Jon Matzner Profile picture
Jan 27 12 tweets 3 min read
Everybody says "Delegate More So You Can Work ON the business, not IN the business".

Easy to say, hard to do.

I have one tool that I've used 500 times, that empowers subordinates, and allows me to delegate complex projects.

PS: The tool was battle tested by the USMC...
Welcome to the "Five Paragraph Order" also called a SMEAC (Situation, Mission, Execution, Admin, Command/Control)

I am only a novice practitioner, but this simple structure, slightly modified for the civilian world, is a leadership and delegation super power.
I've used this for projects big and small - and you can too. Follow along, and I hope you'll see the power of this tool! For nerds like me, you can read this stuff straight from the source -

usmcofficer.com/officer-candid…
Step by Step:

Situation/Background: Higher level background goes here.

Example:

"Jon's hot dog stand is committed to the best hot dogs at an affordable price. To maintain this process, Jon's hot dog stand must continually adapt to the competitive environment in downtown NYC"
Mission/Goal: What are you setting out to accomplish? A good format is "We will (action steps) in order to (desired end state). The "in order to" section is really important, bc if facts change your subordinates can react!
Example:

"We will call 10 vendors in Queens in order to identify the highest quality hot dogs at a lower price than our current vendor"

Execution: Lay out your step by step plan to accomplish the mission/goal. Assign personnel if required.
Lay out from start to finish exactly what it is going to take to get the job done.

Example:

1. Steve will research local vendors, and notify Bobby with their contact details
2. Bobby will call, then text each vendor
3. Bobby will get their current price list
4. Bobby will report to Steve once 5 quotes have been collected

Admin/Logistics:

Any materials, licenses, certifications needed to get the goal accomplished? Any purchasing? Anything else "Back end" that needs to be defined? This is the place for it.
Example:

1. Bobby will drive his personal car to each vendor's location, and report the expenses in his monthly mileage report.
2. Bobby will upload his research into XYZ dropbox folder

Communication:
Where and how will your team communicate?
At what point do you need to be notified?
What happens if something goes wrong? What if its over budget? This is the place to setup your communication system for the project.

Example:
- Bobby will work with Steve via the #vendor channel in slack
- Jon will be notified if price quotes are above 150% of current vendors
- Final research will be emailed to XYZ address
-------
That's it - that's the format! It can be 5 lines long, or in some cases, pages upon pages.
This simple tool is incredibly powerful when you get the hang of it!

If you want a copy of a five paragraph memo I just wrote for launching our new "KPIs" (it's a good example) , throw me a retweet and a DM and I'll shoot it over.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Jon Matzner

Jon Matzner Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @MatznerJon

Jan 25
When we first bought our SMB, sales were a mess.

Owner was the only one selling.

Tracking on a whiteboard.

No real sense of what we sold.

One year later, we’ve trained and are using 7 sales designers, and grown 400%.

Here’s what I’ve learned on the journey:
Before even growing our sales force, we had to put “piping “ in place. Meeting with our most experienced EE at 0600 was how I did my initial research on what was worth selling, and what wasn’t.

We also put probably 100 hours into building our quick books online, the right way.
That said, I wasn’t ready to “standardIze our products” just yet, I needed more data.

I gave some rough guidelines to our sales guy(1) at the time.

For example, if you see it on wayfair or Amazon, and the customer wants it, mark it up 150% and we’ll do it.
Read 6 tweets
Jan 9
10 Lessons Learned Spending $100,000 on Upwork

I stumbled around for a couple years - making loads of mistakes.

I wish I had a cheat sheet on lessons learned, so I put one together.

Here are 10 things about hiring remote via Upwork I wish I knew sooner (#7 was most painful)
1. Tasks expand to fill the time allotted to them. If you give an upworker (who you are paying hourly) 10 hours to write one sentence, they’ll find a way to bill you for the 10 hours. Be unreasonably time restrictive.
2. Time zones can be a struggle. If there is any communication needed on your project, be sure to note it in the ad. If you don’t do this, you’ll be up at 9pm trying to zoom with someone you are paying less than $10 an hour. Not high leverage time.
Read 13 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

:(