Andrea Nordling 0:00
Let’s talk all about outsourcing today. fun topic on first, I am going to give a little life update, which I don’t do too often here talking personal life on the podcast, but I hear from some subscribers that they are interested you might be one of them. So here goes, as you may or may not know, my family, and which is my uncle, let’s just assume you really don’t know anything. My husband, Greg, and our two kids, Chloe, who is 12. And Luke, who is nine have been on an adventure of sorts. For the last two years, we have been mostly traveling around and hanging out in our RV. And we have actually had the best of both worlds. So I’ll give a little bit of background when we decided to sell our house in the summer of 2020. And full disclosure, the reason we did that was things were crazy. And we just kind of wanted to opt out of the entire COVID experience. We were not loving how things were going down in the state of Minnesota where we live in so we decided to hit the road. And it was great. It was absolutely fantastic. When we made that decision, my dad who lives in a big beautiful house by himself said, Okay, move all of your stuff in here, you guys have all your own bedrooms and bathrooms. This is your home base, you know it’s home for you, which it is it feels very much like. So we have had the best of both worlds, we have been able to be on the road and traveling and adventuring whenever we want to, which is specifically in the wintertime since Minnesota is not our favorite place to be in the winter. And then we have been able to have our home base and our very comfortable landing pad for whenever we wanted to be back in town for weddings, for family events for holidays. And for the three reasons that someone would ever live in Minnesota in the first place, which is June, July and August. So we have been living our best life truly, we have been traveling a time and having the most fantastic experiences, which has truthfully forced me to get very, very efficient with my time. Because when you are living in a camper, with your family, and homeschooling and trying to enjoy all of the cool places that you are at, the last thing you want to be doing is sitting on your laptop all day. So a lot of the productivity that I have and the the habits and processes that I have developed that I teach to you I have become like what does it say? Necessity is the use of something you know what that is? So that’s what has happened, I’ve had to be very efficient, I’ve had to be very productive. And that was because of our lifestyle. However, we were deeply, deeply and when I say we, I’m going to be honest, I’m going to kind of throw him under the bus. This is mostly my husband, Greg has been feeling very, very twitchy about the constant travel and not having our own domain. And he said, I just want all of my tools back, I want to shed I want my shop set up, I want to have a place to tinker. Okay, totally get it. So we now have in the last couple months, actually, it’s been five weeks, five weeks ago, we moved back into the area that is home for us, which is about an hour away from my dad’s house where the where our home base has been at. And we’re kind of plugged back in to our life here where the kids friends are where a lot of our extended family is. And we have seven beautiful wooded acres and privacy and a shop and a shed. And Greg says that we can be very happy here because this place passes the pee test, which he would die to know that I’m saying on the podcast, the pee test is if you could be in your own words, and no one can see you. So that’s a little bit about our life right now. And I just love saying that he would just die to know, I didn’t know that i i outed him on the pee test, which is a major filter for all housing considerations in our family. All right, so we are on solid ground for now I’m in a new office, we’re all set up. We have been enjoying the summer here in Minnesota and it feels like we’re kind of a little bit back to a normal life of a few years ago. However, we are still going to be doing a lot of travel and some extended travel and have a lot on the calendar of more fun adventures to look forward to. But we’re figuring out a balance between the two. So that’s, that’s what’s going on for me. And you know, that’s four minutes of your life that you’ll never get that. But it kind of plays into our topic today about outsourcing because outsourcing has been a part of my journey and my business that has allowed me to be able to work on the road by figuring out what to outsource what not to outsource and how to do that effectively, which is of course what we’re talking all about in this episode. So as it’s being released when you are getting this hot off the press on August 9. I will be sitting at the county fair watching my daughter Chloe show her Dairy Heifer.
