The First 5 Tasks You Should Outsource (or Stay Stuck Working 24/7)

One of the most common questions I get asked is, how do you know when it's time to outsource something and how do you start that process? And when somebody asks me that, I usually know the answer for them is, yes, it's time to outsource. But it's just not as easy as deciding, okay, it's time to outsource. Let's do that. Because I've learned from so many mistakes on my end of outsourcing. So I want to walk you through what tasks you should outsource first. Because I did not do the things that most people say you should do first. How to start doing it without wasting your precious time that you are already short on. And more importantly, how to do it without wasting money. If you've never watched a video from me before, my name is Trina and I've been running my online business for course creators and coaches for over 10 years now. And I've learned the hard way how not to outsource. So I want to help you not make those mistakes because I know when it came time for me to make the decision, what did I have to take off my plate to keep my business moving forward? I was worried about the cost. Could I consistently afford that every single month? This was now money that wasn't going to be part of my profit. Could that person do it the way I want it done? Because I don't know about you, but I'm an enneagram3 and I expect quality work. And honestly, I had no idea where to start because this was way back in 2017. The thing is though, every task that you are holding onto that doesn't need your expertise is stopping you from making more sales. And more importantly, is taking time away from you that you could use. Maybe taking a Friday off, going to get a massage, maybe just watching Netflix for an entire day while the kids are at school because you need a break of everybody being around you. And that's Netflix. Maybe just saying. So I mentioned 2017. That is when I first started outsourcing. And everybody tells you one of the first things outsourced is your inbox. And I'm going to tell you, I, to this day, almost eight years later, have not outsourced my inbox because I find it so incredibly hard to do that. I want to have my inbox. I want to be able to control that. So what did I outsource? The very first thing I outsourced my Pinterest. Here's why I decided to outsource Pinterest. First, I knew that Pinterest was driving a lot of traffic to my website. Why is that important? Because the more eyeballs I can get to my website, the more email signups, the more sales I can make. Second, Pinterest was also driving me at the time traffic to YouTube because not a lot of people on Pinterest were sending people to YouTube videos. So it was also growing my YouTube channel at the same time. But I loathe, first of all, making pins. But I loathed scheduling Pinterest pins because at the time, I have no idea how it works right now. At the time, you had to pin like 20 some pins a day. And there was a scheduler called Tailwind. And it just made me want to stab my eyes out to sit there and schedule pins every single day. But I knew if I kept going on Pinterest, I kept getting traffic. So this is when I outsourced my very first person for $300 a month to manage my Pinterest. Was it worth $300 a month? Absolutely. Because what was it doing? It was getting me people on my email list that was helping me make sales of my online course. Once I could take the time that I was spending doing tailwind and loading up my pins, that took me two to three times more than my Pinterest expert at the time. I now had that extra time to focus on the things I was good at. Making better YouTube videos, focusing on titles and thumbnails, sending emails, writing sales, emails launching. I could take that time each day and put it into revenue generating activities that only I could do. So the first step here, when thinking about what to outsource, I want you to go through these three, three criterias. First, tasks that don't need your expertise. So if you are a copywriter, do you need to be doing Pinterest pins? Do you need to be doing Instagram? Do you need to be doing video editing? Okay. Repetitive tasks with a clear process. So it's something that you do maybe every single day or every single week that you could honestly hand it over to somebody with a step by step process that it would not be hard to do at all, or tasks that somebody else can do better, faster. And for me, that was Pinterest, because I knew she could do it way faster than I could. And a lot of my clients I work with, usually the first thing they ask is, should I outsource video editing? 9 times out of 10, if you have the budget to do it, I'm going to say 1,000%, because my clients are going to take two three, four hours to edit a video. Sometimes when they could just give somebody who can do this for them in like an hour and have a better result than that is an example of a great thing to outsource because instead of you spending three hours editing, you now get to spend those three hours following up with leads, sending another email to get more sales, planning a launch. That's what is important. And then another thing would be like administrative tasks, invoicing, sending contracts, payment tracking. I used to do probably like 6 years ago I used to send these all manually. I would send an invoice when it was time for my client to pay me. But you can use things like Funnel Gorgeous has automations. So anytime somebody joins my YouTube coaching program, as soon as they make that first payment, an email is sent to them with a contract to sign. Once they sign that contract, then their curriculum is unlocked. They are also sent an email on how to join my Slack channel. That all happens automatically. And if they're on a payment plan the next month, that payment is already sent to them automatically. I don't even have to do that. So start to think about tasks that you could automate so that you don't have to do it manually. Manually either. But outsourcing is not always successful. And I will tell you at the beginning of 2024 I had three full time employees. Here at the beginning of 2025 I have one full time employee and there are quite a few reasons why I'm down to one full time employee. But a problem for me was trying to explain my processes, trying to give clear expectations to my employees and I do put that on me. But the good news for you is outsourcing does not mean needing to hire a full time employee because there's a lot of cost associated with full time employees because you need to pay their taxes and all the extra payroll things. You can start with a contractor for a specific I didn't own her time, but I also only owed her 300 successfully. Is realizing you can just hire a contractor then this is really important because this was incredibly hard for me. And where I failed my employees I truly believe is sharing my specific framework for how I do things and making sure the task is clear. What exactly do you want them to do? So you can't just go out and say I want a va, get a VA contractor and say yay, do VA work. What does VA work mean? Is VA work loading in your emails to your email provider and scheduling them? Is VA work replying to emails? Is VA work Instagram posting Right. So you've got to first, really define