Getting support in your business

Today we are going to be talking about getting support in your small business. What does that look like? How do you know when you need to do it? How can you make decisions around that? This is going to come at different times for different people in different businesses.

I ran my business as a solopreneur for almost five years before making my first hire, and now we have usually about a team of five at any given time. There's no right, there's no wrong, you might have support come in for one off things projects, or you might look for ongoing support. And we're going to talk through how to figure out which of those you need how to know which of those you need. So the first thing that I want to hit on is identifying what you need help with.

The easiest way to identify what you need help with what you need support around in your business is actually going to come from a couple of things that I talk about really often that you should be doing every single day, not just one you're asking yourself, do I need to make a hire in my business, and that is tracking your tasks, tracking your time. So using a task and project management system like clickup, even if you are still a solopreneur, because that's going to allow you to have everything that you're doing listed out in one place for you. And then, tracking your time so that you will actually know how much time you are spending on each of those tasks in each area of your business so that you can really quickly and easily identify these are the tasks, and the things that I'm spending the most time on, or here's a list of like 10 tasks that are all kind of similar or in the same kind of space that add up to a kind of decent amount of time, not, and you know I'm spending a decent amount of my time on them.

What we don't want to do is say well I don't like doing this thing, and I spend so much time on it, but you're not actually spending that much time on it. You just don't like doing it so it feels like it takes up more of your time than it really does. That's still a valid reason to get help and to get support and outsource that thing, right, but we want to be super clear around: are we hiring to save ourselves a certain amount of time? What tasks are going by outsourcing? What tasks are we able to save ourselves more time? By tracking your time and tracking your tasks you're going to be able to identify really easily the tasks that are taking you the most time, and obviously the tasks that you don't like doing right, because from there when you identify those things you can look for overlaps. Is there anything that I'm spending a lot of time doing, and I don't like doing that is the easiest thing okay great, how can we outsource that. How can we get that off my plate or how can I get support around that. That's going to be the fastest and the easiest thing. From there you can look at okay what am I spending the most time doing versus what tasks, I may not be spending the most time doing but I really don't enjoy doing and what we want to look at both of those tasks and I talked about this all the time is, how can we systematize those tasks so that they become easier and simpler for us to or save and or save time, can we automate those tasks in any way, or do we need to go ahead and look at outsourcing those tasks.

This whole process is going to allow you to look at what is going to give you the biggest return on investment by outsourcing that thing, right. So if you're able to off board five things that you really hate doing, they don't take you a ton of time but you really hate doing them and so you kind of, they take up more brain space than they should. Great, we can really identify that, versus if you're going to outsource something that's taking you a lot of time, you can now start to get really clear on, okay great so I'm going to outsource this thing that's taking me on average 10 hours a week. So, what am I going to be doing during those 10 hours a week instead and this becomes really, really important, because people outsource without thinking about what am I doing instead, or what's happening instead, even if that means I'm working less, Right, that could be what you're doing and Zed, but by not getting super clear around that, that's when you outsource, but you don't see an increase, you've, you've increased your expenses, but you might not see a corresponding increase in revenue. And then you start to look at, well, I can't. This person is not paying for themselves. That's not always the purpose of outsourcing, but if you're not thinking through that really clearly you might feel like I've now increased my expenses haven't increased my revenue. This doesn't feel good.

