How to know who your first team member should be
Congratulations! Things are going well! Your clients are happy, you're earning a good living and you’re generating regular interest in your services. This is an incredible place to find your business and I couldn’t be more pleased for you.
But maybe you’re starting to feel a bit frazzled.
Taking time from the business is much harder to do.
You might yourself working really long days and still not achieving a lot.
So you’ve been told to consider outsourcing. It’s the question of, “can you take something off your plate to make things a bit easier?”
GOD NO, IT’S MY BABY!
That might be your initial response anyway…
If it’s something you’ve never done before, I completely get it! It can feel REALLY scary to consider handing off any part of the business to another person.
What if they don’t do it the way I do?
What if I don’t like the way they do it?
Will I be able to trust this person?
Will I have the time to train them?
There are probably a million other questions going around in your head that just make it too much to handle. But, have you considered that the benefits of outsourcing work or bringing in another team member could be HUGE for your business?
Access to expertise and experience that you yourself don’t have and would take a huge chunk of time to learn
It will help move the business further, faster
They can see things in your business and processes that you can’t, and might be able to suggest small changes that are complete game changers
You are freeing up time to do the things you do best
It’s all very exciting now isn’t it?!
So, what do you need to have a think about?
Firstly, do you know WHAT you need help with?
I want you to sit down with a notepad and pen, and I want you to list ALL of the things you do within your business. Everything. That might be creating content, writing your newsletter, filming video content, editing, bookkeeping, sending invoices etc. etc.
From that list, I want you to chunk together the things that you don’t like doing. These are the things you often put off or procrastinate with. That could be because you’re not good at them, or maybe you just don’t enjoy it.
These are the things you need to consider outsourcing. If you associate them with the impact that handing those off to someone else will have, it will be much easier to do. Maybe it gives you your evenings and weekends back. Maybe you can focus more on sales. You get the point.
Next, I want you to look at those tasks and work out WHO might be able to help you.
Some of those tasks can be grouped together for a VA or content writer, which is really straightforward for you to recruit for. But you might look at that list and notice that you need more than one person’s expertise to help you out.
REMEMBER! If you need more than one person, you DON’T have to bring them in all at once. You might need to start with offloading one piece of work, before looking for another person to help with the rest. Take your time!
That leads us nicely into the second thing you need to consider.
HOW much do you have available to spend on these services? And of course, what does each service cost?
Outsourcing is an investment. So you need to think about the return for you. Will hiring a virtual assistant, for example, allow you the time to build more of your product or service offerings? Will it allow you time to onboard new clients? When you’re able to see the value of that investment, it becomes easier to look at the numbers and work out what feels realistic and what would add the most value to you NOW.
TOP TIP: Start small. If you don’t have the budget for all the support services you need, start with a little bit and build it up over time. It will feel safer, you’ll still see the benefit and it will free you up to do MORE than you’re able to do at the moment. Start with a trial to make it less intimidating.
Third, I’d like you to make sure that you are clear on your business’ purpose, mission and values
When you go out and look for someone to work with, you want to make sure that they are aligned to those and you can work with them well. It gives you a really good guideline when recruiting someone to work with you, and it also improves the chances of that decision being a success. Once you’ve chosen that person, make sure you know exactly what you need them to do, or at least be open to their experience if perhaps you have no idea at all!
There’s a huge amount of information and things to consider in this blog article, but I hope it’s given you a really strong place to start exploring this option of outsourcing. If you’ve got any thoughts or questions that you’d like to discuss, PLEASE book in a call with me so I can help you to gain that clarity and move a step closer to growing the business that works for you.
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