How to outsource the jobs you hate
Life is short. Delegate. Here's how.
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Happy Monday, colleague!
This is the final part of my Get Focused series. Now that you’ve:
Killed it at time management
and learnt that even a five-minute break is crucial
…it’s time to talk about one of my favourite subjects: off-loading the jobs you loathe onto someone else!
Presenting:
The hows, whys and huhs? of outsourcing
When you first launched your business or set up as a freelancer, it’s likely it was all a bit of a mad rush. Even if you had the luxury of easing into it, there were probably elements that you had overlooked, or surprise problems that popped up.
For me, at least, I became a sole trader swiftly after redundancy caught me off guard, and I felt like I was chasing my tail for a good few months.
A while later, when things were going ok, I started to think more about the bigger picture, including how my time was spent. I realised I was spending HOURS every month transcribing interviews for an unpaid passion project. (FYI, this project is Survivor Stories - a platform featuring interviews with survivors of sexual violence).
Transcribing - while not exactly a laugh-a-minute - wasn’t a specialist job. But it ate into my time and, what’s more, it was stopping me from sending out pitches for new commissions for magazines and newspapers - and therefore losing me money.
I worked out that by enlisting someone to help and freeing up more time to find new work, I could more than cover the cost of paying them.
(Some notes for transparency: this paid transcriber is experienced in the field of sexual violence, and therefore not too shocked by the content, and I first made sure people taking part in my project were happy with a third party hearing their recorded interviews.)
I immediately felt much happier – it wasn’t work that I enjoyed, and I was bringing negativity from it into my other jobs. Handing it over felt like taking a deep breath. Plus the woman who helped me was grateful for the work too.
Not all businesses are the same as mine obvs, but I would definitely encourage you to do some thinking about where your time is currently being spent, and whether you could earn more overall by spending a bit on help.
What’s stopping you from outsourcing?
“One of the reasons that people don’t outsource is that we have this limiting belief that we have to do everything ourselves to be truly successful,” says business coach and NLP trainer Rebecca Lockwood.
It’s possible that by holding tightly to the reigns of every single detail you’re actually stopping your business from reaching its full potential. As with my example earlier – by transcribing for hours each week, I was using up time when I could have been using my more specialised (and higher priced) skills, such as interviewing, pitching or creating content.
If you don’t have the spare cash to ask for help with areas of your work – it might be smart to find an intern. Yes, yes, I know – unpaid internships are the devil’s work and I generally discourage them – but some schools and colleges require short-term work experience for young people and have rules where it’s forbidden to pay them.
At the moment, poor old students are going to really struggle to complete traditional work experience at big firms or gain references, but a few days working virtually for a small business might make all the difference to their CVs and confidence levels, while also giving you a hand.
It’s possibly worth enquiring with local colleges, particularly if it’s work that would look good on their CVs whatever they want to do for a career – things like helping with social media, marketing or working on your website, for example, are all transferable skills.
Which jobs should I outsource?
Choosing which work to get shot of is obviously a very personal decision. For me personally, it comes down to a) is this job making me miserable? Or b) would my time be better spent on something else?
You might find that the jobs you hate are being dragged out, and taking much longer than they actually should, or that you’re putting something off for months even though it really needs attention.
“I train all of my students to make a list of everything they do, and label them as ‘big impact’ or ‘little impact’ jobs in terms of their business,” says Rebecca. “So that’s everything, even non-work things like doing the washing up – anything that takes up your time. It’s then about working out what you can take off your plate.”
For example, if you make and sell jewellery, your biggest impact will be the time you spend making the products, while everything else – like promotion and marketing – will be comparatively ‘little impact’ jobs (although of course, still vital).
It may be that these all work in harmony, but if you were able to outsource the smaller jobs, would it leave more time to create products, and therefore bring in more money? “Work out the core things that are going to move your business forward, and concentrate on those,” says Rebecca.
Alternatively, there might be certain stages in making the jewellery that are straight-forward but time consuming - perhaps glueing on earring posts, or wrapping products to send - and it would be simple to pay for help with that. If you could double your output and sell twice the amount, the profits made will cover the outsourced help, with cash to spare.
If you’re a freelance creative rather than a business owner, I bet there are still areas of work that eat into your time - like my transcriptions - and could be accomplished by someone without your specific specialist skills. You might be surprised at the type of work you can outsource. It’s not just a matter of getting an accountant – you can have someone schedule your social media posts, answer emails, develop your website, set up your meetings, transcribe notes…pretty much anything.
Outsourcing doesn’t necessarily just mean finding help for business-related work either – Rebecca herself has recently hired a cleaner. “It’s three hours out of my work time where I could be earning a lot, versus paying the cost of a cleaner – it’s a no brainer really.” Plus – if you work at home – a messy house can be a real distraction from your work, and have a real impact on your mood and productivity.
Of course, outsourcing isn’t always the best option for every job. “It’s also important to work out which jobs are a key part of your business,” says Rebecca. “If social media is where you’re finding your customers but you’re not good at it, it might make sense to invest in training for yourself rather than outsourcing. I just spent £600 on training to improve my email newsletters, but now I’m much faster at it and get better results.”
Rebecca’s top tips for finding the right person
“Make a project board (I use Trello which is a great tool for project management) where you break down all the elements of your business and all of the small jobs that sit within each category. For example, some of the categories that go into my business include marketing, sales, digital, technical support, PR and speaking, and accounting. This will then help you come up with a job description and be really clear about the pieces of work that you want to outsource.
“I recommend the book The EMyth which is all about how to put together an operation that runs smoothly – I’ve read it seven times! One thing I learnt from that is to make a manual for any areas of work that you can then duplicate. It’s a great way to train new people for a role or one-off piece of work without using too much of your time.
“Don’t be disheartened if you have to go through multiple people before you find the right fit. Sometimes people try outsourcing with one person and it doesn’t work out, and that feeds the limiting belief: ‘I tried it and it didn’t work, so I really do have to do everything myself.’ It can take time to find them. We implement a two-week trial for anyone joining my team.
“You aren’t limited by location either – I have people working for me across the world. You can speak on the phone or via video.” There have to be some advantages to our new entirely virtual lives - and this could be one of them.
Don’t miss next week’s issue, where I’ll be examining whether your professional emails are losing you work
Do you already outsource jobs, or is it something you’d consider? Let me know on the OOO Facebook page, or reply to this email.