3 Things to Do Before you Outsource

Hey guys, on this video I wanna talk a little bit about outsourcing, right? As you run your digital marketing agency and you start to grow and you start to think about what you should do yourself, what you should outsource, what you can hire a team to do, I wanted to just kinda talk about the things you wanna think about before you even take that next step of hiring or outsourcing. So, first thing is before you subcontract, before you outsource anything, you should be clear on the outcomes, right? What are you trying to accomplish? What are you trying to get done? You can't outsource anything until you're super clear. Here's what I need done, here's how I expect it to kinda go, and here's what I want the end outcome to be. So that's the first thing you wanna think about. The second thing is, you know, I like to think about this process in a linear fashion, right? If you sit down and you think about what you do day in and day out, the things that you need to get done, the first thing you wanna think about is what can you eliminate? There's probably things you're doing right now that aren't the highest and best use of your time. So before you start to outsource, before you start to subcontract, before you start to do anything else, you wanna make a big list of all of the things that you can potentially eliminate. If it shouldn't be done, let's take it off the table right away. The second thing you wanna look at is what, what can be automated? Like, we can be pretty surprised sometimes when we think logically about what we're doing, what our team is doing, and there's certain things that have to be done by somebody on the team, but there's certain things that can be automated through automation, through ClickFunnels, through Zapier, through Infusionsoft. Try and figure out what can be automated before you start to outsource or subcontract. So let's make a list of all the things that could potentially be automated. And then the third step is to figure out what you can delegate, right? What, what is it that you're doing that isn't the highest and best use of your time and can't be automated? And those are the things that you want to outsource or subcontract to an assistant or a virtual assistant or something along those lines. So first thing, get clear on the outcomes. Second thing is figure out what can be eliminated, what can be automated, and then you're clear on what you can delegate. As you think about what you're actually going to delegate, one of the most useful exercises you can do is to spend some time getting clear on the value of your time. Figure out how much money you're making currently in your agency or in your business think about how much you want to make, right? If you follow me, you know I'm all about building a 7-figure digital marketing agency. If you start to realize that your time— and as I do this exercise with other agencies, you know, some people, their time, they're only valuing at $50 per hour. Others, it's over $1,000 per hour. But even if you only classify your time as valued at $50 per hour, anything that you're doing within your agency that that isn't valued at $50 should be either subcontracted or outsourced to a VA or removed from your day-to-day. So just get clear what the value of your time is, and as you look at what you're doing day in and day out, really think about how much is that task worth, right? If you're creating a website and you're doing the design work, is it worth what you're paying yourself or what your value of your time is? And if it's worth less, Obviously that's something you wanna either outsource, delegate, or subcontract. So really get clear on the value of your time. And then the last thing you wanna do before you outsource or before you subcontract is to map out the steps, right? This is the biggest mistake I see agencies make. They come to the conclusion they're too busy and there's certain things they don't wanna have to do, and so they say, "I'm gonna hire a virtual assistant," or, "I'm gonna go subcontract this to a white label provider," and they just think magically they're gonna hire a person and they're gonna know what to do and the work's gonna get done consistently and well. And that's a recipe for failure. Like, you as the agency owner have to take the accountability to figure out what the steps are to get that done and then map it out and then give them a framework so that when you do subcontract, when you do hire that VA, they're not guessing. They know what the baseline expectation is. They know what you expect them to do once they step into the role and you give them a full framework to iterate against, a framework to, to innovate over time. So just some things to think about before you start to outsource anything within your digital marketing agency. These are things you really want to think about. If you've got follow-up questions or thoughts on this, be sure to post it in comments. And if you're not already, be sure that you jump into the Digital Marketing Agency Success Facebook group. Look forward to continuing the conversation with you there. Talk to you soon.