That is going to allow you to get super clear on what the ROI is for outsourcing those specific tasks that you've been able to identify between a combination of tracking your tasks and a tool like click up and tracking your time in a tool like toggle, right, then you're gonna identify. Once you've identified those things that you're going to outsource you're going to be able to say, look at, okay, what type of person am I looking for what skills do they need right is this a one off project, is this a kind of shorter term project is this going to be ongoing, what does that look like is it a graphic designer is it a social media manager, is it a website designer is it a ads manager right, we can start to get a little bit more clear on that. What I don't want you to do is fall into the trap of just saying, oh well I'm just going to hire a virtual assistant, because within the title of virtual assistant, there's so many different ways that people have specialized themselves so there's a million virtual assistants who do social media, but they don't do website design, so you need to get clear on what skills you need to look for in that person and that support person that you're looking for really clear on that not just oh I need a virtual assistant, right, you might need Oh these are some low level admin tasks. Okay great, so you're looking for someone who can do data entry who can kind of stay on top of things that's the skills that you need, right, because that's also going to help you to not hire someone who's overqualified. And then you're paying you know more than you really need to be paying for those tasks. Because next you're going to do some research around costs. You've identified okay I need to get a graphic designer. How do graphic designers normally charge do they charge per project per hour, do they charge flat rate, what does that look like what are the typical costs around that, get a feel for how much that's going to cost from a few different sources so you can kind of start to figure out what's the average there, and does that work for your budget, or for your budget right now okay is there a way that I can still get support from this type of person, to a lesser extent for a lesser budget for now maybe working instead of working on all of these tasks they work on some of these tasks right, and I can then take the time that I'm saving around that, and increase the revenue so that I can then afford to outsource even more to them. You want to start to look at that.

Next, I would really recommend you look in Facebook groups right there's Facebook groups for everything now, so maybe join a facebook group for small business owners and ask if anyone knows or has any recommendation for that type of person that you're looking for. You can also use that as a way to ask people what's the going rate for in terms of what you've experienced for this type of support for this type of service. When you are setting up calls don't set up too many interviews, it's just overwhelming right three to five, Max. Max, make the application super clear. I always like to do, send an email to my email address with this very specific subject line in the email, I want you to tell me, X, Y, and Z, right, because what that allows me to do is if someone sends me an email if someone doesn't send me an email and just messaged me on Facebook, they're out right because they haven't followed the directions. If they do still send me an email, but it's the wrong subject line, they're out because they can't follow directions they send the subject line but they don't include that specific information. They're out because they can't follow directions. So now I'm actually not looking through as many applications because I'm now only looking at the applications of the people who can follow the specific directions that I set out right. And then you're going to want to set up three to five interviews and in that interview conversation. Be really clear about an outline the your needs and your expectations for this position, Get a feel for their experience and also discuss how you like to work your personality right because you don't want to hire someone that you've kind of just don't mesh with or vibe with or get along with. Right, so be super clear about that upfront, you're the business owner, you're the person who's hiring you need to be driving that conversation as much as possible to make sure that you are communicating really clearly what those expectations are. You also during this entire time should be setting up SLP standard operating procedures so document anything any task that you're planning on outsourcing, you should be documenting exactly how you do it right because that's going to help that person to get on boarded and basically train themselves because they can look at that documentation versus you having to explain everything to them and walk them through everything. And then you can also ask, as you do this please let me know if there's a better way to do this if you think this can be optimized in any way, because you now have a fresh set of eyes on that thing which is a really great opportunity to do that task more effectively and more efficiently so you definitely want to be setting up SLPs and doing documentation around that.

Before this person is starting ideally. Next, you want to make sure, once you make that hire that you evaluate and communicate areas for improvement, early and often. That doesn't mean nagging them. That doesn't mean staying like being all over them about the smallest little thing. What that means is is you don't want to set it and forget it and just leave them forever. And then not give them guidance or not give them constructive feedback, because they're just going to continue to do it in a way that you don't like or is not up to your standards, and you're gonna end up having to fire them and go through this entire process again, right, that doesn't mean they can't learn that doesn't mean they can't improve enough to where you guys can continue to work together, but you need to be the one to communicate. I think we need to tweak this or I think we need to improve on this or I've been noticing this happening, what do we need to do to ensure that that doesn't continue to happen. Make sure you're looking at that and you're communicating that in a really constructive and upfront way early and often, right, because if you're not, they're not mind reader's, they don't know exactly what you want, at all times.

