You’ve grown your business to a point where your skill set is no longer enough to get the job done. You’ve outgrown your DIY approach and may require some outside help—that’s okay! There’s nothing wrong with needing outside input or hiring the right people to get the job done. In fact, you should be on the lookout for this very early on in your business, so you can build one that scales.
5 signs you need to outsource
If you’re a small business owner, you know that there’s never enough time in the day. You’re constantly thinking about how much work there is to do and how far behind you are on everything, but your brain can’t catch up with the tasks at hand.
This is an important moment: when you realize that although you want to work smarter, not harder, it’s also time to outsource.
You may think that once your workload dies down, things will be different—but they won’t. You’ll still be spinning in circles, trying to meet all of your obligations while scrambling to get everything done all at once. And that’s why outsourcing is the best option for small businesses who need help managing their workloads: it gives them access to more time and energy so they can focus on growth and expansion rather than just keeping their heads above water.
Every single business owner wants to grow and scale their business to the next level, right? But how can you do that if you’re strapped for time?
That’s where outsourcing comes in. Outsourcing as you scale your business will give you more time to focus on the big picture while your employees tackle the small stuff. Here’s our guide on how to outsource and grow as a business.
The most common reasons why some entrepreneurs resist building a team are:
-loss of control over areas of their small business
-dread at the idea of training someone
-wondering will the investment pay off
-not wanting the burden of managing people
As business owners and entrepreneurs, we strive to build a business that surpasses the self employed ranking.
This means we need to take things to the next level.
Yes! Level up and become an official small business that can operate without our constant grind.
So how do you scale your business with outsourcing?
1.You want to spend more time on your bigger ambitions for your small business.
Do you feel like your exciting projects are always put on the back burner? Do you feel like you never get to the real fun stuff, and that it’s always about the boring stuff? You have big ideas but you don’t even get to start those projects never mind finish them.
You know you could have a bigger impact on your Marketplace. Yet, you just can’t seem to get your ideas execution because you are constantly crawling out of administrative tasks.
2.You’re having trouble nurturing and maintaining leads.
You realize that you’re busy keeping up with the day-to-day responsibilities And have no real consistency with creating or maintaining leads for new business.
A few times now you’ve cycle through the feast or famine stage with your small business. As a small business owner you’re always excited about new business but that puts you behind in your responsibilities yet again and then you’re back to ignoring lead generation. You know the entrepreneur mindset should be focused on new business but you just can’t seem to get to it!
3.Your goal is to have multiple streams of income
As a modern-day small business owner you know the ultimate goal is to have multiple streams of income. yet your current situation dictates that you can barely keep up with the work that you have on your plate. And you don’t have the systems and processes in place to get to that next level.
In order to move forward with your business you need to have the capacity to bring on new projects that will generate extra streams of income.
4. You’ve experienced burnout
For most small business owners experiencing burnout it’s something me suffer with in silence. Yet, burnout should be one of the first signs that you need to outsource. But you spend so much time digging yourself out of burnout that outsourcing filipino virtual assistants seems like another big project.
So you spend your time recovering from burnout and trying to put new strategies and play are very temporary fixes. Your new plan will unravel in a short. Of time and you’ll be back to where you started. As we’ve all heard, nothing changes until something changes.
5.You’re blaming yourself
So many small business owners blame themselves. They start re-evaluating the situation and blaming it on things like needing to be more disciplined and organized.
I’ve worked with many small business owners that were chasing these characteristics around like they were the answer to everything. In fact, being organized often can be a limitation. The temptation is just to reorganize things versus changing the bigger structure.
So if you’re not where you want to be in your business and you’re starting to beat up on yourself it’s another sign that you need to outsource or hire a virtual assistant.
A proven blueprint to help scale your business with outsourcing
Building a team can sound daunting but let’s redefine what team means. Many of my client’s in the Winner’s Circle are surprised by how many results you can gain from a lean team of 1-3 people. The benefits of outsourcing virtual assistants alone can change a companies direction never mind all the other options you have for your small business.
