Ep: 297: How Can I Give My OFS More Tasks?

Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at outsourcing your work. This is episode 297, how can I give my OFS more tasks? So, over the years, as I've created content, I've talked a lot about hiring a single ofs to do something that you know how to do. And then when you hire them, the first task you're going to give them is one single task, and you're going to give them training on that task, and you're going to help them accomplish that task. And the idea here is that by focusing on a single one task that you know how to do, you get to work with them through getting it done correctly. And not only do you get to work with them on getting it done correctly, you get to work with them on succeeding. So once you have success with this person, the chance of succeeding further down the road or the chances of succeeding for the next 15 years together are really, really high. That first task is designed to see can you work together to accomplish one simple thing. So after you've done that, you've accomplish accomplished one thing, it's going great, you've taken that task off of your plate. What next? So how do you give them the next task? So let me give you some general framework for this. So, number one, typically I try and stick in a role. So your role is customer support. Whether you're doing customer support in email or you're doing it in chat, or you're doing it on the phone, whatever it is, there are specific things I want you to understand. And so the first task may be you're going to answer these 26 emails that we have, and they're all about the same thing. And here's the context of that. Or your role is to write these articles about this specific thing and you're going to post them on this place. So once we've gotten that, done these articles and posted on this place, the next task is related. So, hey, in this process of these articles in this place, we also need to link them to these things. And so here's some training around linking and why we're doing it this way and how this works and then the next step. So now when you write the article and you post the article, I also want you to do this linking piece of it. The next step is, well, so here's actually how we get eyeballs to things like, here's how we write a more compelling headline and we're going to. Here's how we structure these Things. So we're going to add tasks to their current task. An example of this would be in my newsletter. I started off by having someone not writing my newsletter, but taking the newsletters that I wrote and posting them on my blog. Your job is to take these things that I'm writing, post them here, and then once you've posted them, you're going to take the link and put it back at the bottom of the newsletter. Well, then once she was doing that really well, then I was like, okay, now I want you to start writing some newsletter. Understand my voice. You've seen enough of it. You've read it. Now write something that is of interest to people and then let me see it and see if it's gonna work. So once we go through that process and we get the writing down now the next step is, well, let's take this and do a podcast with it. So I'll record the podcast from what you wrote, and now you can take that podcast and publish it as a podcast. And that's your next step. So from posting stuff from a newsletter to a blog, now she's posting it from newsletter to blog and linking, putting the link back in the newsletter. But now she's writing the newslet and then posting it on the blog and posting and putting the link back in the newsletter. And then she's taking the podcast that I record from that newsletter. Well, she's scheduling the newsletter to go out then based off of what I write. Well, someone else takes the. Takes the podcast and edits it, but then she publishes it as a podcast, and then she publishes it on the website as a podcast episode. So there's a progression of steps here that are all related to the same thing. When you do it this way, when you give related tasks, things that you have taught build upon one another. So you teach one thing and then you teach something else. And then they start to realize, oh, yeah, now I recognize why you said what you did in the first training. I get it because of what you said in the second training. And they start to build this really big volume of knowledge based off of what you're having them do. They start to put pieces together. Now, this isn't unique to Filipino workers. Obviously, this is how things work across the board. This is why we teach math the way we do in elementary school. Because when you get one concept and you get another concept, your brain starts to make connections. And this is how I have built my entire business. I didn't outsource social media marketing. I didn't outsource the programming. I hired someone to do one thing and then I worked with them. And over time, I mean, the first person I hired was 2005. It's now 2023. As I record this over time, you get really, really good at building upon processes and then getting things off of your plate, getting someone else to do it, and then they're busy full time, so you hire someone else to do the next piece and you have them work together or you hire someone else to do another piece. They're not working together, they're completely separate. But you get this person busy full time and now it's ready, we're ready to hire another person to support you. And that's how I've built my business and my lifestyle since 2005. I give one task, I get good at that one task, and then I build another task and we get good at that next task and we build upon it and then we implement every system that I learn about from start to finish. And then, and then I don't ever touch that system. Once it's implemented, they can continue doing it. So the marketing continues to happen. We continue to bring in leads, we continue to sell, we continue to close, we continue to build products, we continue to make the products better. Everything starts to build upon itself one task at a time. So then my question for you is, what's the first task that you can give to someone and then what's the related second task that you can give to them once you've seen it succeed? Now, if you already have OFS working for you, already have them doing multiple things, here's the next question. Ask them what they can do for you and see if that fits into your business. Ask them, you've done this for a while. What do you think that you could do? What else could you do to help the business? Or what ideas do you have that might, that might improve what we're doing? Or do you have anything? Because maybe you don't have any ideas and that's okay too. If you don't have any ideas, that's fine. I'm just wondering, maybe you do. Like, maybe you're thinking like, oh wow, this guy's really dumb. My boss is really dumb. He could be doing this and this and this. Maybe you have those ideas, maybe you don't. That's how I would approach this conversation with them. And I would say, hey, what do you think? So now, one last thing. This is episode 297. And if you're listening to this and you haven't hired someone in the Philippines. I want you to press stop right now and go post a job. Stop putting it off. Nothing I say in the future is ever going to make this better. Nothing I say is going to make hiring someone easier for you. Go post a job and see what happens. Do it right now. Stop procrastinating. I've never, ever had someone tell me, oh, I wish I would have waited longer to hire my first ofs. No. Almost every day I get someone that says, I just wish I would have done this sooner. Stop procrastinating. Go hire someone and see if this works for you. See if it's going to work. I understand it's scary. I understand it's a leap. I understand it's hard. It's not that hard, actually. But you have to try it and see. Go post a job at onlinejobs ph and see what happens.