecasting, but a lot of solopreneur women that I know, they're like, listen, I'm really scattered. I need someone who's going to keep me responsible. And when I tell them that I need to do XYZ, that they will follow up with me and say, Oh, yeah, but remember you had a goal to do XYZ and you wanted me to remind you about this. And they want that. They're like, please find someone who will just be annoying, almost to the point of being annoying, you know? And so, or there are others that are like, No, I'm I'm on it. I just need someone to do these things because I just don't have the brain space for it anymore. Like, I just need to know that it's done and that we can follow up and it's done. And that just is so freeing. So I think it is important to be self-aware in that term of like, okay, this is who I am. This is my personality, this is what I need. These, these are my ultimate goals. But one of the things that I really like that I've heard someone say is as a business owner, you should be able to go to any of the employees that are on your team and they should all know the main directive and goal of the business. And I think that that is something that is a responsibility of the CEO to really communicate and understand that because too often in our own minds, we think, oh, well, these are my values and this is where I want to go, and this is what we're doing as a team. But many times that is not communicated. And so that is where there can be a communication divide of like, oh, well, I'm showing up and I'm doing the social media, but I don't know what the main direction of the business is. And that can be translated through social media. And so if there is a value disconnect there, that's up to you as the CEO to be like, oh, hey, and by the way, everything that we share, I really want to hone in on family first, or I really want to hone in on honesty or having creating time for fun or whatever the thing is, whatever your directive is. And so I think that's important to be self-aware as a business owner.

Elizabeth 23:55

I totally agree. Totally agree.

Camille 23:58

Yeah. So I'm imagining there are people who potentially could be listening and wanting to know a little bit more about the other side of the coin.

Why Teams Beat Solo Freelancers

Camille 24:06

If they're a freelancer or they have a specific skill set, what kind of uh freelancers or types of people are you looking for to build in terms of like building up your teams? Is there if someone was interested in that side, what can you tell them about that?

Elizabeth 24:22

Yeah, so I I think the best way to do that is is to explain a little bit about how we came upon our our team model because it is it is kind of unique in the marketplace. Um, because when I first launched the platform, I was matching business owners with individual freelancers that I would find that in in curate.

Camille 24:40

Kind of more like what I'm doing.

Elizabeth 24:42

Yeah. Yes. So my, I mean, I'm a huge database of talent, you know, on my platform, but I I had this kind of epiphany moment when a you know, friend and a client came to me and he had some PowerPoint project he needed done the next week. And I knew I had people on the platform that could do PowerPoint, but I couldn't turn it around. His project was next week, he needed it right away. I couldn't turn it around that fast because I would have to find the people, get proposals from you, the whole process. And he said to me, you know, I would have really liked to work with you, but I need competent, reliable, nice, and I need it right now. And I just thought about that because I was so disappointed that I couldn't help him. And uh, and that's really what triggered me to think about teams instead of individuals. And I looked at my the people who were really successful on my platforms, and it turns out they were teams. And what that meant was there was a CEO of a virtual assistant agency, but that CEO of the business had a social media person, had somebody that did bookkeeping, you know, had a vertebrate, my largest team is 25 people on it. Now they're not all employees or a couple of W-2s, but the rest are preferred contractors. And the value was that I could present a team to that solopreneur, and that person could know they could build a relationship with the agency and access different kinds of talent with expertise, not a generalist that could do a little booking, a little of this, a little of that, but they could really get people with skills. And so it totally shifted how I thought about it. And so I don't think people need to think about being a unicorn because you're just not gonna be able to. Plus, it goes back to how do you want to spend 24 hours a day? I mean, some of it's sleeping, some of it's with your family. I mean, you you just can't work 24 by seven, and and you you've got to be able to respond to so many needs that small businesses have. And so that's what really shifted me to team structures. So I'm always looking for agencies. You know, small aid, they don't have to have W-2, they don't have to have 25 people, but they might have eight, you know, a tight network because I basically build a business relationship with these agencies where we're in alignment with how we handle clients. I don't hand them off. I have a relationship with all of my clients that we we work them together. They, I don't work the execution, that's what the agency does, but we we manage that client together. And you know, we have we have pre-agreements on pricing, on the different job structures, what the skills are for the jobs. It's very, it's very clear what everything is, but it allows me in a conversation with the business owner to say, I can help you now. I can match you with a team, you can be up and running in 24 to 48 hours.

Camille 27:27

That's awesome.

Elizabeth 27:28

And that's because we do the pre-work, you know. And some people, if people are interested in that kind of relationship, happy to talk to them.

Camille 27:35

Well, great. Well, this has been awesome. I'm really proud of what you've done. It's funny when I wrote 60 days to VA, it was pre-COVID. And when I said VA, people thought I was talking about veterans and and then post-COVID, they're like, I need a VA yesterday, last year. Like, of course, why is this not happening? And you were doing that well before that even happened. So really cool, Elizabeth, that you've done this. And if people want to connect with you or connect with your resources, tell them where they can find you online.

Where To Connect And Final Charge

Elizabeth 28:08

Okay. Well, uh, obviously with our website, it's resultsresourcing.com or dot net. And the easiest way to think of that is that we resource results. That's why we named the company that. I'm just, you know, I want to help people accomplish things, not just do tasks. So it's results resourcing. And then I'm in my probably the easiest thing is my digital business business card, which is LinkedIn. So Elizabeth Ice E-I-S-S. And uh happy to talk to people there too.

Camille 28:37

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. And for everyone listening, thank you for tuning in. If you found this episode helpful, please like, review, and share with a friend. This is where we share and help other women grow businesses. And I appreciate you tuning in. Thank you so much, and we'll see you next time. Hey, CEOs, thank you so much for spending your time with me. If you found this episode inspiring or helpful, please let me know in a comment in a five star review. You could have the chance of being a featured review on an upcoming episode. Continue the conversation on Instagram at CallMe CEO Podcast. And remember, you are the boss.