Delegating Work
Delegating work is the difference between a business that runs you and a business you actually run. I got to sit down again with Chris Diroll from SMA Support Services, and one story from our conversation stuck with me. A roofing contractor he works with was sitting past sixty days before getting paid on a finished job, because no one was following up. Once Chris’s team assigned one person to that job, the wait started shrinking fast. That person called homeowners, followed up with insurance companies, and confirmed checks were mailed. Within a month, the sixty day wait was cut in half.
Chris spends his days helping home service business owners find the tasks they can hand off and the people who can own them. In this episode, we get into what to look for before you hire a VA and why the right assistant becomes a real part of your team instead of an outside vendor.
What You’ll Learn…
- Why delegating work only works when your team treats the hire like a real employee
- The one shift that cut a contractor’s collection time in half within a month
- How a truck buddy mindset can free up an extra hour on every job
- What most owners miss about a group text that quietly sinks a new hire
- A nervous first hire that led to my real thirty- sixty-ninety day plan
- How to generate more money without adding a single new job to your week
- One hidden profit leak that shows up in almost every home service business
Key Moments…
[1:11] Chris’s Sales Assessment And Why He Left Selling Behind
[5:01] Why Every Contractor Hates Doing Permits
[18:09] One Team Member Cut Collection Time In Half
[19:40] The Truck Buddy Way Of Delegating Work On The Job
[33:19] Why A Group Text Sank One VA Hire
[34:28] My Nervous First Time Hiring A VA
[38:14] This Week’s Hidden Profit Leak
[40:39] Where To Find Chris And SMA Support Services
What to Look For Before You Hire a Virtual Assistant
Before you ever look at a resume, decide what you actually need help with. Chris walks every new business owner he works with through a simple assessment first, because the right hire depends on the role, not just on finding someone smart and available. Some people are wired for phone work and sales follow up. Others are wired to sit quietly and get through a stack of admin work without ever wanting to talk to a customer. Hiring the wrong personality for the role is the fastest way to make a good hire look like a bad one.
Once you know who you need, start small. Permits come up in almost every conversation I have with contractors, and Chris sees the same thing across his clients. They eat hours of admin time that never touches the tools or the truck. Handing that single task to an assistant is often the very first place a home service business owner can start delegating work without disrupting anything else in the business.
A few tasks almost every home service business can hand off to a virtual assistant first:
- Pulling and tracking permits
- Following up on unpaid invoices
- Building estimates while a tech is driving to the next job
The Truck Buddy Way to Delegate While You Are Still on the Job
Chris described something he calls a truck buddy, someone riding along building estimates and confirming details while the technician drives to the next stop. That fifteen minutes in the truck, done every day, adds up to real capacity nobody had before. It is one of the simplest ways to reclaim an hour without hiring a second technician.
Why a New Hire Failed Before They Even Got a Chance
Chris told me about a contractor whose new virtual assistant did not work out. The reason had nothing to do with skill. The whole team communicated through a group text on their phones, and the assistant could never be added to it. Nobody looked for a workaround, so that person was cut off from the daily flow of information everyone else relied on. An assistant fails fast when they are treated like an outside vendor instead of a real member of the team.
What I Wish Someone Told Me Before My First Hire
I remember how nervous I was hiring my very first assistant. I had no idea what to hand off after years of doing everything myself. A coach at the time sat with me and helped me build a real plan, a set of tasks for the first thirty days, another layer at sixty, and the rest by ninety. Breaking delegating work into stages like that gave both of us room to succeed instead of dumping everything on one person in their first week.
The Profit Leak Hiding in Plain Sight
In every episode, I set aside a few minutes to hunt down Sneaky Leaky hiding in a real business. This week it showed up in the value of a business owner’s own time. Chris walks owners through ranking every task by the dollar value of the person doing it, then asks a simple question, are you the highest value person for this task right now. Most owners realize they are still doing five dollar an hour work instead of the two hundred dollar an hour work only they can do.
About Chris:
Chris Diroll is the Director of Growth at SMA Support Services. As a seasoned operator, Chris famously generated $4.5M in retail sales volume on a razor-thin 1.6% marketing budget. He accomplished this without heavy ad spend, relying instead on tight internal systems and disciplined follow-up. Today, Chris and the SMA team help home service founders move away from the daily grind and build systems-driven companies. By embedding trained virtual assistants into contractor businesses, they help owners plug hidden profit leaks, master their speed-to-lead, and finally win back their time.
Connect With Chris Diroll:
Visit Chris’ Website
Follow SMA Support Services on Instagram
Connect with SMA Support Services on LinkedIn
Follow SMA Support Services on Facebook
Follow SMA Support Services on TikTok
Diane’s Resources:
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