Module nine
outsourcing
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Creative mamas wear a lot of hats. You’re the CEO, the marketing director, the customer service representative, and the janitor, all at the same time (for both your business and your family).
When it comes to growing your business, you might feel overwhelmed at the prospect of adding more to your plate. You’ve already got a full schedule as it is, and you can’t imagine where you’re going to find the time to take on anything additional. But that’s just the thing — you don’t have to do more.
Your next step is learning how to free up your time without compromising your other resources.
In this module, we’re going to be talking about ways to outsource your existing workload so you can be doing more revenue-generating tasks within your business, as well as hiring outside help to grow your business in ways you wouldn’t be able to in your current season of life.
Whatever stage of business you’re in, whatever your specific season of life looks like right now as a creative mama, don’t look at outsourcing as your last step. The sooner you understand outsourcing and can strategically apply it to your creative business, the better off you’ll be.
Remember when we walked through The Priority Exercise in Section One of this course? Hopefully, you discovered a few areas of your life that were more fulfilling than others, but we didn’t stop with the simple identification of those areas. The last step in The Priority Exercise was to create an actionable list of small and simple ways you could shift your reality into more of that dream life you pictured.
Taking action is critical. Instead of looking at outsourcing as something you can’t afford to do, ask yourself how you can afford to do it. Simply asking the question opens up a world of creative possibilities in your head.
In a perfect world, how would you spend all your time within your business?
THE VALUE OF YOUR TIME
Whatever you choose to spend your time on, there is a trade-off. Many creative mamas understand this as they feel the combating guilt of working within their business and spending time on themselves instead of with their family or feeling lost in motherhood where they don’t feel like they can afford to take a respite.
There is always a trade-off. You just can’t be in two places at once.
As a result, we mamas tend to feel like we’re doing things wrong just because we’re not doing more. Maybe you’re feeling embarrassed that your kids’ birthday cupcakes were store-bought instead of homemade. Maybe you’re a little insecure that your home doesn’t always look perfect and you feel like you can’t film Reels or IG Stories anywhere in your house.
The idea that women need to be on top of everything all at once (without help) is toxic.
This message is perpetuated throughout social media and society, and it’s hard to recognize the hypocrisy until you recognize that your life is your own — you get to choose what it looks like. You get to choose what you spend your time on, and if baking doesn’t fuel you, then don’t do it. If you need to hire someone to keep your house clean so you can focus on filling it with love and support for your children, then good for you!
The same goes for your business. You can be a successful, confident, and capable business owner and still struggle to understand how to utilize Pinterest in your favor. You can deliver a high-quality product and still be learning about work/life balance. We’re all on a journey of continual evolution to be the best version of ourselves, and sometimes that means we don’t do it all on our own.
As a business owner with your own unique creative vision, your time is worth the most. Any opportunity you have to pass something off, do it. The sooner you realize that there are people out there who can do what you’re doing, but a lot better and in less time than you, the sooner you’ll see growth in your business.
But before you can outsource any of those tasks to more capable people, your first step is to identify exactly what you’re going to outsource.
Pause your study here and download the Outsourced Tasks Exercise. This exercise is critically important to your future success as an entrepreneur — don’t skip it!
Moving forward, after completing the Outsourced Tasks Exercise, you’ll have the opportunity to intentionally fill your schedule and to-do list with only the most purposeful of actions. As we’ve all already discovered, if you don’t tell your time how you want it to be spent, you’ll find that it fills itself with plenty of busy work and unnecessary tasks that don’t contribute to strengthening your business.
TYPES OF OUTSOURCING
Just as there are many different types of creative business owners that operate on unique schedules with unique priorities, there are many ways you can outsource, all depending on what works best for your business, your family, or your schedule.
I’ll highlight a few of my favorites or the most popular ways to outsource but don’t hesitate to use your own creative problem-solving skills to find an alternative outsourcing solution.
Trading — Strictly looking at the monetary investment, the cheapest type of outsourcing is simply trading. Rather than offering an exchange of monetary value for someone to take on a task for you, giving you back time, you can offer something else in exchange (usually your time or a product). The key here is to make sure the long-term value of what you’re getting in return for the trade is worth your offered resources.
One example might be sending a few of your product samples to a photographer who is looking to expand their product photography portfolio. Instead of sourcing and purchasing props or finding a studio and then hiring a photographer to take your product photography, you can save all that time and money by sending your products to the photographer directly and maybe offering credit to your store (which looks like more than it is, considering you’re producing your products for less than you’re selling them for). The photographer gets the flexibility of taking the photos whenever they want and also gets the added value of credit to your shop.
I’ve also traded marketing and design services with photographers, but I’ve also traded online marketing with a business coach, branding services with a caterer, website design for haircuts and clothing, and even participated in multi-party trades where the person I served was someone different than the person I was receiving value from.
There are plenty of ways to get creative with this and work your way up to success without spending a dime. The key is just to make sure that you’re getting more value out of the trade than what your time would cost you otherwise.
Hiring a helper — More casual than bringing on any sort of assistant, you can hire a helper to assist with basic, more day-to-day business operations where it would be more helpful to have an extra pair of hands. Whether you ask for personal help with babysitting, grocery shopping, or meal prep, or directly-related business help like post office runs, packaging, and order fulfillment, or someone to help you at trade shows, you’ll be less overwhelmed and get more comfortable with the idea of sharing the workload with another person you can trust.
My favorite type of person to look for as a helper of this sort is a teenager. Whether it’s a boy or a girl, I’ve found success with both as long as they’re motivated and have a good head on their shoulders. Most teens are making $13-$15/hour at their after-school/weekend jobs, but here’s the thing — even if they’re making more, if you’re offering flexibility or hours doing something easier than their usual job, or something they can do while listening to music or studying, there is extra value, and you shouldn’t hesitate to offer something lower than they’re making other places. The worst that could happen is they say no, and you find a different teen.
