Is it time to outsource?
Dec 01, 2023
Today I am taking you behind the scenes of our team over here at the Crush the Rush Headquarters. I share this because I haven't done it in a while, and I think it is important to know that as a business owner, it is really impossible to do everything yourself. Even if you don't have a team, you need support.
In a few weeks, it will be the two-year anniversary of me leaving my corporate job. And to be honest, sometimes I struggle with that because I feel like I should be further along, but also, what do you do after you hit such a big goal? It's like climbing Mount Everest (i.e. the climb is really hard), you get to the top, enjoy it, and then what? Figure out what is next.
Our Vision For 2024
A couple of weeks ago I shared our vision, which was the first step. We came up with a new mission: To help 100 women design their dream job and leave corporate in 2024. Because to me that is leaving an impact. And changing families' lives.
The second piece is to create a charitable component. I am not 100% sure what this looks like, but I know I want to dedicate more time to giving back in 2024.
With all that said, we have an amazing team. But there was one problem. I was the bottleneck.
What Our Team Looks Like and Where the Problem Lies.
Currently on our team we have the following:
- Website Designer - Studio Classica makes updates to our website each month based on the programs we have going on.
- Copywriter - Jenny Roth who is amazing joined our team a few months ago and helps me with curating an email strategy every month.
- Virtual assistant - Kaitlyn who has been with me since 2020 does all sorts of things behind the scenes, including 90% of our content repurposing and Club management.
- Ybanez Media takes care of our IG.
- Amplify Boutique takes care of editing our podcast and creating weekly graphics.
- Madeline, my OBM recently transitioned to Creative Client Director and is fully responsible for helping support the customer experience inside the mastermind and making our epic retreats come to life.
Please know that this did not all happen at once. It was a very slow movement of adding support and help. I also personally believe you should do everything yourself first. Learn it, understand it, and then delegate it. So every one of these tasks that these amazing women do, I understand and can also do.
Something was missing...
And for the most part, everyone is very streamlined with their roles, but the problem was every request was coming to me. I was waking up to 17 Slack messages in the morning, or emails to review things and it was taking a significant amount of time.
Something needs to be reviewed, someone's password wasn't working, questions about launching, etc. When you have six people asking questions it can take a decent amount of time to process, which is where I was the issue.
The solution: Karalee from The Productivity Impact who is our new executive assistant. The goal? Streamline our team so we have a QA process in place that isn't me. (This is a corporate term that stands for quality assurance, but my goal is that everything gets double-checked. Everything). But also, she is an organizational wiz. Insert I pretty much hired someone that has my background so she could manage things that I wasn't getting to.
On the surface, this felt weird. Because could I do it? Yes. But if I want to scale, travel, speak, and create more time to give back do I need to have someone else help? Yes.
Here's what her role as an executive assistant looks like:
- Managing the team requests long term.
- Leading our launches (creating project plans, ClickUp dashboards and prioritizing tasks prior to the launch).
- The most important part: she is local. So she is coming to our house once a quarter to meet with Scott and I together. Where we can map out our vision and she can bring the plans to life.
- But also, she manages my capacity. So when I say I have 17 ideas, she can say, well you already told me you have 15 so maybe we should space it out?
She is the integrator, I am the visionary. Her role is to take the whiteboards in my office and make them come to life respecting our company values.
If you had asked me two years ago when it was just Kaitlyn (my VA) and I if I would have a team of six, I would look at you like you're nuts. But here we are. I joke that I am in my Outsourcing Era.
Going back to the story at the beginning, I think it is important to know that most entrepreneurs have help. And sometimes you don't see that.
Do you love these tips? Take the Productivity Personality Quiz to get a Netflix-style binge-worthy resource list to help you find your focus and is customized to you! Take the entrepreneur personality quiz.
Where to Start with Outsourcing
If you are just getting started, I usually recommend a virtual assistant as a first hire. This allows you to take repetitive tasks off your plate.
I also recommend hiring based on the skill that they are REALLY good at. As an example, podcast editing. Can I do it? Yes. Does it take me 1000X longer when I could be doing another income-producing activity? Yes.
If you are further along, I highly recommend you have an integrator. Someone who can take your ideas and make them real. So that you can continue to be the person in the visionary/CEO role. Think of a traditional company. What is the CEO doing? What are you doing? Do the roles align?
When it comes to hiring and outsourcing, you have to truly think of it as what capacity is it going to create you.
Because we hired an Executive Assistant, I was able to take on more 1:1 clients and launch a new program last month. Increasing our revenue and bottom line, but also getting more done behind the scenes.
Right now our team feels complete. And while we have some additional guest coaches inside our programs, I am excited to see what kind of capacity this creates.
Looking for more on this topic and your High-Level Action items? Check out the Strategy Lab in the Crush the Rush Club!
Resources
-
The 3 “Must-Shift” Money Mindset Blocks To Make Your First Million in Business with Kristen Hilleman - listen to the tips.
- Is it Time to Invest in Your Business? A Guide to Saving Time and Scaling - read more.
- Have you hired your first team member yet? What are you excited to outsource next? Send me a DM and let me know!
