I have a team of freelancers who make my brand’s expansion possible. Some of their work directly aligns with expansions while others remove tasks from my shoulders. During that extra time outsourcing gives me, I get to expand my brand.
As my virtual summit came closer, I thought hard about what I currently outsource and what I need to outsource. I knew the virtual summit would open up more revenue, so I wanted to discover how I would utilize that revenue.
Outsourcing is a necessity for every business person. You can’t succeed without a team. I know you might hear the story of the rare lone wolf, but that same lone wolf would perform so much more efficiently and effectively with a team.
With that said, these are the five tasks that every blogger should be outsourcing:
#1: Social Media Management (√)
This was THE first task I outsourced. I outsourced my Pinterest growth to a freelancer who grew my Pinterest account from 22,000 followers to 42,000 followers. I outsource my Twitter growth to this day.
If you continue to grow and maintain all of your social networks, you’ll have virtually no time to tackle the other business necessities. Big projects like hosting a virtual summit are out of the question.
If I didn’t outsource this one task, I wouldn’t have had enough time to interview the 50+ CMSS speakers.
#2: Email Responses (X)
Out of all of the tasks I want to outsource, email responses are the #1 task that I want to outsource. I routinely responded to 20-30 emails every day, and that number is only growing. If I am stuck in my inbox, I’m not creating new content, reading a book, or working on my next product.
Although I don’t do it with malice, I haven’t responded to many emails for several weeks due to the extra inbox traffic.
The inbox is important, but at the same time, it’s a trap.
When I contacted speakers for my virtual summit, many of them directed me to their virtual assistants. For one of the speakers, the VA and I sent each other over a dozen emails. That was over a dozen emails that this speaker didn’t have to read and respond to.
Now think of that on a large scale. I know some people don’t like the idea of having a gatekeeper of your own because gatekeepers seem annoying from the other end…especially in the beginning stages of building a brand.
However, hiring a VA to handle your emails gives you more time to do the things that people know you for.
For anyone wondering, Yaro Starak opened my eyes to this great concept with his blog post detailing how he hasn’t handled his inbox in 12 years (!)
#3: Polishing The Content (√)
Whether you write blog posts, create videos, or publish podcast episodes, you need to polish up that content. Right now, I have one content editor, one podcast editor, and two video editors.
They polish up my content so it comes out superb. At the same time, I don’t have the time to polish all of the content that I create.
For instance, every CMSS session was anywhere from 30-60 minutes long. With 50+ speakers, that adds up to a total of 25-50 hours of content.
If I had to edit all of those videos to get rid of clicks and other background noise, I would have been a goner (or only had 10 speakers for that virtual summit).
I had two video editors working on that virtual summit, and they’ll be back for future summits as well.
But polishing your content isn’t just an issue of time, but for some people, also an issue of frustration. While some people enjoy editing their blog posts, videos, and podcast episodes, I absolutely dread the process. I even dread scheduling my content. That’s how bad I am with the things that happen outside of content creation.
Instead of coping with this issue, I have outsourced it. In my ideal life, I enjoy every second of every day, and even if I’m only not enjoying one minute (the time it takes to schedule a piece of content), I’m not living my ideal life.
Outsourcing this task simply gives me more time to write the content without feeling that “Ugh” feeling of having to proofread and edit it all.
#4: Outreach (X)
For my first virtual summit, I manually did research and contacted hundreds of potential speakers. While I learned a lot about the process, it took up a large amount of my time.
The goal for future virtual summits is to outsource the outreach…especially the affiliate recruitment.
I didn’t recruit a single affiliate for the Content Marketing Success Summit. All I did was get the speakers. I got lucky because Matt McWilliams promoted my affiliate program to his audience (he’s a JV legend, but with that said, I believe that the harder you work, the luckier you get).
While Matt greatly helped me with the Content Marketing Success Summit, I want my own method for recruiting affiliates. I’m outsourcing someone for that.
#5: Advertising (X)
If you don’t know advertising, you can either learn it or have someone else do it for you. I’m a fan of the latter because advertising platforms constantly change, and you need to choose your priorities carefully.
With that said, you need to be careful with who you hire for your ad spend. If you go down this route, chances are you have hundreds if not thousands of dollars you’re willing to spend. You want the freelancer who will give you $1 targeted conversions, not the one who will give you $10 targeted conversions.
Go with the best freelancer even if that means taking a big hit in your wallet. The best freelancer will virtually pay for himself/herself because of the advertising profits you generate.
Before hiring someone to handle your advertising, make sure your landing page converts well and has an autoresponder that converts very well. All of the $1 targeted conversions in the world won’t do you any good if you can’t get them to buy…in fact, it would do more harm than good because of the ad spend.
In Conclusion
Outsourcing your tasks is critical for your growth as a blogger and entrepreneur. Make a commitment to outsource these tasks now. Does it cost money? Yes it does. You might be spending thousands of dollars every month to keep your freelancer army going.
But what you spend in money you make up with time. Money is a renewable resource. Want more of it? Just work smarter, apply more effort, and do a product launch. Want more time? Tough luck.
What are your thoughts on this list? Do you know of any other tasks we should be outsourcing? Sound off in the comments section below.
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Well-said, Marc! I also believe that advertising or dealing with social media marketing can be a waste of time and money if you’re not a pro 🙂
I agree. Advertising only works if you’re advertising a proven formula. If you’re experimenting with conversion rates for the first time with an ad, you can be spending unnecessary ad dollars to get a bad result. Tweaking your conversion rates with organic traffic will get you better results with ads.