what it is they need to be doing. Second, you need to make sure you've documented how you do that process. You can't just bring somebody in and say, do it, because they're going to get frustrated and you're going to get frustrated and you're going to waste your time and. And be looking for another contractor shortly thereafter. So one of the things that I've done to help my employees was I pulled up Loom and I recorded how I did things. Now, we can take that transcript from Loom, put it in the chat GTP and break it down into steps. But all it took for me is to just pause Minatrina. Instead of just going and doing this, just hit the loom button and walk through exactly what you are doing. And that is the quickest way you can make processes and standard operating procedures in your business. I don't know about you, but I always overthought standard operating procedures. I'm a big picture kind of gal and that just was always over my head. So let me know in the comments section if it feels like creating processes or steps of what you do feels overwhelming. Just type in SOP so that I know you're feeling the way I was. Because it took me actually looming what I was doing to realize, oh, I just need to show them what I'm doing. And we can break it down into steps or they can just follow that video step by step at what I'm doing. And the third thing you need to do here to really outsource successfully is as you're bringing a new person on, as you're bringing a video editor on or a va, start with small, measurable tasks. I'm going to talk about video editors here in a minute, but if it is a va, do you want them to make you five Instagram carousels a week? That's pretty clear. All right. If you have Instagram carousels already on your Instagram profile, they have an idea of what that looks like. Or you can tell them, my Instagram carousels have one title screen, four slides, and a call to action slide that is measurable and that is clear to that person. Let me talk about video editing before I jump into some of the best tools to really help you outsource successfully too. When it comes to video editing, this is going to take you time to outsource, but if you put the time into outsourcing your video editing in the beginning, it pays off in the long run. So some things to think about when you're outsourcing. Video editing is provide your video editor that you want to work with example what my videos look like. Let's jump into tools and I first want to talk about tools to find somebody to outsource. Surprisingly enough, I'm going to tell you, Instagram has been my number one go to when finding somebody. I believe I found my Pinterest person on Instagram. I also found my video editor on Instagram as well. So just going to the Instagram search and typing the job that you're looking for or the type of person you're looking for, this also allows you to get a feel for for them, right? If they're doing stories and they have highlight reels, you can tap through and see if it's the type of person you're interested in working with. Maybe they also feature some of their testimonials or some of their projects that they've done before. So Instagram is really great. You could also go to LinkedIn. You could also create like an application form. I will say an application form is a lot of work for a contractor, but the other place you can go is referrals, asking your other business friends, asking your audience, your email list, your Instagram, your YouTube. Those are two of the best places that I would go for your first outsource. And then you also need to have a project management tool so you all can track what you're doing. I use Asana all day, every day. It allows me to communicate back and forth with my employees at the time to see where they were at. I could also create a list of the steps that I expected or the deliverables that I expected on a particular project and we could keep all the communication right in there. Another option is trello Monday.com, clickUp but it is going to be very helpful to have a project management tool if you plan to outsource to stay in communication and get the best results that you are looking for with somebody you're outsourcing to. But you got some concerns still. You're this far in the video and you still have some concerns. Now if I don't address any concerns that you are thinking right now, please leave them in the comments and I can give you some of my insight or my experiences as well. But one of the first biggest concerns that I get is what if they don't do it as good as me? And I understand I'm a perfectionist. So it was very hard for me to let go of certain things. But you have got to really be Clear in the expectation. If you aren't clear with that person, that contractor, that you're going to outsource what you expect, then you're not going to get what you want. You also need to make sure you're giving them very clear feedback and probably a lot at the beginning and also any training that they need, like those loom videos that I mentioned. The other concern I get is how do I know I'm not wasting money? Now, there are some things that you're going to outsource that aren't necessarily going to contribute to your bottom line or your revenue. And I get that. But you need to think about, for example, editing. If I give my editing away, which is maybe taking me three hours a week, but those YouTube videos are what is driving traffic to my business, to my email list. You need to think about what you can now do with that email list with those extra three hours. So one of the things that I'm able to do because of the things I've outsourced is lead follow up. If somebody buys a digital product from me, I'm now able to personally reach out to them on Instagram, send them a voice memo and create that open conversation that helps me get people who buy my low ticket to joining me in my coaching program. Now, would I have that time if I had to edit my videos? Absolutely not. But because I can outsource the editing, I can spend more time lead, following up, lead, following up, lead, follow up. And that helps me make more sales. So you need to really start thinking about what is that thing you're outsourcing. Actually freeing up time for you to do that is also some of the routines that I do in my business. And let me mention routines here in a minute, but this is your action step for all of this. I encourage you to find something to outsource if you've been thinking it's time to outsource. And the best way to do that is to start small. Pick one task this week that you hate doing or that you're not the best at, and you know, somebody could probably do it better and get you better results. Write down every single step, or even better, just screen record what you're doing, make sure you're talking through each step, throw that transcript into chat GTP and boom, you have a step by step written document on how to do that. And then you can jump on Instagram, start talking to other business friends who find somebody who can do that particular task. Now, my next video that's on your screen right now, I'M going to share with you the new routines that I'm working on perfecting and staying consistent with here in 2025 that help me stay productive, save me time, and make me more money. So make sure you watch that video next.