On the Nov. 28 episode of my Lykken on Lending podcast, we had the opportunity to discuss outsourcing with Emma Monro, chief executive officer of Sales VA and Social VA. Emma's products provide virtual assistance applications for busy professionals, and as we discussed the technology, it got me thinking about my one of my own experiences.
When I first started working in the mortgage industry, I had no business background. My first boss took a chance on me, and working in the industry came surprisingly natural to me. I was a great “people person,” and excelled at building relationships as a loan originator. There was only one problem—I was really bad at math! I just couldn't get my numbers right, and my boss was struggling with what to do about it.
In the end, my boss was given a simple piece of advice that ended up saving my career: Why don't you hire him an assistant? Someone was brought on to work with me to pick up the slack in the areas where I was deficient—and the whole company was made better off for it. That's the power of outsourcing … none of us can do everything well, but all of us can do something amazingly well. Outsourcing is about recognizing what we're good at and recruiting others to help us with what we're not.
How much of your workload do you outsource in your organization? As a leader, do you bring people on to help you when you need it? There's no shame in asking for help. Great leaders recognize that their greatness only exists to the extent that they've gotten great people to help them achieve it.
David Lykken, a 43-year veteran of the mortgage industry, is president of Transformational Mortgage Solutions (TMS), a management consulting firm that provides transformative business strategies to owners and “C-Level” executives via consulting, executive coaching and various communications strategies. He is a frequent guest on FOX Business News and hosts his own weekly podcast called “Lykken On Lending” heard Monday’s at 1:00 p.m. ET at LykkenOnLending.com. David’s phone number is (512) 759-0999 and his e-mail is [email protected].