Andrea Nordling 4:42
That’s a little bit more about our summer life and what goes on around here. And Luke will be there too. I mean, he’ll be at the fair, but he’s not as excited about showing animals. He’s kind of phased out of that he is let’s be honest, he’s just really there for whatever fair treats he can scam from his grandpa Greg’s dad will be there the whole time. And they definitely know how to work the system and get grandpa to give them all the cash for all of the treats. That’s what happens at the fair. So as you’re listening to this, that’s what I’m doing. But yeah, we have our we have our little home base setup. And so life is changing a little bit around here. But we’re still maintaining some fun adventures on the calendar, which I’m sure I’ll be sharing as they happen. So that’s the update for me
Andrea Nordling 5:23
right now, the goal of as I’m telling you, this, I’m sitting in my new office. And I have to say, although it is luxurious to have my own office with a door, because I have spent so much time in the early morning hours working in a shared space, while my family is still snoozing, and I get my work done in the morning. I’m an early bird. So that’s kind of my tempo. But it’s so nice to just have an office and shut the door. It’s been so so nice. Actually, at my dad’s house full disclosure, I did have an office with the door. So if you’ve watched videos that I have shot in the last couple years, that was me in an office at my dad’s house, and I have kind of batched content creation and videos for when we knew that we were going to be back there. But now it’s different because it’s my own office. And it’s quiet here, which is so lovely. However, the goal, of course, is to spend less time in this office as my business keeps growing, because of our topic today, which is outsourcing a lot of the recurring tasks that are required when running a business can be outsourced. And that is what we’re talking about today. So what does that even mean? Let’s start at the beginning. What does it even mean? And why would you outsource anything in your business? Or? Or maybe the question for us? Why would you outsource everything, depending on what end of the spectrum you’re on right now and how busy you are. Here’s why I have read. As crazy as this may sound, I know that this it’s gonna just, it’s gonna sound bizarre, it’s gonna sound like I’m lying. I know. But I’m gonna say it, please believe me, as crazy as this may sound, there actually are many people that can do what you’re currently doing way better, and way faster than you do. I know, I know, it’s a shock, it’s, it seems like an urban myth that anyone could possibly do the things that we do, as well, or even better, or even faster than we do. But it’s true. And as your business grows, and the to do list gets longer, having help is going to become a necessity. For sure. Remember, from the last episode, we talked a lot about this, but I’m gonna bring it up again, that old adage that our grandparents taught us and I will butcher it every time. But it’s something along the lines of cheap, fast or quality, you can have two, but you can’t have all three, cheap, faster quality, okay? Think about this, when you’re doing everything yourself, and you’re wearing all the hats and your business, it’s cheap, but it’s probably not fast. And it might not be the highest quality either. Let’s be honest with ourselves. And that’s totally okay. In the beginning, I also want to be very transparent about this. And that’s okay. In the beginning. That’s, that’s imperfect action. That’s the way it goes, I don’t want to give the wrong impression that you need to go hire a team tomorrow, you don’t probably don’t let him and again, it depends on what level your business is at and what level your current overwhelm is at, I would say you probably don’t need to do that. I didn’t start hiring help until I was solidly making six figures in my business. And then I’m going to talk about this, it was just a few things that I was hiring people to help with. And I was learning how to do that on a small scale in the beginning. But what I do wish is that I had been thinking about outsourcing sooner. Because I could have been inexpensively outsourcing some things long before I did that would have really saved me a lot of time and a lot of overwhelm. So here’s the key, and why you would consider outsourcing anything in your business in the first place. Which is because this is how you’re actually going to grow, there’s a point of diminishing returns, where you doing all of the things is going to actually prevent your business from making more money and impacting more people. So in the beginning, you’re doing all the things so that you learn all of the parts. So you have some experience with it, you’re also saving some money, you’re bootstrapping, there’s so much pride in that, right? A little bit of sarcasm there. But really, we do feel like we gotta know what we’re doing. We have to make the mistakes ourselves. We got to get in there get scrappy, you know, I talk about this all the time. And it’s true. But there’s a tipping point where the you doing all of the things is going to actually prevent your business from making more money and impacting more people. That’s what we’re talking about here. So I want you to stay ahead of that and anticipate when that point is going to be so you don’t get there where you’re absolutely drowning. And you can’t even imagine how you would get the time to train anyone to how to help you in the first place. Because you’re so overwhelmed. We’re gonna talk about that as well. So I want to get the wheels turning for you on what you could or would or will hire for in the future and then start planning for it. Just anticipating it. And if you’re at the point where you can see that this is really unnecessary for your business right now and pay attention because we’re gonna talk about what to outsource first and second, etc. But first, before we do that, let’s talk about what you would outsource. First of all, this is going to not be an exhaustive list. But these are some of the things that I know my students start with outsourcing, and then I did as well. So we’re gonna start here, it’s not an exhaustive list, you would think about outsourcing anything that doesn’t require your face or your voice, that’s a great place to start. Now, I know that people