Sharing passwords is a scary notion. You’re a solopreneur and feel pretty assured that you have control over all your stuff. To accomplish more and achieve significant growth in your business, you’ll begin forming your perfect team. Hiring anyone, whether it’s an independent contractor or an employee, you are trusting them to get the job done and achieve the outcomes you desire.
You may feel organized when it comes to your passwords, but now you need to delegate. You’re advised to never share your passwords. But for all practical purposes, there comes a time when you must share some of your passwords simply to get more done.
Most of the time, when you bring on an assistant to be your extra set of hands, you will inevitably need to be sharing access to some of your accounts, therefore will be giving away passwords.
Whether you are already delegating or haven’t started yet, it’s a good idea to create a best practices policy for sharing passwords to help protect you and your team.
Last week’s show I talked in depth about best practices in creating more secure passwords and developing a system for organizing them. In this episode, I go over five questions you should be asking yourself before sharing your passwords with an assistant.
Develop a Strategy to Safely Share Passwords with Your Assistant by Asking Yourself:
- What is it that you want your assistant to do? Assess the duties your assistant will be responsible for. Only give access to accounts that they will need.
- What kind of account are you sharing? Sharing accounts with sensitive information, like bank accounts, is much different than granting access to less sensitive accounts like your social accounts.
- Can a separate user be created in the program? Before sharing your admin credentials, check to see if the program allows you to create a new user with limited access. Some accounts may have additional users included, while others may offer additional users at an additional cost.
- How should you send login credentials? Avoid sending your passwords through plain text means, like email or text. For a safer sharing method, use a password management system, like LastPass, so your information is encrypted.
- What will you do when your assistant leaves? Have a method of keeping track of what accounts your assistant was granted access to. If you do not use a password management system, then it’s a good idea to change your passwords. If you use systems like LastPass, then you simply revoke access.
Taking precautions is important with sharing information on any account you have. I do hope you enjoy the episode as I dive deeper into these five questions and give some examples of some of my experiences with password sharing.
Additional Resources:
- LastPass
- Tips for Creating Secure Passwords [Infographic]
- #037 – Taming the Chaos of Password Management
- Accomplish More Academy
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