“Bob” was writing code for a large infrastructure firm, earning a nice 6-figure salary. His quarterly job reviews showed him as the top developer in the building. An excellent employee.
But Bob had a secret that wasn’t unearthed by Verizon’s RISK team until 2013: He wasn’t doing any of the work. In fact, his secret went further. Not only was Bob not doing the work, he was also contracting with other companies, for multiple six-figure salaries, doing developing work for them as well. He was pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars. He only worked about 30 to 60 minutes a day.
All of it perfectly well coded and seamless.
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In just a second you’ll discover the rest of Bob’s story-but first let’s use this as an illustration for your own business.
Most businesses today, online and off, are either stagnant or dying.
Yours may be one of them.
Many entrepreneurs start their journey with a bold plan – to work hard, build their business and then have the time and money to enjoy their success. Most also start as a “mom and pop” operation, with the founder/owner doing most of the work.
And that’s the problem.
When you are the key “doing” person in the business it has a limiting effect. First, it means your personal productivity will limit the growth of the business. You’ll hit a plateau based on how many leads you can develop, how many customers you can serve and how many products/services you can develop. Second, it means the only way to “grow” your business is to work longer, not take time off, and scramble every day.
Once you hit your limit, your business plateaus or even dies. You can’t “scale” your business beyond a few thousand customers.
Maybe you’ve been there. Maybe you are there.
Grab a cup of coffee and take 4 minutes to read this post. As you read it, you will discover four simple steps to freeing up your time, working less and making your business not just more profitable but truly scalable.
You’ll also see what happened to Bob…
You can grab your guide and video tutorial by clicking here or on the button below.
Step 1: Identify Tasks to Outsource or Automate in Your Business
There are some tasks ONLY you can do. Those are the ones you should focus on to grow your business.
Chances are, you are doing many things other people can do for you while not routinely getting done the tasks that truly matter in your business. In fact, most people’s psychology tricks them into thinking “getting things done” is valuable. “Getting things done” is good – but only if they are the right things.
Bob may or may not have been a great developer. We’ll never know. What we do know is this: He was able to create code that was the best in the building. He just didn’t do it himself. (More on this in a minute.)
Bob’s experience brings us to another point our egos often cause us to miss: Some of the things we’re doing can actually be done BETTER by someone else.
Here are the things you MUST focus your own time on to smash through growth barriers and allow your business to become truly successful and scalable:
- Long-term strategy
- Communicating your vision to your team, your prospects and customers.
- Evaluating key metrics and planning adjustments.
That’s it. What I have found in working with hundreds of entrepreneurs is most people spend little or no time on these key elements because they are so busy scrambling to find customers, create valuable customer experiences, get the “day to day” fires put out.
Maybe you have experienced or are experiencing that same treadmill in your own business. (In just a minute I’ll give you a free tool to help you identify the tasks you can easily automate or outsource to get you off that treadmill.)
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Step 2: Leverage the Right Tools for the Job
Now that you accept the need to focus on the “right” tasks rather than just “urgent” tasks, the next step is to figure out what resources are out there to get those tasks done.
Identify what automation tools are already out there to solve your problems.
If you have a problem to solve or a task to complete, chances are thousands and thousands of other business owners have the same problem. You don’t have to re-invent the wheel. Someone has either created automation to do that for you, or is willing to do that task for you for far less money than you might imagine.
The problem is we often don’t realize those tools are available.
Social media is the bane of many business owner’s existence.
Using social media well is important to build your brand, create customer loyalty, generate leads. It is also difficult to keep up with all the posting to all the platforms several times a day. Fortunately, there are several tools already created to do this automatically for you.
These tools can allow you to pre-load content, post it at specified times throughout the day and free up your time to do the “right” things in your business.
(To see which ones we use and recommend, click here to get our free “Top 10 Tools” white paper.)
On this blog we publish tools you can use, in categories, so you can see exactly what tools are available to solve your business needs.
There are some tasks an automated tool just can’t accomplish. For those you need people.
Identify what people are available to solve your problems.