hire more coaches, or a team to come in and help do client facing work at some point in their businesses. And in some business models, I know this happens. But that’s not what I would suggest doing in the beginning, for goodness sake, you keep doing all the client facing delivery, anything that uses your face or your voice. And it’s the back end work that you hire help with. Now, let me give a little caveat to this, I think that you should know how to do the things that we’re going to talk about hear yourself, at least at an elementary level, for example, a lot of my students, and I didn’t even know that this was possible. So I can’t say that I fell into this because ignorance was bliss. And I didn’t even know you could hire people to do this, and that this isn’t even an option. But a lot of my students want to hire someone to do their entire website for them. And they want to just, you know, pay some money, have somebody do it, get it done quality, fast and haven’t handled. And I understand the thought process behind that. And I think that for some people, that might be a good idea. But here’s what ends up happening. If you do not know how to use your website platform at all, and it’s totally foreign to you, then when the day comes which it very quickly well, or you need to change something on it, or you need to add a page or you need to tweak a button, or you need to move your emails around in your email service provider or you need to do something on a moment’s notice, you will not know how to do it. And that will be so frustrating. Because when you are having other people that are in charge of your systems, and you don’t know how to do that, it’s hard for you, first of all, to guide the systems and to make sure that they’re efficiently set up the way that you want to because you don’t have any understanding of how to do it. And so you really are kind of at the mercy of whoever you hire and whatever their processes are, which is a problem. But then also you have to wait for the turnaround time of somebody to go do it for you, instead of you knowing how to do these things yourself. So for that reason, I think you should know how to do at least at an elementary level, how to do the basic things in your business, tech wise, and with all of the processes that you set up. Okay, that’s the reason it just it will save you so much headache in the long run if you know the basics of how things work. And you can go in and make small tweaks when you need to. Now that doesn’t mean that you might not hire someone to do big projects or to change the look and the feel and the visual aesthetics, which we’re gonna talk about in a second, it doesn’t mean that it just means that you know how to, to use the functionality of your tech stuff for yourself when you need to, I promise it’s very important and will save you so much headache. If you know how to do that. Most of us, this kind of brings us to the visual piece of things. Graphic Design, and tech setup are great things to outsource as long as you know the basics of it. And you can totally you know how to go into Canva and tweak something if you need to. But most of us are not graphic designers by trade and we have a hard time making the visual elements of our business look the way that we want them to look, it is a very, very bad mashup of not knowing how to do something but also being very particular and perfectionistic about how you want things to look, ask me how I know this.
Andrea Nordling 13:35
So I understand the desire to have a professional come in and make the visuals look good. That doesn’t you don’t have to become a graphic designer yourself in your business to be successful. In fact, I think that it is a huge waste of time to spend hours which leads to days which leads to weeks and then months trying to make the exact Canva graphics and thumbnails and webpages and logo that you want. That is a colossal waste of time. So if you are particular about those things, and if you don’t have to be but if you are, it would be a great thing to outsource the visuals of graphic design elements. This is one of the first things that I outsourced and my recollection one of the first things I hired someone to do was some contract graphic design work, because I was not loving my DIY website, look at my DIY Canva graphics and my it looked DIY to me, which I did not pervert. So I did hire someone to do some graphic design work. I wish I had done that sooner. As a result of me spending years doing that myself. I know how Canva works really well. And I know that I don’t want to be in there. But if I have to I can go change something, I can tweak it. I know how to download the file. I know the functionality of it. And I also know that I don’t want to waste any time in there. So these days I outsource that and that was one of the first things that I did hire a contractor for. She was fantastic. And we developed a great working relationship together. And after I had hired her for a few smaller projects, I knew she could deliver the way that I wanted, I knew that she could make things look the way that I wanted to. So I increasingly gave her more and more work. And eventually, she even started doing my website setup. Actually, she did not have any experience with Kajabi, which is the website platform I use. But she learned and she figured it out. She took some classes, I think, and she has done my website design ever since. But it wasn’t a it wasn’t a one time hire it we gradually worked up to our the point now where I can just send her a loom video, I can say I love how this looks, I love how this looks, can you recreate this on my website, and she magically does it. But that was a process to get to that point. So I just want to say that in all of this, you can start small. And you can start working that muscle which we are going to talk more about about how you communicate with contractors and how you communicate your ideas to someone else, so that they can recreate it better and faster than you can. Because that is that is a skill for sure that in the beginning I didn’t have I have learned I’m sure I will be even so much better at that two years from now. But I can say that visually, like visual components are something that is a fantastic investment to outsource. Because for those of us that are perfectionistic, but not gifted, graphic designers, we will spend way, way way too much time trying to make things look the way we want them to look and being very disappointed every time. So I would say that is a great place to start. Now, the reason that I just want to like make sure that this is very clear, the reason that this process with my first hire, and that contract, graphic designer that I’ve now worked with for years went smoothly is because I knew how to do those things in Canva. Myself, I knew how to edit my website myself, it just took me a really long time and I was frustrated and I was loading the process the entire time
