Stop Doing Everything Yourself and Learn to Outsource

Today’s tip is about when you’ve reached a certain level in your business, and it seems like you’re doing everything yourself. You’re working with the clients. You’re doing the marketing. You’re buying the supplies. You’re changing the light bulbs. You’re sending out invoices and paying things, and really you’re just doing everything front of house and everything back of house. For example, you walk into a restaurant, and you’ve got the maître d’ and the waiters and everything’s front of house, but when you go to the back of the restaurant where you’re in the kitchen, you’ve got the line chefs and the executive chefs, the sous chefs and right now you’re trying to do both at the same time.

Now, here’s the thing. This usually happens when you get to about $75,000 to $100,000 in your business is where you can no longer do everything yourself. You can’t grow in your business, in your income and in your reach of being of service of people because you have no more time left. This is where we need to create more leverage in your time and in your business so that you can multiply to the next level, if you want to make $150,000-$200,000 or so much more, and the key is to create systems and to get some help.

The very first objection that I typically get is, “Fabienne, I don’t have the money to hire somebody full time or even,” they think part-time to help them and delegate things to, and this is what I call the catch-22 of being around the six figure market in your business, and perhaps for you, you’ve already reached that level at $50,000, or perhaps you’ve created a $200,000 business, lucky enough to be able to do everything yourself.

But, the thing is, now you’ve pressed up against this ceiling. You cannot grow. You cannot make more money because there’s no more time, and you’re probably depleted. So, the thing that you need to do first is to make a list of all of the tasks that you’re doing during the day. Literally, get a pad of paper and start writing down everything that you do during the day. So, you talk to clients and you schedule their appointments and you’re ordering those supplies and you’re printing your agenda, your calendar for the day, and everything you’re doing.

At the end of the day, this is what I want you to do, and maybe you do this over a two or three day period if your business requires that your days are different, and at the end of the time, you take those lists and you start adding a dollar amount next to each item about how much you think you could actually pay somebody to do that for you.

Think about it. If it’s filing and you’re still doing your own filing, you could probably hire somebody for ten or twelve dollars an hour to do your filing for you. If it’s, let’s see, I don’t know, ordering suppliers, maybe it’s fifteen dollars an hour. Maybe it’s somebody who is doing your transcriptions or editing your articles for you, maybe you can find somebody for twenty-five, thirty dollars an hour for that.

At the end of that, and then there’s all the stuff that you do. Say you charge a hundred dollars an hour, five hundred dollars an hour, a thousand dollars an hour, you really list that, “I talked to this client, that client,” and all of that. Then, you start grouping the things that are all the fifteen dollars an hour things, and all the thirty dollars an hour things, and this is where you can start looking at, “Can I get somebody to help me even if it’s on a part-time basis?” Especially nowadays, there are a lot of people willing to help you on a part-time basis, maybe even moms who stay at home between the hours of ten or two, or even just a couple of hours a week to take things off your plate.

If you do that, imagine the hours that you save. I remember talking to a client a little while back, and I said, “This is what you’re going to want to do. You want to delegate all of these things from that list, all of the things that aren’t your unique brilliance and that don’t bring you money.” So, ordering supplies or filing, these things are not income generators. So, you actually have to stop doing these things, recoup that time back so that you can focus on attracting more high level clients doing more marketing and bringing in more income. Does that make sense?

You can’t bring in more income until you create more time and create more systems. So, it’s really important that you make that list and you start thinking about, “Oh, who could I hire on a part-time basis?” Looking at maybe virtual assistants or perhaps you’re looking online at a Craig’s List or Elance or Guru.com, somebody who can help you take some of this stuff off of your plate. Then, you want to create some systems and some checklists so that you know that as you’re delegating these things, they’re actually getting done the way you want them to get done because nobody likes managing people if the people being managed, or “not managed,” are not doing things properly.

It’s really important that you create systems and delegate and automate and systematize as much as you can in your business. The minute I did this, and I think I brought on my first part-time person who was helping me when I was making about $75,000. Very, very quickly because I was able to delegate all of those things to that person, I made so much more money. I wasn’t doing my own scheduling anymore. I wasn’t doing all of these – I wasn’t trying to do all of this HTML thingies on my own. Somebody else who is much better at it was doing for me, which freed up all this time for me to market more, and therefore make more money because I’m getting more clients, and create programs that leverage my ability to reach more people and make more money. Does that make sense?

Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to make that list of all of the things that you do during the day, attach a dollar amount to each, group them, and then look for somebody who can help you. No more doing everything front of house and back of house. Just this tip alone will help you attract more clients – ideal high-paying clients, that’s what we’re talking about – help you make more money, and help you leverage yourself so much more in your business.

Until next time, live life like you mean it!