26 Strategies for Outsourcing Your Life
The 4 Hour Work Week has a trendy place on many bookshelves, yet it’s not all hype – it has a fair bit of strong content. One aspect of the book that I found particularly interesting was around outsourcing, and getting systems and people in place to maintain a business.
Here are 26 Strategies for Outsourcing Your Life:
- The goal is to free your time to focus on high leverage tasks.
- It’s low-cost and low-risk. Wether or not you “need” someone is immaterial. It’s an exercise in automation & efficiency.
- It’s also critical for being a successful entrepreneur. Can you (or have you ever) manage and direct other people?
- Outsourcing for most people is like training. Remote management & communication and skill-building.
- Using Virtual Assistants (VA) is simple. There’s no downside, and it will cost between $100 – $400.. This is an investment, not an expense. The ROI is astounding.
- Build a system to replace yourself.
- Eliminate before you delegate in GTD.
- Never automate something that can be eliminated.
- Never delegate something that can be automated.
- Build rules to route messages into a VA bucket.
- Experiment with multiple VA’s to test & sharpen your communication and management skills.
- Experiment with a VA firm as opposed to a solo operator. It provides a support structure & professionalism.
- Never use debit cards with VA’s. Only credit cards as it lowers risk.
- Rule #1 is to refine rules & processes before adding people. Using people to leverage a refined process multiplies production.
- Rule #2 is to have fun. Be very nice.
When looking for VA’s, do the following:
- Request someone who has excellent english. Indicate phone calls will be required, even if not.
- Bullet point simple 2nd-grade english so they can’t be misinterpreted.
- Request status update 2 hours after work has started with progress. Some tasks will be impossible – this acts as a safety net.
- Use 48hr & 24hr as standard deadlines.
- Send one task at a time whenever possible, and no more than two. Eliminate before delegation.
Format to VA
Dear VA,
I hope you’re having a great day.
TASK: Simple task in 2nd grade english. “Can you do this? Please reply & confirm.”
DEADLINE: 24hr or 48hr
“Thank you for your fastest response!”
Signature
Common VA Tasks
- Scheduling interviews & meetings, web-research, online purchases, web maintenance, monitoring and editing online discussions, CRM, shipping, transcription, data cleanup and general organization.
- Market research, financial research, business plans, industry analysis, web dev, SEO, supply chain logistics, contact competitors, build and consolidated competition data.
- Manage & followup with every customer.
- Submitting articles to drive traffic to site & building mailing lists
- Managing affiliate programs
- Find a majority of your VA’s in the Philippines, as they have near native english and can access any website, unlike other parts of asia. I use Skype and Asana for managing VA’s so as to eliminate email communication.