Decide which task you can outsource
It’s easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day running of your small business. With that things start to get lumped together in one big category. But the reality is many things that consume your day are not connected to your zone of genius. There is always pre and post work regardless of the nature of your small business.
Start by making a list of things that you have to do everyday.
Then start a list of things that you don’t like to do.
You’ll be surprised how much can be taken off your plate in a short. . In fact, when I’m working with my clients in the Winner’s Circle often a lot of responsibility can be taken off their workload as we hire virtual assistant.
Who Do You Need To Hire
When I’m working with my clients in the Winner’s Circle we like to start with a simple plan to ensure success. With all the clients that I’ve worked with what I found works best is usually starting with a virtual assistant outsourcing. And regardless of your budget or workload it’s also best to start off hiring somebody for a few hours a week and increasing those hours as you onboard them.
If you have flexibility in your budget it’s easy to add hours to the schedule every week. Although, I would never recommend going from no help to a full time outsourcer.
Social media managers are also becoming very desirable because of the never-ending demands of social media for the small business owner. This can be an excellent team member to really lighten your load in your small business. But, again I would encourage you to start hire a virtual assistant and they can help you get set up for hiring your next team member, your social media manager.
When things are set up effectively with systems and processes one team member can train another. This is something that my clients are always amazed by and really appreciate!
For social media manager you want to be really clear on your expectations.
Too often people ask for social media manager but they actually want somebody to create copy, execute graphics, and know the mechanics of all the platforms and the back end.
Those are all different skill levels. Now, I’m not suggesting that you have a large team especially just for social media. But as you build success with your virtual assistant you will start to see how to be clear on the rules you create.
Again, myself and all my clients in the Winner’s Circle run very successful high output companies that have very lean teams. Hiring virtual staff can be big game changer and really increase productivity!
How to Find the Right Candidate
The number of places that you can find outsourcers is continuing to grow. There are even virtual assistant companies, virtual assistant services and virtual staff finders that will find an outsourcer for you.
Many of my clients have tried that route initially and found it problematic and very expensive for a few reasons. (I’ll give you a hint they don’t come with business systems and it’s falls apart in months).
But that’s another story for another day.
Really what you need to know is how to interview an outsourcer so you can hire a virtual assistant.
Here’s some things that I do that help me retain my 90% retention rate for my clients in the Winner’s Circle.
There are a number of places you can post a job. Each platform has its specialty as well as pluses and minuses.
1. Post a general job post that you’re for a virtual assistant and a growing company.
In the past when I first started (14 years ago) I made the job postings too specific. You actually want to keep it as general as possible. The reality is a job hasn’t been created yet but more than that it really just allows for more people to apply.
Ninja trick: In the job post I also asked for them to include a specific word in the subject line.
For example I might ask them to include the word “sunshine “in the subject line. J
This me know immediately, who has read the job post carefully and who has an eye for detail.
If they do not follow my directions they are eliminated.
2. Then when I narrow down my applicants, I send them zoom link and let them know they are invited to an interview.
I also let them know that I’ll be interviewing other people and they may need to wait up to 20 minutes. This allows me to interview people very quickly without eating at much time on my calendar. (Remember you want to scale your business with outsourcing so this can’t take up a tone of time)
- In this initial interview, I’m especially quick and give each applicant about a minute or two of my time. I say to them… “this is a quick interview to see if they make it to the main interview, can they tell me why they think they are good fit for this job.”
- I’m always looking for personality over skillset and I’m also looking to see how they show up. Are they dress professionally. Are they able to articulate their thoughts very clearly. Or do they say things that are general and vague like I’m a hard worker and I am passionate about helping others.
- If I am impressed and think they would be a good candidate then give them a different email address. I tell them to follow up with me.
I let them know that this is a different email address than the one that they have and I asked them to follow up with me. (You would be surprised by how many people use the original email address from the job application. this eliminates them from the next stage.)
- When I have a number of applicants ready for the full interview again I do it in group fashion.
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