Archive for the ‘Outsourcing social media’ Category

A colleague of mine runs a small business, well basically he works on his own.  Every time I see him, he complains about how little time he has and about how much time he has to spend on this and that and the next task relating to his business and I keep saying to him, get someone else to do it but he is a control freak and so the likelihood of this happening is minimal.

This reminded me of myself and my business last year.   I was basically breaking even, making minimal profit and things were going great but then I realised hang on, I am tired, I am doing everything  myself and at this rate I would never be able to go on holiday or for that matter grow my business or make money and my business would never become profitable.  I then came to the realization that if I don’t make a decision now to let go and get help I would be sitting in this vicious cycle forever and it would result in me hating what I do.

Think of it, if you keep doing everything yourself, how on earth are you going to earn more money, it is virtually impossible.  So I figured, ok, if I can just pay my bills then that would be ok, but the amount that I had to work with I could not afford to employ someone full time and besides the amount of work did not warrant too me having to employ someone on a full time basis.  I also could not afford to employ someone based in the UK because that would mean I would need to raise my rates and this would not be good for my clients so I had to find an alternative solution.

One of which was to look abroad as this is the way many companies are going these days.   South Africa  was my first port of call where I outsourced work to a lady Melanie part time.  It was a solution to get the basics done but I still needed someone with specialised skills and while networking on online communities I started chatting to this lady in Russia who is very good at what she does.  She wanted to leave her current job and so we came to an agreement and now she is working as a part of my team.

The message that I am I’m trying to share with those of you who are too afraid to outsource, or too afraid that it will eat up what little profit you make, is LET GO,  in the long run it will be worth it.  It will probably be the best business move that you ever made.

Think of it.  If you don’t let go you will probably  never be able to go on holiday, never be able to increase your profits or grow your business because you will be too busy trying to do everything yourself.

If you outsource you will gain 3 key things benefits:

1. You will be able to provide your customers with a better more quality service because you can now be an account manager rather than working and doing all the work yourself.
2. You will be able to have the time to focus on marketing and promoting your business which will results in the growth of your business.
3. You will be able to take a holiday, and because we all need to take a break so that we can recharge our batteries and come up with new and fresh ideas.

A wealthy successful person  once told me that the objective of you being in business is that you should be able to walk away and your business should be able to carry on without you.  Say, if for example, if you were to be hospitalised or incapacitated without warning, who would run your business?

Can you honestly say, that your business can carry on without you?  If your  answer is no, then I would  suggest that you sit down and seriously think about what you are doing and think about and start making changes.

By doing this, you will find that your business will grow, you will begin to enjoy what you are doing as well as improving your quality of life.

What areas can you outsource:

• administrative tasks (virtual assistant)
• social media (social media assistant or social media manager)
• Travel (travel agent)

In many ways you actually outsource services all the time without realising, who manages your website, who manages your accounts?

You owe it to yourself to think about it.

Question asked by Robert Killington VAT expert 

Good question Robert and thank you for asking.

As you know there are many different tools which one can use to increase your online visibility and quite frankly it is not easy to keep up.  Yes, everyone knows how to use the tools but it is still very time consuming to go and post each article, each blog and even Twitterfeeds can be time consuming.  Finding blogs to comment on can also be very time consuming. 

Where you can save yourself tremendous time is by doing the following:

Use a virtual assistant to transcribe your blogs, articles, twitterfeeds and comments

The average person types at 20 wpm.  A touch typist types on average 60 to more wpm.  More information on audio typing and digital dictation can be found on my website:  www.directassist-online.com/audiotyping.html.

If you prefer not to use a digital dictaphone and prefer writing, then you can scan your content and email it to your virtual assistant.

Use  a virtual assitant to post on your behalf 

You write the content for your blogs, articles, twitterfeeds and instead of wasting valuable time a virtual assistant can submit the content on your behalf. 

Research for content and commenting on blogs

Another big time saver for one of my clients for example is that we spend time on the internet researching blogs related to his industry and blogs of interest.  When we find something that may be worth commenting on, we send the link to him.  He reads the blogs and posts and makes a comment.  This way he does not have to spend endless hours trying to find blogs to comment on and it also gives him a better idea of what people are blogging about and ideas for new blog content.

Robert, I hope this answers your question.

Romany Thresher

Yes, this flu seems to be rather serious.  I saw on GMTV the other day that the UK Government plans to send out leaflets next week to inform the public about Swine flu and what you can do to prevent it.  They have also ordered something like 30 million masks.

Right my first thought: Swine flu is out and contagious, by the time they have distributed these leaflets which is only next week and got their order of masks, the whole of the UK could be infected.  A bit too late don’t you think?

So where am I going with this.  Firstly, everyone has swine flu on the mind which means that we are all busy creating swine flu.

Secondly, if this is in fact a pandemic then perhaps the government should reconsider the option of allowing people to work flexibly from home.  Right now the law only allows parents the option of flexible working but how about people who decide not to have children, why should they not be allowed this option to work from home.

Having flexible working in place would actually be a big benefit in a situation where there is an outbreak such as Swine flu.  One could ask people to stay and work from home.  Then you reduce the risk of spreading the virus or disease.  Read more about who can work from home and the new world of work.

Romany Thresher