Andrea Nordling 16:54
was oh, remember, you can have cheap, you can have fast or you can have quality. But you can only have two out of the three at once. So to get fast and quality, I had to pay someone to do it, which I am so happy to have the option to do it is very, very freeing. And I’m not suggesting that you break the bank without sourcing at all. And we’re going to talk more about that. So don’t assume that I’m suggesting I want to be very clear about this this entire episode, I’m wanting to be very transparent that it can be so helpful to invest actual dollars into hiring people to do these things. But I’m not suggesting that you have to spend an outrageous sum to have experts to do everything for you. That’s not what I’m saying. But you do have to know yourself. So if perfectionism and tech frustration is keeping these projects never ending on your list, and you’re spending weeks or months trying to finish them on your own, for goodness sake, hire someone to do it way better and faster than you. This is also I want to kind of mention here, this is something that I have seen over and over again with my students in my program is when they do inexpensively hire someone to to do their website or to redo their website or to migrate their website from one platform to another whatever that looks like. It really forces them to make decisions quickly and to imperfectly move through the process much faster. And here’s what I mean by that. When you pay for someone to do something and they say, Okay, I need your copy for this website. And you do tell me what are for this webpage, like I need to know what we’re putting on your about page, I need to know what we’re putting on this page. When you’ve paid someone to do this for you. Suddenly, that task is going to get prioritized and you’re going to actually get it done. So for all of my very perfectionistic friends out there that may be listening to this. And thinking about these lingering to do list items that they’re not doing such as figuring out what verbiage they’re actually putting on their web pages or into an email sequence or whatever that looks like hiring someone to do it and paying money to have someone on the clock doing it for you will force you to get it done faster, I’m just saying. Alright, so on to another
Andrea Nordling 18:58
thing, you might want to be considering outsourcing and what I should have hired out first, but again, I did not know how to do it. And so I didn’t figure it out. I didn’t prioritize it. I just kept doing things. And I know so many people listening to this episode feel the same way as you just keep doing things yourself. Because it seems easier than trying to figure out a different solution. It’s like I don’t even have time I don’t have the bandwidth. I don’t have the energy to try to figure out how to solve this problem by hiring someone. I’m just gonna keep doing what I’m doing. And I did that for way too long with my bookkeeping. So I want to mention bookkeeping as something that I should have hired out first, because I didn’t know how simple and affordable it was to have someone else do my bookkeeping. I also never imagined what a great job they would do, and how much time it would save me and how much bandwidth it would save me. Now I talked about this process a lot at length in Episode 41 a couple episodes ago. So I also gave my link to my actual bookkeeper, who is the bomb He specializes and has an entire system and team that that you can hire that specializes in online businesses like ours, specifically, for around $30 a month, my friend. So had I known that that was an option, I would have happily paid not to have to spend hours every month reconciling my accounts, and spending at least oh my gosh, at least two full business days each year preparing numbers for my accountant to file my business taxes. And then second guessing myself every step of the way, wondering if I was miscalculating all of that got done, just outsource done haven’t have a professional that does it way better and faster and has a great system, have them do it for you. It’s a great, great thing to outsource I promise. Now another set of recurring tasks that you might consider outsourcing is editing videos or audio. And I’m going to be honest, I don’t produce as much video. So up until now, I’ve just done this myself. But I do you have a Podcast Producer that edits all of these podcasts episodes that you listen to and uploads them for me, I record them, I upload them to a shared folder. And I don’t worry about it again, she does everything. So even though I know how to edit audio files, and I could do it in a pinch. If she was sick, I could definitely do it. My time is way better spent doing the visionary and the client facing things in my business at this point, like outlining episodes and creating episodes and not doing the back end recurring tasks like actually editing them and producing them and uploading them to the correct software and scheduling them. Yes, I can do all of those things. No, it is not a good use of my time. So those types of things like editing videos, or audio may be a great set of recurring tasks that you’re doing over and over again, that you could be hiring someone to do. And I will say I do have a videographer hired that is going to be recording and streaming the mastermind live in October. So I have a live event component of my mastermind group, which is a six month mastermind, but it kicks off with three in person days where we are together kind of retreat style, where we are making all of the big decisions for everyone’s businesses, we are collaborating on messaging and their client processes and their marketing and their offers. And we’re doing all sorts of stuff I’m teaching, all of that is going to be recorded and streamed to the people that cannot be