If you haven't communicated it, and this is such a big thing, especially for people who have never hired anyone before or never managed anyone before. People aren't mind reader's, don't expect them to be, you need to take a beat and figure out how can I communicate my expectations and my needs as clearly as possible to this person, right, because what that's doing is that setting them up for success and by setting them up for success, you're setting each other, you're setting yourself up for success right because you've now hired this person to support you in the business, whether that's ongoing or project based, right, why would you want it to take more time or be more difficult than it needs to be right you don't, so make sure you are taking that time, this is kind of like when people say that they're so busy but they don't take, but they don't have time to train anybody, but by training that person and by delegating that thing, that they'll be able to get so much more time, but because they can't take a beat and recognize how important and impactful that will be, they don't ever do it and they kind of get stuck in that same hamster wheel right same thought process there. And then my other suggestion is hire slow and fire fast.

By going through these steps by being taking the time to clearly communicate expectations by developing those SLPs by doing all of those things ahead of time. It's going to take you a little bit more time to hire, you know, maybe it'll take you a week to hire for some of these things versus a day. Right. But taking a little bit of that extra time is again going to ensure that you are finding the right person for that task that project, or that ongoing relationship right, and if you have clearly communicated expectations and also evaluated and communicated areas for improvement or areas for fixes. That's really important here. If you have done that a few times, and it continues to not work out, or it does, it's not a good fit for whatever reason, fire them right and that's, it's just business, it's not like you're you're not cussing them out you're not doing anything crazy, but if you have clearly communicated everything during this process, and it's still not working out. It's not likely to work itself out in the future and so then you will be stuck kind of banging your head against the wall, having the same issues over and over again and what that does is that ends up creating more work for you, and you don't feel as supported, right.

So hire slow fire fast. As long as you have clearly communicated constructive feedback and that is the big Asterix, there, right, that's huge. This is not an excuse to be an asshole, that's not what we're here for. Right. We're here to lift people up. As a business owner, as a leader, it is your job to lift other people up and if you lift people up, they will support you and support your business, much more efficiently and much more effectively. So which would you rather have a support person who feels really good and knows exactly where they stand and knows exactly what they need to do, or someone you're constantly going back and forth with someone who doesn't seem to understand what you want, right, someone who it's taking a lot longer than it needs to. A lot of the time when you're in that second place. It's not really because of them. It's because of you. So really, in this process of finding a support person look to yourself, because this is a really great opportunity to improve and learn as a leader, as a business owner but so many people don't take the time to do that. And this is where you see people running through VA is constantly, they're always hiring and firing VA is over and over and over again, they have huge turnover in their teams, right, and they don't feel supported by their business, they don't feel good about their business. A lot of times that, to me that's a red flag that they need to build more skills as a leader and as a business owner so if you find yourself in that hamster wheel of hiring and firing a lot, go through this process really specifically and look to yourself and see if maybe you need to make some tweaks and adjustments to your process.

I hope this was really helpful and really impactful for you whether you are looking to outsource for a task, a project or for ongoing support. You still want to go through this process to a certain extent, in any of those situations. And if you're having questions around this, if you are starting to grow your team and you just don't really know what you need to do first, How do I identify strategically what's going to get you the biggest ROI in terms of outsourcing and versus setting up automations and setting up systems and processes, head to my website SamDiNicolaDigital.com and take a look at my digital strategy intensives and go ahead and book one for yourselves, it's the most effective way for us to take a real deep dive into your business and look at what's working, what's not working and how are we moving you forward to your larger goals around the business.

Definitely take a look at the digital strategy intensives on my website. And if you have been finding the no fluff Small Business simplified podcast valuable, make sure you leave a review on Spotify or Apple podcasts or wherever you're listening to this, every single month. Reviews are entered into a drawing to win a free coaching call with me which is obviously the cheapest and easiest way to get my eyes on your business right. So if you're in this place where you really want to get support and outsource but you don't have the budget to book a digital strategy intensive. If you haven't left a review it literally takes two seconds and you'll have the chance to win a free coaching call, so make sure you leave a review and I will see you next time on No Fluff Small Business simplified.