Depending on where you are coming from when starting your business, you may be completely new to the idea of hiring other people to do the work for you. You may feel it’s unnecessary to do this when your cash flow isn’t stable yet, or you may feel strange about outsourcing the work you can actually do yourself.
This is a typical do-it-yourself business owner mentality: this is my own business, so I am going to do everything myself. The problem becomes visible when you want to grow, or grow faster – it’s absolutely impossible to achieve significant growth without bringing other people on board! But how do you overcome the hurdle of being self-employed and having a do-it-yourself mentality?
If you’ve never hired anyone and don’t know where to look, I highly recommend my How to Find, Hire & Work with Your First Virtual Assistant toolkit. For now, here are my 3 favorite questions I like to ask coaches:
1. “What do you do?”
I mean, what do you really do? When asked this question, you don’t answer by saying “I submit articles” or “I work on my blog”. You usually tell people what problem you help solve. So why would you want to “pollute” your business day with all the other stuff, when you can be doing exactly that – generating revenue by helping your clients and customers solve a specific problem?
2. “What are my top 3-5 profitable activities?”
I bet you’re not going to say “emailing people” or “setting up my shopping cart,” unless that’s what you actually do for clients. There’s got to be 3-5 things you do that lead you to profits. For me it’s e-mail marketing, creating products, and holding virtual and live events. And if you’ve been around me long enough, you know that these are the top 3 things I usually occupy myself with. (Coaching is not on the list because it’s a small part of what I actually do in my business)
3. “What is my minimum acceptable hourly rate?”
You may not quote this rate to clients, but there is a number in your mind that you feel good about. Perhaps its $75 for every hour you work. For some it might be at least $200 an hour. As you go through your day, ask yourself if what you’re doing can be done by someone else who’ll charge much less than your hourly rate. For example, updating your web site may cost you $5-$15 an hour. Submitting articles might cost around $3-$5 an hour. Should you be really dealing with these things yourself?
In other words, get real – you can spend the next five years tweaking your blog, looking for linking partners, and printing workbooks. Will it get you to where you want to be in five years?
Some food for thought.
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