there live. Because as we know the world is an interesting place. And travel for some people is hard at this point depending on where they’re coming from and what the rules are at any given moment. So we have a streaming option for the mastermind, where they’re going to be able to to be there live and get coached. But virtually, then we also have all of it recorded and produced. And so I have a videographer that I have hired to do all of that I will not be worrying one single bit about any of that. But this is the first time that I’ve hired out any video production. And it’s long past time that I do that I’m excited about it, that he’ll be doing all of the video, including producing the high quality edited recordings for the mastermind students that are going to go into their member portal that they can keep rewatching, the live event videos, and doing some video testimonials, all sorts of cool things during the event. But I’m not doing any of that I have hired that out. Now, this is advanced. This is advanced stuff. I’m just at the point now and my business is big, not big, like a huge team. But big like we make a lot of money over here. It’s just now at the point where I am hiring my first videographer. So I wanted to say that for context. So that you would know this, this is something that you have to be worried about in the beginning. But it is good to start thinking about, especially if that’s something that really stresses you out, it’s good to start thinking about and if you do have a ton of videos, that you won’t edit it, you could hire someone on a contract basis to do that for you. And then that’s a relationship that you could be fostering for long term when you do have more big projects to do. I’m a big proponent of it, I gotta say, full disclosure. Until now I have not hired anyone else to do the editing at all in my videos, I want to make this very clear. I know how to edit videos, I do them all myself inside the profitable nutritionist program the videos and if you’re a member of the program, you know this because I talk about it. In the first video, I tell you all about the very intentional reason that the videos are under produced, meaning it’s just me filming with a good mic so the sound is good. But I’m just filming from a basic webcam on my laptop and using a paper flip chart is very intentional. There are no fancy intros or outros or screen transitions. There’s nothing like that. It’s very basic, intentionally because basic works great.
Andrea Nordling 24:33
So don’t think you need a fancy video editor anytime soon. Unless you have a very video heavy business model. Then of course, that’s probably something you’re already thinking about. I am so glad that I know how to edit videos myself so I can quickly whip them up without having to send them off and waiting for days or weeks for them to get returned to me and I can turn things around quickly because I know how to do it. So getting back to my first point which is you should know how to do this stuff on a basic level yourself. It will save you a lot of headache in the law. long run. Okay. Another thing that people ask me about outsourcing a lot is copywriting. Okay, I’m going to be honest, this is much trickier to outsource, much to your dismay, you cannot just pay someone and have them without amazing copy for you. I really wouldn’t recommend it in the beginning, especially because you need to figure out your messaging. We talk about your messaging and your marketing and the actual words that you say, and don’t say, in conversations with people, we talked about that all the time on this podcast. So if you are an avid listener, you know this, you need to figure this out for yourself, you need to figure out the way that you convey your ideas to people, and you talk about the problems that they have. And you talk about the solution that you offer. And you say the actual words, I can help you need to figure this out for yourself. And you’re going to do it way faster. And learn this on a way deeper level that it just becomes second nature, it’s so natural, it’s so easy for you. When you experiment with different copy yourself. And when you’re writing the copy yourself, and you’re in the trenches, figuring out what resonates with your perfect clients. There just really is no shortcut for this. I gotta say you got to take your brain to the place where it’s thinking critically about what’s working and what isn’t working. So you figure this out for yourself. Now, I know people certainly do outsource copywriting and I have even done this before. But it wasn’t in the best interest of my business long term. Because copywriting is a skill that will pay you millions and millions of dollars over the course of your career when you learn it. So although in the beginning, I tried to shortcut this by hiring someone else to write an email sequence for me, I didn’t love that email sequence, it took me it, I thought that I was going to be saving time. But honestly, they went back and edited the entire thing in my own voice anyway, and never used it. So I just would offer that. I don’t think that this should be hired out. I don’t think copywriting should be hired out unless you are absolutely in knots about the blinking cursor and blank page in front of you. And you need a starting point just to get going. In that case, know thyself, right? If that’s you do it. But go into it with eyes wide open, that you really need to clearly communicate with your copywriter about what your expectations are and who your perfect clients are. They need to know who they’re talking to you they need to know a lot of information about the people and the problems and the solution that you offer. And they big results that they’re lying in bed at night hoping for, they need to know all of those things. And if you already know of those things, you probably can write the copy of yourself. I’m just saying. Now I have an entire 16 lesson video course on this in the profitable nutritionist program. It’s it’s a bonus course it’s called creating better clients content and copy. So if you’re in the program, get into your bonus section, from your main dashboard, go to the bonuses and go through that course before you even think about hiring someone to write copy for you. Okay. And then I guess if you’re not in the program, get in the program, what are you waiting for it for goodness sake.
