Love doing it all?
Don’t! If productivity and profitability are important to you and you wanna avoid to any bodily harm resulting from showing up late for Dinner from your Spouse, then get into the habit of only doing the most important stuff and start outsourcing the rest.
The important stuff are the mission-critical elements of your Business or the stuff that can deflate your Business like a party balloon if they were to be attempted by someone else. Or at the very least, they could leave you with a chipped nail or tooth.
The Mission Critical stuff for me are my blog posts, videos, and those all-important “personalized” communications. I can’t outsource these because it’s not just information I am sharing. Every blog post or video I publish is basically a “piece of me” gift wrapped with a cute red ribbon.
Give it away now, give it away, give it away now!
Giveaway/outsource anything and everything that falls outside this “mission critical” scope, including the brushing and the flossing if that’s an option.
Here’s another way to look at it:
- If it’s not worth your basic hourly rate, then outsource it.
- If doing it paints a frown on your face and leaves you growling for hours, then outsource it.
- If you don’t have a clue about how to get it done or there’re other people who can do it much better, then outsource it.
- If your pulse stopped working the minute you started working on it, then outsource it.
- If it’s putting a strain on all your important relationships/time with your family, then outsource it.
Who to hire and how:
If you’re operating an online Business as I am, then much of your hires can come through reliable outsourcing websites such as Upwork.com and Fiverr.com. There’s like a gazillion and a half more of them out there. And I have tried quite a few of them over the years. Some of them are as sweet as honey and the rest are about as huggable as a prickly Porcupine. Suffice to say that I have settled on getting my outsourcing needs fulfilled through Upwork (formerly known as Odesk) and Fiverr. I’ve been using them happily for many years and have only come across a handful of bad and fake apples.
So here are a few simple tips to help you find the right person to hire:
1. Publish a job post – Most outsourcing sites allow you to publish a job post within their terms and conditions (or outside of their terms if you don’t mind losing a limb or two).
The job posts should be concise, courteous, accurate and professional and mention the job’s key requirements (ideally in bullet points) along with details of the benefits they receive for being a successful candidate.
If the task can be demonstrated on screen, then make a walkthrough video of it and attach it to the job post.
Then add in a little (nonlethal) tripwire to weed out the candidates who’re happy to get paid for doing nothing much.
The tripwire can be something as simple as asking them to mention a certain passphrase that you inject into the job post or the walkthrough video to validate their candidacy. If they can’t be bothered to read the whole job post and go through all the relevant material in full, it just means they’re just another hyperactive member of the “can’t be bothered community” and therefore won’t be bothered to do a good job on your assignment.
Alternatively, you can ask them to perform a simple two-minute task beforehand to demonstrate their ability to do the job. This can just be part of the interviewing process.
It’s usually a good idea to test a Pilot’s competency in simulation before allowing them to take off with real people. That way they can’t tell you mid-air that they don’t know how to land the darn thing.
2. Interviewing your candidates – It always helps to know who you’re working with. So take some time asking them a few questions to determine their level of competency, cordialness, and commitment. If they score high marks on all three criteria the first time around then keep them for a second “surprise” interview on a later date. Then continue interviewing the remaining candidates.
And yes, you would need to interview all of the applicants who passed your tripwire test without breaking their noses.
The second “surprise” interview (using the same scoring criteria as before) isn’t designed to give them a heart attack, but rather to determine if they are as consistent and as reliable as they claim to be.
3. Send out invitations – If you’re looking to hire the best person for the job, you would need the broadest possible pool of candidates. And that’s what invitations (that refer candidates to your job posts) allow you to do.
By the way, it suffices to send out maybe 200-1000 invitations per post, even if the site tells you that there’re 200,000 probable candidates that fit the criteria. That way you would have to spend the remainder of the year interviewing people.
4. Never pay hourly or upfront– Two of the most shoulder twitching lessons I had to learn is to never pay anyone upfront and to never pay an hourly rate. Obviously, most sites require you to make a “deposit” upfront. But that’s easily retrievable through their site admins if the candidate doesn’t deliver or decides to “disappear”.
5. Check their feedback – Might sound obvious. But a glowing feedback profile is usually a good indication that the person you’re about to hire is not an International Criminal or a serial Bank Robber.
Also, refrain from hiring anyone on a full moon day just in case.
6. Hire and Fire – When you find a good hire, be sure to treat them as nice as you treat all your family members. And if this raises a few eyebrows, treat them even nicer.
Also, don’t forget those regular pay raises and bonuses. I would recommend a pay raise once every 6 months. But if you’re feeling generous and have the budget for it, you can even do it once a month.
And when you spot someone who regularly sleeps on the job, misses deadlines and doesn’t care about anyone with a pulse, fire them immediately and move onto the next candidate. Now if they have a genuine reason for falling short occasionally, then cut them a little slack. But not too much of it because you don’t walk home and get murdered by your spouse and kids for showing up without a paycheck.
