One of the hardest but most important milestones for a founder is the moment they decide to give up some control of their blossoming baby and bestow the responsibility to someone or some thing (i.e. a machine).
Will it do as great of a job as me? The reality is that you’ll only know by trying, and even then you have to have patience to allow it room to improve.
The reality is, the 2 are not mutually exclusive.
Instead, consider them both essential levers you’ll need to pull along your journey of growth.
There are hundreds of automation tips and outsourcing resources out there but in typical fashion, I gathered the 3 most effective tactics that’ll save you the greatest amount of time and in turn, provide the most mental peace. Enjoy.
#1: Do It Yourself
I knew #1 would surprise you.
Before you even consider automating or outsourcing, deliberately take some time to do it yourself.
Why?
Because you need to learn the ins and outs, nuisances, time commitment, and brainpower needed to get it done.
This way, you won’t underpay or overpay for the work AND you’ll quickly be able to project the amount of time you could save if you automated or outsourced.
Ex. If it takes me 20 minutes to edit and publish and article, doing this for 40 articles would save me 800 minutes, or 13.33 hours. Amazing, I’d pay for those savings!
An added bonus is that it builds humility and keeps you from thinking your too good for the small stuff.
Everyone starts as a beginner, even child prodigies, geniuses, and superhumans.
#2: Take Endless Notes
Similar to the saying, don’t expect success, prepare for it, outsourcing is no different.
The best resource for outsourcing marketing and making sure it’ll be done to a world-class level is a thoughtful and well organized knowledge base on exactly what to do and the tools to get it done.
This is important for not only 1) establishing expectations, but for 2) solidifying a living, breathing resource as the company scales and new teammates wonder, “what’s already been done?” THIS is your marketing bible.
#2: “There’s a Tool For That”
Automation tools run rampant in modern, data driven marketing. Here are common marketing problems and the respective tools to solve them:
- Problem: manually posting social posts? Answer: Hootsuite
- Problem: manually engaging prospects through emails? Answer: Reply.io
- Problem: gathering content for blog articles? Answer: Pocket
- Problem: checking and optimizing Facebook campaigns every hour? Answer:Automated FB Rules
- Problem: have too many to do’s or work tasks? Answer: IFTTT to set rules for everything (seriously)
Have an automation tool or outsource tips that’s been a lifesaver? Share below and spread the love.
~JK