Andrea Nordling 28:04
All of this is available for you. But those are the first things that I would recommend looking at outsourcing to a contractor on an ongoing basis, bookkeeping, graphic design, website and text setup or automations. If those are keeping you stuck, and audio and video editing and producing. Now, of course, you can ensure to hire professionals for one off projects as well like legal help, or brand photography to get some photos of you. But you don’t need to have those relationships as ongoing necessarily, after you have helped with your recurring tasks that you’re doing over and over again, and they’re stressing you out and they’re taking up most of your time. Do you have help with those things, you’re able to spend your time focusing on the growth aspects of your business, the things that nobody else can do for you, which is delivering to your clients. Remember, delivery creates demand. So the more attention and meticulous thought that goes into how you’re delivering to your clients and making things even more simplified for them and an even better experience for them. That is going to create more demand in your business. And nobody else can do that for you. marketing, sales, sales calls, writing sales, copy, figuring out your sales process, all of those things are things only you can do. And you’ll have so much more energy and bandwidth to be able to tackle those growth aspects and really focus on them. When you are freeing up the recurring tasks that stress you out that are taking up your time, the things that are easy to do, but they take up time and they actually distract you from the big things like over delivering to your clients and tweaking your marketing and your sales. Alright, so you’re going to be bringing in more clients to serve and your needs for more help are going to increase when you get some of the recurring tasks off your plate and are able to focus on the growth aspects of your business. So this is all to say that we start small, even before you’re drowning. Okay, even before you’re drowning and you feel like I can’t take it anymore. I need help. Long before that, you start outsourcing some of the recurring tasks, you figure out that skill of delegating, you figure out hiring and communicating with contractors. And you get to work on that before it’s an emergency situation, this is what I highly recommend. Because then you won’t enter into the emergency situation where your time is not even available to think about growing your business and delivering to your clients and increasing your marketing and sales. You want to do this before so that as those things are happening, and you’re bringing in more clients to serve, you are going to have more help for that increase as well. This is how you stay ahead of the growth of your business. And not be hindered, hindered is the word that’s coming to mind and not be hindered by it not be stifled by having too many clients and actually panicking. Alright, so enter, at this point, enter the VA, or OBM. I think that VA which stands for Virtual Assistant is a little outdated of a term but people still use it. My OB M is an OB I’m not a VA OB M stands for online business manager. And so I think that many people use these terms interchangeably, they’re probably a little bit different. So I’m gonna say, oh, here we go. Let me tell you a little bit about what an online business manager is and does. First of all, they are magicians. That’s what they are. They are they live in the land of magic, they are magicians. This person does OBM in your business takes your vision and your brain and your processes and your ideas. And they translate it into systems and repeatable processes that scale. Okay, they also take over the management of those other contractors that you’re working with smaller projects, and they take over those projects that you’re working on. So that you can truly remove yourself from the day to day tasks and behind the scenes of your business. And focus on your real zone of genius, where you really shine, which is being the visionary of your company and making decisions and working with your clients. So this online business manager is going to basically be the systems and processes part of you. That’s going to they just I told you, they’re magicians, I don’t even know how else to say this. They’re magicians. They take all of the hard things, and they make them easy, because they just do them.
Andrea Nordling 32:20
Could you tell I’m in love with my OBM, who is a very recent hire in my business, by the way. So let me talk about that in the beginning of your business. And for me this was until I was making 300k or more a year, I did not have a VA or an online business manager and OBM. And that was by design, I knew I would eventually be hiring someone for this role. But one, I didn’t want to commit to the expense before my business could comfortably afford it. And I didn’t have to stress about that. And too, it forced me to really simplify my processes and what I was doing when I didn’t have help, I didn’t have the time or the bandwidth to spread myself too thin, because it was just me and just a few contractors for graphic design and web support that kind of thing. So I was keeping things very, very lean and focused in my company. And I’m still committed to doing that. By the way, I would like to hire a dedicated community man committed minute Community Manager for the lounge by the end of this year. But that’s the only other role that I’m looking to fill until after we’re making a million dollars in annual revenue, which should be sometime in 2023. Now at that point, I’m going to reevaluate what our needs are, I will be working with my OEM with that will kind of do it together. But I don’t anticipate needing much more than the lean and efficient team of me, my LBM and the contractors that we use, because we have such a robust automated systems being built out as we grow, that I don’t think we’re going to need more people. So that’s another cool thing about the world that we live in here and 2022 is that there are a lot of systems and software’s that help with growing your business, especially an online business. So right now what the focus is with my OBM and with me is we are refining the processes and the systems in the business and the the