Art Of Money

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Yesterday I presented my 10 Reasons Why I Won’t Outsource and they are great reasons not to have anyone involved in my money making activities, but of course, following them would be stupid.

As I can clearly see they are based on the belief system of a 2 year old. Imagine the founders of UPS or Dell trying to execute their business plan by doing everything themselves.

While I don’t have any current aspirations to grow into a multi-billion dollar company there are, even for a very small-time entrepreneur some important advantages to hiring out work.

Here’s my objections from yesterday and what I believe to be a sound response to overcome the objection:

#10 What if it takes more of my time and effort, to tell the person what to do than to just do it myself?

The onus is on me to give clear instructions, which is a great skill to develop. For tasks that are more complex, especially ones that are done over and over, use a screen capture video tool and create videos as recommended in freedom business systems.

#9 The Employee Won’t do a Good Job

Being a control freak and a perfectionist are both inhibitors to making money. There is a quote in Guy Kawasaki’s book Art of the Start which goes something like; “If you aren’t embarrassed when you first launch then you waited too long.”

I can learn to get my ego out of the way and realize whether the stuff I do is valuable, is the important factor. Are you playing to the reviewers, or to the audience?

My experience has been that by giving people space to breath, most people I have hired will exceed my expectations.

#8 It’s Too Big of a Job to Set Up My Systems

It is possible, if you find an experienced person to perform that tasks, to have them document the procedures as part of their job. That way you don’t have to actually spend too long setting up the initial procedures, and you have something in place that the next person can follow (allowing you to hire someone with less experience.)

#7 What if I Can’t Communicate Properly With The Employee

Get a different person to work with; plain and simple a mesh in communication style and abilities is essential.

#6 Can I Trust Someone Hired Online?

No way to know at first. The best is to have a system of graduated trust. Start the person performing tasks that don’t require high trust levels, then as you get to know them and they prove their integrity, and they understand your business better, move them to higher trust positions.

#5 I Don’t Actually do Tasks That Can Be Clearly Communicated to Another Person

Time to de-clutter you working habits. This is a tough one for me, as I don’t think that I’m performing straight-forward tasks, but I know that I need to make an effort to break my business down into easily communicated processes and procedures.

Start small and take out the obvious ones first, is the best advice I can think of for this one. Also tasks that are repeated are easy to document and pass along to another person.

#4 What if a Person That I Train Quits?

This one is inevitable, so you must plan for it. Outsourcing services like Get Friday have a team structure designed to minimize turnover costs.

#3 What if the Employee Drives Me Nuts Asking Questions?

The goal should be that you hire people who know how to think, and follow clear instructions.

Ideally, if the instructions are clear, the procedure should be able to be done without asking any questions. Screen capture videos are excellent for this. With my own Real Blog Videos I have sold almost 200 copies and I receive very few support questions.

The videos cover setting up a blog, from keyword research, buying a domain, hosting, installing WordPress to making the first post and the target audience is people who are not experienced technically. The low question rate (less than one a week!) demonstrates the power of the screen capture video as an effective communication tool.

#2 What if I Don’t Make Any More Money?

Like starting any business, getting Cashflow is the primary step. Identify the tasks that will have the most and quickest impact on the bottom line and outsource them first.

First priority has to be to increase Cashflow enough to pay for the outsourcing! Once you know you can do that then set up a way to track the return on investment for the outsourcing.

At the very least make sure you are tracking profit in your business, if it isn’t increasing with the addition of someone else working in your system, then there is a flaw in your business model.

#1 Bosses are BAD. I Don’t want to be a Boss! Having to tell someone what to do is bad enough, what if I have to give them sh*t or heaven forbid fire them, I can’t handle that.

If you grew up in a family that came from generations of blue collar workers (like me), you may have thoughts like this lurking in the back of your mind. These attitudes can trigger all sorts of resistance to outsourcing and moving into a position of responsibility and power.

To others, this step is not difficult at all. Either way, being able to pull the pin on the guillotine is an essential leadership skill and I know I’ll always have a big limitation on my earnings and personal growth without that ability.

Why It’s Worth It to Outsource

In conclusion to my 2 part outsourcing Q & A, it is clear that for anyone wanting build a real business and to move beyond the scope of a regular salary, there must be other people’s time involved.

I’m pretty sure I’ve talked myself into hiring a virtual assistant and to committing to outsourcing a major portion of my tasks. Here are the benefits that I expect to realize:

The ability to scale. If you believe what you are doing is profitable, wouldn’t it be better to create 3 or 10 profit channels, even if they only produce 50% of the income of the one you could complete by yourself?

Freedom. How can I ever go on a real vacation if all of my businesses are completely dependant on me for day to day operations. Isn’t freedom the reason that I wanted more money to begin with?

More money and more freedom, pretty good motivation to work my way from the limitations of a one man show to having a complete systematized business.