At Pareto, we believe in handing off tasks to maximize our productive potential. That goes beyond the service we provide our customers and extends to our internal delegation strategy as well. We do so by “dogfooding” — using our own product and services within our company. It’s been a great way for our team to delegate effectively using Pareto while immersing ourselves in our user’s experience.
Ellen dives into how Pareto “dogfoods” by breaking down how she made use of the Pareto workforce as our growth hacker.
💼 Ellen’s background and work style pre-Pareto
My background spans both start-up and enterprise sales. I’ve hustled on scrappy teams, juggling many hats, and also been part of huge sales organizations with every tool in their box. I invest a lot of effort into building relationships with my clients, so I would say my work style is very personal & consultative.
In sales, there’s this notion of “you eat what you kill” -- the sense that you will be rewarded proportionately for the effort you contribute... and I think that’s what has cultivated a lot of pride in owning my own work and managing my sales process myself. I had very little experience with delegating in my previous roles.
💡 When she realized she could use Pareto’s services to grow Pareto as a business
It didn’t take long for my list of growth to-dos to outweigh the hours I had in a day. I soon realized that in order to execute our strategies across sales, marketing, and partnerships -- I needed help.
My first lightbulb moment was when my first Pareto task was delivered. Overnight, something I had been putting off for weeks was finished and waiting for me in my Slack channel. I quickly realized that I could not only execute the existing to-dos on my list, but expand the scope of my growth initiatives and push up my timeline projections with the support of the Pareto team.
I had very little experience with outsourcing. I’ve managed teams before, but never handed off tasks or business processes to freelancers or a third party. I believed I could delegate tasks to the Pareto team, but didn’t fully understand the team’s ability to execute and automate entire processes.
📋 Tasks that Ellen assigned internally to our Pareto Associates
The associates have been supporting growth tasks related to marketing, content strategy, lead generation, sales outreach, metrics and KPI reporting, partnership sourcing... The list goes on. The team has been incredibly helpful in streamlining complex workflows and helping me create documentation for these tasks.
👏 Ellen’s biggest positives from using Pareto in this inside-out way
Using Pareto as a customer allowed me to get into the mindset of our primary users: leaders of high-growth startups. Through this experience, I was able to more clearly understand the operational processes we needed to support the most positive experience for our target users. Key ingredients for a successful partnership with our customers include transparency, reliability, and support.
We learned a lot about maximizing the output of our lean team by using our Pareto associates to not only scale but streamline our operational processes -- and I think it’s allowed us to be especially empathetic to the parallel path our users are on to scale the efforts of their teams as well.
🏋️♀️ What Pareto has helped Ellen accomplish as an individual
Before joining the team, I defaulted to muscling through my to-do list, working on my own, and accepting that overwhelm was normal. Pareto has helped to reshape my workstyle to maximize efficiency and prioritize my time spent on strategic or creative work. It’s a shift that I think has influenced how I allocate my time outside of work too.
📈 What Pareto was able to achieve because Ellen utilized our own service
I could go on forever. The Pareto team has changed everything: how we hire, how we use data to inform our decisions, how we connect with our customers, how fast we can grow. The outcome I think about most is how the Partners and Associates on our team have shaped the culture and experience of being part of Pareto. Their warmth, their friendliness, and support make a world of difference.
🤝 How working with the Pareto associates affected Ellen’s approach to delegation
They’ve shown me to trust the process. To trust in experts who can show me a better way to navigate a complex workflow. They’ve given me a new appreciation for what’s possible through delegation, instead of keeping my to-do list to myself.
⚡️ What surprised Ellen about Pareto that she learned by using it herself
Through my experience, I learned that the team could help me to streamline & optimize the tasks I was handing off to them. I was so careful to capture repeatable step-by-step instructions, I hadn’t really considered that the team could help me find an even better way to accomplish the task at hand. Their experience helping 100s of startups navigate the exact challenges I was facing was invaluable... And something I totally hadn’t anticipated!
📝 Ellen’s key takeaways for anyone who is looking to get more done but is hesitant to start delegating
Delegating doesn’t always come naturally. But small, quick wins help us to understand what’s possible when we spend our time wisely, and prioritize our key projects while delegating the rest. With time and trust, delegation will become the secret sauce to success and limitless growth.
Happy delegating!
Ellen 😊
While handing off your responsibilities may seem intimidating or feel like a cop-out, it’s an incredibly efficient way to maximize the value and impact of your critical work while offloading the tedium of repetitive tasks. Work smarter by embracing delegation in your everyday life.
Superpower your business just like Ellen by getting started with Pareto today! Not sure what to start with? Check out 30+ tasks to delegate that Pareto can take over for your business.
