Outsourcing on a shoestring budget
As the owner of a business, you feel like you need to do it all. Does that sound like you? Are you in your business and not working on your business? If you’re nodding your head then it’s time to consider outsourcing to a virtual assistant (VA).
Trying to do everything yourself is the fastest way to total exhaustion and failure. Why? Because when you’re working in your business, you won’t have the time to stay ahead of your market and adapt or pivot as needed. Instead, you want to work on your business, and outsourcing allows you to do this…. That’s right. It gives you the time to work on the things that drive, motivate, and excites you.
It’s not about working less, it’s about being more productive which is where outsourcing comes into the picture. But I hear you saying you don’t have the budget to outsource to a VA. Am I right? Well, you’ll be surprised at how affordable outsourcing can be if done the right way.
Here are a few steps to help you get the most out of outsourcing and stay within your budget:
Write a journal for a week
This may seem cumbersome, but writing a journal for a week will provide some amazing insights into your daily routine. Each day I want you to write in your journal the following:[/h3] [h3]What tasks you’re doing and times each start/finishes
What tasks you enjoying doing
What tasks you really disliking doing? At the end of the week write down the tasks you did not get to. This will give you a solid insight as to:
How long tasks are taking you to complete
What you really hate/love
The administrative tasks you are doing
What tasks you do not have time to complete
You can now see how important the insights are from the journal.
Now do the following:
Of the tasks you hate or are admin-focused, write them down including how long they took you to complete.
Write down the tasks you did not have time to complete and write down an estimate of how long these take.
Now you’re nearly set.
You have identified the tasks you hate or are admin related
You have identified the tasks you do not have time to do
You know how long these tasks take to complete
Doing the above and identifying the exact tasks and time spent, will take the guesswork out of the tasks to give to your VA and how much time you need to allocate. This will save you precious time and money because you have tried and tested each task. Woohoo!
Don’t forget you will need to initially train your VA so allow time for that.
To get you started with outsourcing, I recommend hiring a VA to look after your more general administrative tasks only such as:
Social media engagement
Lead management
Customer database management
Customer support
Content creation and research - mostly sourcing ideas for newsletters, social media posts, and images for you to co-ordinate
Social media post scheduling
Email management
Calendar/diary management
Regular meeting coordination
I highly recommend you do all writing of social media posts, newsletters and blogs unless you pay for someone specialising in those areas. When you’re putting your name to content, it really needs to be on-brand, so this is an area I would take caution with.
The tasks you are to give your virtual assistant should not be directly linked to making money. All of those tasks should be completed by yourself. That is super important.
Now for the good part - where do you source a VA from?
Sourcing a VA
Good question. You can find virtual assistants from all around the world at different hourly rates, with the general VA (which is what I’m discussing in this blog) has the most affordable rate. You can hire a VA in the Philippines from around USD 3 - 5 ph.
There are more specialised VA’s that can write content for you such as blogs and newsletters/email newsletters, SEO, website management, and the like. This is something that you can check out separately. Here are some VA websites from the Philippines:
www.onlinejobs.ph
www.myoutdesk.ph
www.upwork.com
Here are some Filipino Facebook groups you can also check out:
Filipino Virtual Assistants
Online Filipino Freelancers
FilVan
Call to Action
The most important step for you prior to hiring a virtual assistant is to identify the tasks you will hand over and you do this by writing a journal for a week.
The journal will identify the tasks that you can outsource to a VA and the time that it takes so you are not unnecessarily spending money, because you know how long each task takes to complete - that is super important.
Outsourcing the administrative tasks will alleviate the pressure in your business and allow you the time to focus on the big stuff…. so you can dazzle in your business.