tasks that need to happen on a weekly basis and on a monthly basis and on a quarterly basis. And we’re figuring out what all those are in documenting them so that she is actually able to set up SOPs, standard operating procedures and processes, documented with videos and screen shares and that kind of thing. But she’s building out a database of SOPs, so that we can hire more people when and if we need to, and they can just plug in and know exactly how our business runs, which is forcing us I mean, yes, it’s good to document those things. Because what if she were to leave, someone else could just come in and take over, but also because it’s forcing us to be very specific and detailed in creating these processes and which is making us much more efficient, right. So it’s just it’s great to use our brain in that way to be documenting and to be consolidating is a lot of the So we’re doing right now I had kind of some wacky systems set up that worked for me when it was just me. But we are now growing into a team platform where we’re able to take much better ideas that she has, I’m not gonna lie, and put processes behind them and document that. So that is a, here’s what I will say about it, I am front and center with the setup of these processes in these systems, because I don’t want to be passive on those decisions. Just like in the beginning, I want to know how everything works, so that I can do it myself if I need to. And that also helps me to be able to ask really good questions and understand the direction that everything is going. But I am not the person that’s actually setting up the processes. And that’s actually executing on that plan, which is fantastic. Okay, so that’s the stage that my business is at right now at about 500k. And in scaling to a million, it’s just me, and my LBM, which is a very recent addition to my life. But the magician has spoken, she is helping so much. And it’s incredible. This is pretty lean team that I have someone that helps with graphic design, and website stuff when needed, which isn’t very often, at this point, at least, isn’t very often. And I have a bookkeeper, which is fantastic best investment ever. So I don’t worry about any of the financials, those are just handled in the background, I get a monthly and weekly report sent to my email. And other than that, let’s see Podcast Producer, I have a contract to the producer of the podcast. That’s it, guys, that’s a pretty lean team. But I tell you, it has released me from a lot of the mental energy that I was spending on making sure that none of the balls were getting dropped myself, it feels really great to have a lot of these recurring things that are now outsourced. It’s fantastic. Okay, so we’ve talked about why and what to outsource. Now I want to land this plane with when and how to do it.
Andrea Nordling 36:53
I think I’ve talked a little bit about this, maybe a lot about this already. But I’ll say it one more time, I highly recommend starting to delegate and outsource with small projects in the earlier stages of your business before you really need it. So that you learn the skill of doing that. Because believe me, it is a skill to delegate and to communicate your expectations and give feedback to other people. All of that hiring all of that as a skill. And when you start with the smaller recurring tasks like editing and graphic design or some tech stuff, you build confidence in yourself around delegating, and then around this process, and you start to collect evidence that there are actually people I know, I know, it’s crazy. But there are actually people that can do it better than you and faster baby steps. So that by the time you’re ready to interview candidates for a bigger role, like an OBM, you’re going to have experience with the process of hiring and delegating, you’re going to know what kind of person you’re looking for. That person that you’re looking for is not just like you by the way, you do not want to hire someone that is just like you, you want someone that shores up your weaknesses, not someone that is a carbon copy of you, I’m just saying, Alright, like I said, I recommend doing this before, it’s a crisis situation, and you’re drowning in your tasks, but not too early before you’ve made any money. Because you just gotta get started with imperfect action yourself. In the beginning, you can make some money, very lean and mean, you don’t need help to do that. So dive in and get your hands dirty in the beginning. And then as you’re growing, start to make investments in some of these little things that are like the the tasks that you just hate to do you see him coming up on your calendar, and you’re like, ah, again, that’s probably a key that it’s something that you could look at outsourcing, right? The imperfect action in the beginning of you have you doing this stuff yourself is going to help you evaluate and figure out what’s working and what isn’t working. And then you’re going to anticipate those needs coming up. You’re going to know those the groans what No, I don’t want to do that you’re going to know what those things are. But not at the expense of, of not moving forward, right? Now you’re going to be having momentum, you’re going to be making some money. And then you’re going to be no, you’re going to have data, I guess what I’m trying to say is you’re gonna have actual data to be solving problems based off of instead of anticipating problems you don’t even have that you’re not going to have for years to come. So it’s a balance, like you gotta get moving forward. And then you’re gonna get some intel on the things that you do want to hire someone for at some point or right now. And then you do that. So earlier this year, when I started interviewing online business managers, I really wasn’t stretched too thin. I’m going to be totally honest about this. I had my lean systems nailed down. I was in a camper for goodness sakes. I was figuring out how to do all of the things in a very small amount of time because I didn’t want to be in a camper. The reason we were on the road is because we were having adventures and doing fun things and then that’s what I wanted to be focusing on. So I wasn’t drowning. Okay, I didn’t hire someone to help me because I couldn’t do it all anymore. I was stretched too thin. I was I was dying. It