In addition to the examples listed above, other tasks that cheap teens could easily do for you to help your home and your business flourish are:
Dictating captions on videos
Holding reflector panels or props for photoshoots
Taking your kids to the park for an hour or two
Scheduling your pre-prepared content on social media
Manning your vendor booth for an hour or two so you can get lunch or watch your kid play baseball
Teens flourish when given responsibility, and a more casual job of this nature could allow you to grow your business and free up your time in a major way without compromising your limited funds or making it feel like more work than it's worth.
Remember, it’s all about finding a better balance and shooting for a life where your time spent throughout the day looks more like your Dream Priority list.
Outsourcing specific skills — Once you’re ready to level up a specific area of your business, you can start looking for other creative professionals or programs that will allow you to do so. You’re looking at a higher investment here, but also a much higher return on that investment if you choose someone skilled and offering efficiency or quality that you wouldn’t be able to replicate yourself.
Examples of this type of outsourcing are:
Branded photography
Graphic design
Marketing assistance
Content creation
Accounting + taxes
This type of outsourcing does require more investment and research to ensure that the value you’re receiving is greater than the cost of your investment. This is the exact relationship we look for with The Unburden Studio. And we can help you with most of the things in the above list. Get ready for another shameless plug:
The Unburden Studio offers brand identity design, Squarespace website design, business strategy, and all the support you’d need in those areas. That means we can order printed materials for you, update your website when you have new products to list, help you brainstorm an action plan for the future, and even help with all kinds of marketing assistance. If you’re interested in learning more about what we offer (and getting a customized quote — we work with creatives of all budget levels!) email me or visit our website.
Bringing on a personal assistant — If you have enough varied work and don’t want the expense and complications of sending all that work in a variety of outsourced directions, consider keeping it all in-house by hiring a personal assistant. Your assistant might be local to you or virtual, but as long as they’re capable of delivering quality work on a variety of fronts, it might be the next step in your journey.
Essentially, you’re looking for a highly skilled person who is also highly motivated. They need to think as you do and have the same sort of vision or goal for your business as you do. The value they’re getting from you is mostly monetary, though, because otherwise, they’d just do what you’re doing for themselves. Likely, they appreciate the consistency of the work you’re giving them, but since they can see exactly how valuable they are to you, they’re going to know their worth and the cost of it.
That doesn’t mean you can’t experience massive growth from having another almost-you inside your business. If you can afford it, I recommend it. I’ve played this role for many people and delivered value beyond my paycheck to their businesses, in exchange for a steady income for myself.
If you’re looking to learn from another business owner, you might look into offering yourself as a personal assistant. You’ll get an inside glimpse at how they do things, in exchange for a consistent wage. And maybe you offer your skills for less in exchange for a little extra training (a great way to creatively incorporate trading into the mix!).
Building out an in-house team — Your last main option when it comes to outsourcing is building up a team within your business to handle all the crucial (and not-so-crucial) work tasks to completely free up or drastically cut down your time spent working.
It can feel a little nerve-wracking and vulnerable to let people into your business. But as long as you’re strategic about how and when, and as long as all parties involved are respectful of each other’s time and expectations, you’ll avoid disrupting any sort of momentum you’ve created in your business so far.
Also, if you’re wanting to keep things simple, a “team” can simply mean two or three people! My team is me, a content manager, and a handful of other mamas helping us fulfill our content creation responsibilities for our recurring online marketing clients. That number fluctuates as people have babies, go back to school, our client workload grows, etc. You can balance outsourcing with hiring internally to keep your full staff looking exactly the way you feel works for you.
Let’s talk a little more about this team thing, in case this is your ultimate goal for your business structure.
TIPS FOR BUILDING OUT YOUR TEAM
In a few years (or maybe even now), you’re going to hit a point where you’re maxed out in the number of hours you can devote to your business in a day. Yet, there is a way you can maintain a trajectory of growth and momentum, finding new success and growing your reach while continually dialing back your own efforts. This is achieved by offloading your work to a team.
Before you do this, remember these critical components of a solid team member:
Attentive to detail (good grammar and spelling, reviews their work before submitting, etc.)
Reliable (consistently completes work on time, always does quality work)
Cooperative (responds well to criticism, can work with a group)
It might also be helpful to reorganize some things within your business before you start bringing others in.
Keep everything the team might need to know in a single place (I used Google Drive). You might consider saving sensitive information like passwords or bank details in a separate place, not within the drive you’ll be sharing with the team.
You’ll also want plenty of training materials for incoming team members to reference, like your SOPs, all saved in one place with easy access.
Take a look at how your growing team affects the cost of running your business. It might take you a little more time, but as long as the increase in time allows for a much larger increase in capacity for making more money, you’re all set.
I’m a big fan of the idea that my business can make money without me operating it all the time. I never would have discovered that freedom if I hadn’t tried outsourcing and working with a team to truly understand what my time is worth.
Whether you’re a seasoned or fresh entrepreneur, there is a lot of appeal in knowing you’re doing everything in your business all by yourself. It’s easy to get into that frame of mind where the idea of spending money on something you can do yourself for free limits your future growth.
Think about the years it has taken you to get to this point. You might be saving money by doing things yourself, but at what cost? How much longer will you have to wait until your business takes off?
Finding more funds for outsourced help might look like reprioritizing how you’re investing your business funds, or finding creative ways to trade. You certainly don’t have to do it the way I’m suggesting, by bringing in help, but consider this strategy as one that will allow your business to grow without you losing momentum.