What happens when your five-month onboarding plan suddenly becomes three months, your processes are outdated, you decide to launch an entirely new internal app, and then you leave the country for 10 days?
Apparently, you onboard an operations manager.
In this behind-the-scenes episode, Sam is joined by Auxo Operations Manager Sonia Narvaez to break down what actually happened during Sonia’s onboarding. And no, it did not involve handing her a beautiful binder of perfectly documented SOPs.
They talk about the original plan, why it blew up, what they did instead, and how Sonia went from helping with a project to running point on the business while Sam was mostly offline.
More importantly, they dig into why founders often focus on the wrong things when preparing to delegate. Documentation can help, but it cannot replace clarity, communication, trust, and giving someone enough context to understand how the business actually works.
In this episode:
Why Sam originally planned five months to onboard an Operations Manager- What happened when that plan suddenly got cut almost in half
- Why outdated or nonexistent SOPs didn't derail the onboarding
- The communication cadence Sam and Sonia used during the first few months
- Why overcommunicating with a new team member is usually better than trying not to “bother” them
- How they handled trust, access, permissions, and decision-making
- The pre-vacation “everything in my brain” roll-up that helped Sonia take over
- What Sonia ended up handling while Sam was away for 10 days
- Why knowing the desired outcome matters more than prescribing exactly how someone gets there
- How healthy disagreement helped them build a stronger working relationship
- The difference between hiring someone to complete tasks and bringing someone into the business as a real team member
If you've been telling yourself you'll hire an assistant, VA, or operations person after you get all your processes cleaned up, this episode may ruin that excuse.