The internet has been an amazing resource to build any business – online or off. It allows us to access resources from all over the world and get excellent work accomplished with people we’ve never met in real life. Take Bob, for example (more on how he did that in a minute.)
When you need a blog post written, graphic designs created, a project managed chances are you need physical people to get the job done. Not only are there skilled people ready and able to do the work for you, often better than you could accomplish yourself, there are websites designed just to help you find and manage those people remotely.
You may have heard of Fiverr.com. Fiverr allows you to get tasks completed for as little as $5 and almost always less than $50. You can use Fiverr to get everything done from photo manipulation, to graphic design, to lead generation, to videos. It’s amazing and cheap.
Another website we utilize to find and manage people is UpWork.com. UpWork allows you to not only identify skilled people with a proven track record, it gives you a management system allowing you to see exactly what your virtual freelancer is doing with their time.
Just about any task you can’t automate can be outsourced to a highly skilled freelancer somewhere in the world.
Now that you have the basics of how to find tools and people to get your work done, the next step is to create a way to manage them.
You can grab your guide and video tutorial by clicking here or on the button below.
Step 3: Create a Management System
In order for your business to organically grow while you spend time on the important things, you need to have a routine way to manage your tools and people.
Process Maps
A process map is a simple, step-by-step procedure for creating consistent quality. It identifies the steps an outsourcer needs to take to prepare and complete a task. It also includes “expected outcomes” meaning it defines what the “finished task” should look like.
If you are having an outsourcer prepare content, you need to make sure you identify the process you expect them to go through to create the content and what the content should be like once it is complete.
Often examples of content that meets the criteria can help show the freelancer exactly what they are “shooting for.”
Routine Evaluation
You also need to review the effectiveness of your tools and freelancers on a routine basis.
When you implement an automation – whether it is an email follow up routine for prospects, a social media automatic posting routine, a customer “thank you” letter – you need to routinely either weekly or monthly evaluate whether it is working well or not. Many people miss this step with automation tools.
Some questions to ask:
- Are these emails being opened by our prospects/customers? Is the open rate growing, declining or stagnant?
- Are people engaging with social media posts? Are they commenting?
- Is our social media “footprint” growing with followers?
- Are our social media posts being shared?
- Are our videos being viewed and shared?
- Are customers becoming repeat and high value customers?
You also want to address routine follow up with your freelancers.
Initially you will want to follow up on their work immediately with both positive and adjustment feedback. They need to know the things they are doing right, and be reinforced with it, as well as things they need to correct.
On a routine basis you or someone on your team need to evaluate the work. This might be as it is created or, in the case of things like content, it might be a weekly or monthly review. Some things to consider:
- Affirm the things they are doing well.
- Evaluate the things that aren’t up to expectation and ask: Is this because the process isn’t working? The expectations aren’t clear or reasonable? The freelancer doesn’t have the skills?
- Correct the work needing correcting.
Once you have the three above steps completed, now comes the fourth.
You can grab your guide and video tutorial by clicking here or on the button below.
Step 4: Measure, Refine, Repeat
Our businesses are a reflection of what we do routinely. Sure, once in awhile we hit a homerun, land a huge client, get a huge order. Over the long haul it is the single base hits that win the game.
In your business there should be four regular routines:
- Measuring key metrics.
- Meeting with key people (on a routine but not excessive basis).
- Keeping aware of new resources.
- Making adjustments to stay true to your long-term strategy.
Now back to Bob…
Bob was without a doubt an imaginative and innovative automater/outsourcer. Unfortunately, he also decided to hire programmers in China to do the work.
His company noticed many logins using his credentials to Chinese IP address. Hiring Verizon Security to investigate, they soon discovered Bob’s scheme.
You, however, can get all the benefits of automation and outsourcing without prison if you follow the four steps above. Your first step is to grab this free Outsourcing Blueprint to identify the areas where you can start outsourcing or automating now, freeing up time for you to do the truly important things in your business.
You can grab your guide and video tutorial by clicking here or on the button below.
