Welcome back to Incorporating SuperPowers. Today’s conversation is going to be one that if you’re a business owner, you’re going to want to pay attention to because, folks, it’s 2021. 2020 just kind of set the stage for the way business will be getting done in the future. And my guest today is somebody that you’re going to want to listen to because she’s in the outsourcing industry, and she’s here to share some wisdom with you on how to use outsourcing to up-level your business, up-level your life, and take your business to the next level. My guest today is Michelle Thompson. She is the founder and CEO of Awesome Outsourcing. I’m just super excited for this conversation because what I liked about our conversation beforehand was what Michelle started the conversation with. I’m not looking for leads. I want to share knowledge and help people. And that’s what today’s conversation is going to be about. Michelle, thank you so much for being here today.
Hey, thanks so much for having me, Justin. I appreciate it.
So, Awesome Outsourcing. Talk to me about it. Let’s dive down the rabbit hole of it. Why did you start an outsourcing company?
Funny story, I had a stroke, and when I had the stroke, I couldn’t do anything for myself. And at the time, I had a little side hustle going, and I knew that if I didn’t figure out how to get it off my plate and give it to somebody else, I was going to lose it. And so I was like the poster child for the worst person to outsource ever, because like nobody could do it as well as I could. And if I did outsource it, I was going to have to redo it myself. And so it’s just faster if I do it. And it’s amazing how, when you can’t do anything for yourself, you find creative ways to get things off your plate. So, that’s honestly what happened.
Out of necessity?
Yes.
Great. I think that’s the key there because I think many people are listening to who they are, maybe they know they’re ready, but they are too scared to take that leap to outsource because it can be scary. After all, you’re turning over a task, and you’re turning over passwords. Right? That was my biggest thing coming from the counterintelligence world; I will turn over my email password. I’m going to turn over my Facebook password. What? That doesn’t even calculate in the world that I can promise. I know that can be a bit scary for folks. How would you guide somebody in that transition if it’s okay to relinquish control and turn it over, stuff like that to somebody you’re building your relationship with.
Yeah. There are practical tips that I could give, but when we get down to it philosophically, I think it’s okay for us to permit ourselves not to be perfect. I believe in this world, especially as entrepreneurs and business owners, we have this illusion that it has to be perfect.Â
And if not, I’m not going to present it to the world because they’re going to think I’m some phony fraud and I’m just awful. And that’s not true because what happens is when we wait for 100% perfection, it never gets done. And so I tell people if I can give it to somebody else. They can do 90% of what I would have done. That is a huge, huge win because now I’ve freed up not only my time but my brainpower to be able to focus on the things that I’m good at instead of getting stuck down in the weeds.
I love that. I love that. And what that brings up for me is the fact that you’re going to mess up. We all do. And folks, if you’re listening to the show, there’s not a single person out there who’s not making it up as they go along. That’s just a simple fact, right? I mean, even people like Elon Musk, they’re just making it up as they go. They have bigger teams of people to help them make it up as they go. Right?
And if you want to get to that place, you want to grow, you have to start relinquishing some control and knowing that you’re going to mess up, but having enough confidence in yourself as the CEO or operations director of your own company, right? Knowing that if something happens that you’re going to be able to pivot, you’re going to be able to put out the fire, you’re able to shift, and you’re going to be able to adjust in such a way that fixes whatever problem was created. I love that point. What are some other things that somebody can do as they’re preparing themselves to start outsourcing? What questions should they be asking themselves? Am I ready?
Yeah. So I get asked this all the time. I created a cool little tool that helps people, and you can get it. If you go to awesomeoutsourcing.com, you’ll find it there. And all of this is in an Excel spreadsheet. And on that Excel spreadsheet underneath, it is three really short five-minute videos, right? Because what we don’t have is time. And what it’ll do is take inventory of everything that you do for a week. It’ll take you about a half-hour to do it. It’s not anything cumbersome. And what we’re then going to ask ourselves, what happens if I delete this? How much will it kill my business? Is it honestly going to move the needle? What happens if I delegate this? And how would I go about doing that? And then the third one is, okay, if I absolutely must do this myself, do I have to do 100% of that task?
Or can I offload 80% of that task and show up for the 20% that I need to be there. And then what happens is we categorize it by job category. And so you’re going to be doing the work anyway. So what I tell people is to go ahead and prepare yourself to set your virtual assistant up for success. As you’re doing the task, just hit record. You can do it on Zoom if you want. Any video recorder doesn’t matter. And as you’re doing the task, show them precisely step-by-step what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. And so what happens is if you will do that for one task a week, and it takes an extra 15 minutes to record that video, what happens is you will slowly get a good snowball effect in that, okay, great, now I got this off the plate that gives me an extra 15 minutes. Now I’m going to take that 15 minutes.
I’m going to record another video. And that’s going to give me back 25 minutes. And if we can do that, what’s happening is without us realizing it, we’re creating a training manual, and we’re slowly downloading our brain into these videos so that when we hire somebody making the standard operating procedure, it doesn’t have to be this big scary thing. Creating the training doesn’t have to be this big scary thing because you’ve prepped yourself ahead of time, and it’s already there. And so you can create a system to train before you’ve even started outsourcing, and it makes it less scary and way more tangible and able for you to set your VA up for success because you’re going to do the task anyway. You might as well just hit the record.
Absolutely. I love this. Before we go on break, Michelle, where can they find that tool for themselves one more time?
Yeah. So it’s awesomeoutsourcing.com.
Fantastic folks, stay tuned. Because when we get back, we’re going to dive into this a little bit further because we just started to scratch the surface here because doing the video training, developing the SOP, that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what’s needed to get started, okay, stay with us. We’ll be right back.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
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