Do you know how to delegate to elevate your business and bring in more profits? My free Profit Plan tool can help you on your way to increasing your take home pay, but outsourcing can also help a lot.
Once you start to outsource tasks that aren’t in your Zone of Genius, you can scale your business a lot faster. Because what you are gaining is time. Time to work on moving the needle towards increasing profits.
A lot of entrepreneurs are reluctant to outsource for two main reasons:
- “No one can do it as well as I can”
- “I don’t have the money to hire someone”
For around 6 months in my business this year, I didn’t put out any new content. I didn’t deliver any new value to my audience. I was overwhelmed and inundated with trying to do all the things, and it wasn’t sustainable. I falsely believed that I was the only person who could do it.
It’s impossible to do everything in your business, all of the time. You can try, and it might even look like it’s working for a while. But sooner or later, overwhelm will catch you – and guess what’s going to happen to your profits then?
This week I have Ariel from Laptop and Littles join me to tell you exactly how outsourcing can help to increase your profits.
Laptop and Littles are a two-branched business centered around Virtual Assistant services. They train new VAs, and also work to partner entrepreneurs with the ideal VA to elevate their business. Hiring a VA is going to significantly help you see a good ROI when you stop trying to do #allthethings yourself!
What work can I outsource to a VA?
It can seem a little scary when the time comes to hire an assistant. Ariel’s advice is to Start Small.
A VA can take on any task that you do not have to personally complete yourself. They can even help you find extra help for jobs that are outside their own wheelhouse!
You might find that you are so overwhelmed with managing your social media content that there’s no time to schedule clients – or vice versa. A VA can step in and take those tasks off your hands, leaving you more time to spend on the activities that will increase your profits!
There are always going to be tasks that don’t increase profits that you can’t outsource. Your VA can’t talk to your credit card company for you, for example – but they can certainly wait on hold for 45 minutes to get through to them!
Laptop and Littles have a free checklist that will help you identify and prioritise the tasks that can be outsourced. It can be accessed here, so make sure you check it out and discover that low hanging fruit that you can hand off to your VA.
What should I expect when working with a VA?
A successful working relationship with your VA is going to be built on a solid partnership. Your VA is going to become part of your business.
In my opinion, the qualities and traits your VA possesses are going to be a lot more useful to you than their years of experience. Everyone can be taught new skills, but finding someone who integrates into your business is gold!
It’s normal for a new VA partnership to take a few months to fall into sync. But hiring someone who is organized, reliable and proactive is going to seriously help you scale your business and increase profits more easily.
Someone who will take the tasks you give them and look for even more ways to help you is invaluable. Someone you can happily have a Monday morning Zoom with. In my experience, hiring someone with little experience and the right personality has always worked out. Hiring someone with years of VA history and the wrong attitude never has.
What should I pay a VA?
As with all outsourcing, the rate you will pay depends on the amount and type of work you are expecting from your VA. Ariel from Laptop and Littles suggests the average rate is $20-$25 per hour.
You might find someone willing to work for $5-$10 an hour, but are they really going to be someone who is going to be proactive enough to look for more ways they can help you? You could even go up to $30 for a VA who ticks every single one of your Desire Boxes, and if they’re also going to be doing other things (such as coding), they will likely charge more.
Remember, you are looking for a partnership with someone who is going to make your life easier and allow you to bring in even more profits.
How do I find a great VA?
Agencies are always a good place to start, especially if this is the first time you’re outsourcing. Pricing may be a little higher than elsewhere, but so will the quality of the assistant!
Laptop and Littles can help to pair you up with your ideal VA, or you can search online for agencies.
Facebook and Instagram are also a good place to ask for virtual assistance; the downside to this is that you might end up inundated with offers, which can take a lot of time to sift through!
I recommend an agency for your first time. We use agencies to find us nannies and childcare because we know the employees have been vetted and are secure. Our businesses are also our babies so it can feel a lot safer to take a similar approach to finding a VA!
How can I make sure that my working relationship with my VA is beneficial to us both?
One of the first lessons we need to learn when outsourcing is that VAs aren’t mind readers! Make sure you are doing everything you can to provide your VA with the information they need to go off and help build your business. Some of the ways to do this include:
- Setting a regular time to communicate with your VA. Sometimes, you might not have anything extra to delegate, so a simple check in of what the week’s plans are is helpful. A great VA will be looking for ways to help you, sure, but they can’t do that if you’re not communicating!
- Being honest and upfront with your preferences – whether that’s travel (if they’re organizing), food (if they’re booking your lunch meetings), scheduling etc. Your VA will do everything they can to make your life easier, but they need to know how an easy life looks to you.
- Having a dedicated system for handing off tasks. You could use software such as Asana, or even use emails as your system. Just make sure you both know how this will happen
- Respecting boundaries. Sure, you might get the occasional Sunday night email from your VA but that could well be because they chose to make an exception to their working times. If they set a working schedule, don’t expect them to work outside of it!
If you’re ready to take the next step in your business, outsource those extraneous tasks to a VA and start elevating your business to increase your profits, you can contact Laptop and Littles for more help either through their dedicated assistant page or by emailing them at [email protected].
I hope you’ve found this useful and are feeling more confident about letting go of the reins and bringing in outside help. If you want to watch my discussion with Ariel, definitely check out my YouTube video, and drop a comment if you decide to go ahead with hiring a VA!
I would love to hear how you found it!
Check out my website to learn more!