wasn’t like that. It was very manageable. But I knew it was time to start the process of by outsourcing most of those tasks that I was comfortably still doing, I knew it was time to start outsourcing that, because I knew that in six months of growth, I wouldn’t be. And I knew that in a year I for sure wouldn’t be. So if that’s you, maybe now’s the time to address that and create a relationship with someone started hiring and get those systems and processes nailed down before it becomes a major issue. And you don’t even have the time or bandwidth to train someone in. I wanted to make sure when I hired someone, especially for the online business manager position, and someone I was gonna be working with really closely, I wanted to make sure I had luxurious amounts of time still available to really find the right person, and to not feel rushed or overwhelmed trying to get her up to speed and set these systems in motion. And to figure out if we were going to do things the way I already had been, or if we were going to do things a new way and transition that as I started unloading my to do list over to her, and she’s building up systems in the background, and she’s anticipating things that are gonna come up that I never would have thought of or done myself, which is amazing. I told you magicians. I’m telling you, but I didn’t want to do that in a rushed way. And I didn’t want to feel like I didn’t have the time and attention to to give to delegating that. So I would just say I think this has worked really well that I would hire earlier, especially for a position like it’ll be Mr. Virtual Assistant earlier than you really have to just so you give yourself a long runway of time to start working on that. And how do you find these magical unicorns by the way that are gonna help you these magicians? I
Andrea Nordling 41:35
know you’re wondering I sure was once I started doing this myself, and I started outsourcing some of that, like some website code and graphic designer. And I’ve done lots of little projects that I have outsourced for. I created a mini course on hiring overseas contractors, okay, including my exact hiring script because you do this online. And so I’m going to plug the profitable nutritionist program here. If you’re a student in the program, go to your bonus section, and you’re going to see the easy outsourcing course where I go through this step by step if you aren’t in the course, again, what are you waiting for? Join us in September when the doors open back up in September. In that course, in the easy outsourcing course I show you how you can hire experts overseas very inexpensively. And I use the term experts here, literally experts. And the reason that you can hire people overseas so inexpensively when they are fin tastic highly qualified for the job is because the exchange rate is in our favor overseas. And a lot of the workforce in places like the Philippines are already used to working for American companies, a lot of the time they speak English really well. It’s just it’s part of the culture, they work for American companies, we have to remember that a few $100 A month is a lot in other parts of the world. So what is inexpensive for us is a very, very handsome wage in other places of the world. So to leverage this, I recommend searching on Upwork is the website up work up wo RK for experts in the exact thing that you’re needing to hire for, if it makes sense for someone on the other side of the world to be doing it that is that you could find them. They’re usually very inexpensively. Now, I think this goes without saying. But I don’t recommend hiring an online business manager or someone that you’re going to be working really closely with if they’re on the other side of the world, because you will have drastically different work hours. And so I would stick domestic for those positions where you’re going to be working really closely with someone although I know people do have success in hiring Bas and OEMs. Overseas, I just would personally want to have someone that has basically the same work hours that I do so that we can be in close communication. All right. Now, let’s talk about the quality of work that you can get on Upwork, you can honestly hire an expert instead of trying to become one yourself in most of the things that we talked about. And like I said in most of these instances is not going to break the bank because the exchange rate is so in our favor, you will surely be astonished at the level of quality work that you can pay for quite inexpensively. So that’s a great resource to go look at. And if you are in the profitable nutritions program, you have an entire bonus course called Easy outsourcing, where I’ll walk you through that and give you the scripts and exactly how to hire people on Upwork. Okay, so let’s recap. Outsourcing is great, but be strategic about it. Goldilocks style, right? This is the Goldilocks formula of outsourcing. You don’t do it too early. Not too late. You want it to be just so hopefully this was helpful for you to anticipate when and how you need to plan for outsourcing some of the work in your business, either to do that now or anticipate what’s going to be coming up and what you have to look forward to the magician that you have to look forward to that will help you and yeah, yes, this is a topic that we delve into quite a bit in both the profitable nutritionist program where there are lots of resources for that and in the mastermind, so I’ll make a shameless plug here that if you want more of the His type of nitty gritty strategy and recommendations and help with doing this. Join us. This is the type of conversation we’re having all the time in the program and the mastermind. Both of the links to both of those are linked up below the description of this episode. If you are listening to it now, in real time, we are gearing up for a new session of the mastermind starting in October. So check that out. And like I said, the profitable nutritionist program, which is the foundational program where you learn all of this stuff and get all of the bonus courses and all of the things is going to be open for enrollment in September. So both of the links are below go click on those and have a wonderful wonderful week thinking about outsourcing my friend. All right, I’ll see you later.
