Are you doing too much? If you don’t have enough hours in the day to do everything you want to do, it might be time to scale back . . . OR it may be time to outsource.
I was resistant to outsourcing for a long time. I finally realized that outsourcing is a critical part of a mama CEO mindset. By turning over tasks that I don’t love, don’t excel at, or—and this one is key—don’t need to do myself, I make time to tend to parts of my business that only I can do.
I had the opportunity to chat with Amber McCue about outsourcing. You can get my key takeaways on what to outsource, who to use, and what to pay. And then stop overthinking it.
Outsource one thing today, even if it’s something small. Not sure where to start? Here’s one thing to outsource for every week in the year.
You can get somebody to:
- Schedule your social media
- Do your bookkeeping
- Clean your house
- Plan your online content
- Rebrand your website
- Plan your meals
- Handle your legal stuff (strategic legal plans, client or contractor agreements, privacy policy, terms of use, and general business counseling…)
- Do your taxes
- Send out recordings of webinars or conference calls
- Write your autoresponder series
- Design your logo
- Watch your kids
- Create your social media content
- Design your images for blog posts and social
- Create your sales page
- Package your products (fulfill orders)
- Create your systems manual
- Manage payroll
- Choose your gifts
- Manage your email
- Set up your autoresponder series
- Get groceries for you
- Send out your contracts or agreements
- Manage your calendar
- Run errands
- Create and manage Facebook (and other) ads
- Research images
- Set up your blog and newsletter
- Manage your blog comments (filtering, responding)
- Do your laundry
- Make your website and email play nicely
- Track responses and do client follow up
- Optimize for SEO
- Write your opt-in
- Edit your e-book
- Transcribe your calls or webinars
- Track your analytics
- Photograph you or your products
- Provide customer support
- Plan your child’s birthday party or your next client soirée
- Cook dinner
- Set up appointments (and send reminders)
- Do data entry
- Edit your videos
- Clean your car
- Moderate your Facebook (or other) group
- Upload videos or podcasts
- Update your CRM
- Create documents and templates
- Develop a marketing plan
- Do administrative tasks like shredding and filing
- Organize your Google Drive or Dropbox
Go ahead and start small. It doesn’t matter if you outsource something from your business or something from your home life (that gives you more time for your business). Just find one thing you can let go of doing yourself and make room for something else that really matters.
I started by outsourcing my blog and newsletter set up, and now I outsource about about half of the things on this list (at least some of the time).
So what are you going to get off your plate? Tell us in comments.
As you plan your next 90 days, look at places you can outsource. Think college kids home for the summer to babysit or handle order fulfillment —or use extra help to knock a back-burner project off your list. Or think VA to respond to email when you go on vacation in August.
Use this list to get your brain spinning on ways to make space in your schedule—then get Your Next 90 Days and make a really solid, results-focused plan. With this self-paced workshop and planning tool, you can kick some business butt this summer (and have time for fun too!)
