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But, I think one of his warnings in particular need more emphasis.

Delegation = Management

Delegating to a virtual assistant is not a magical process. It is one person giving instructions to another. Virtual assistants are humans, the same kind you interact with everyday, the kind you would expect to hire at your business and then spend weeks training, the same kind of people you’ve had as co-workers in the past. They are not machines that read your mind and flawlessly interpret and act on vague instructions. Like you would expect of any co-worker on employee, they are fallible beings who need you to be a good manager to get the most from their resources. Read More

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Imagine a Samurai warrior who “kind of” understands how to use a sword. He is “somewhat familiar” with a bow and arrow. In hand to hand combat he’ll “figure it out” if allowed enough time for trial and error.

It sounds absurd when, for a Samurai, his level of proficiency determines his survival. He has no choice but to pursue mastery so, day in and day out, he trains — eventually attaining a level of intimacy with his tools that borders on unnatural (Samurai would name their swords and considered them to be part of the living world).

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In Part 2 of this series, we discussed the importance of picking the appropriate outsourcing provider for your tasks. Once you have found that perfect provider, it is very important that you commit to making that relationship work.

Too often I speak with small business owners who view outsourcing as an experiment. Their first question is “is there a contract or commitment?” I say there isn’t and they say, “Okay, I’ll test you guys out and see how it goes.” With that attitude, it’s not going to work. There is no magic to outsourcing and delegating, it’s very much the same thing as hiring someone to work at your business. There is an amount of work and effort involved on your part. You wouldn’t hire someone to do a job unless you were fully committed to training them and helping them do the work and that is the same level of commitment you should bring with you to an outsourcing relationship because…

It’s going to be work. It’s not easy outsourcing and delegating. But, if you fully appreciate the benefits of outsourcing you’ll have the motivation to put in the required effort.

1. You are giving up control. For a small business owner, that’s a hard thing to do. You are going to have to fight back the urge to take your pet projects back under your wing, scrutinize and overemphasize details and deciding it’s not perfect because it is not exactly the way you would do it.
2. You are going to have to give feedback and be patient. Again, no magic. You are dealing with a human being and it is unlikely they will do a perfect job right off the bat. Their job is to keep you happy. If they didn’t do something right, it’s probably not for lack of effort or intelligence, it’s probably due to a misunderstanding. You should expect that you will have to shape the results of your provider over time through feedback and tweaking processes, not anything less than perfection is failure.

In the beginning I strongly recommend at least weekly check-ins to discuss how things are going, brainstorm ideas, get questions answered, and provide feedback. Depending on the complexity of your projects, you may want to do daily meetings. When giving feedback, it is important to be specific and make sure that changes are made to the process in order to prevent those mistakes from happening in the future.

Point is, you’ve got to commit to putting effort in at the beginning to make things work. And, over the long-term, yep, you guessed it, you have to keep putting in effort to keep the relationship healthy.

I’ve seen clients do a great job of getting things set up in the beginning and then disappear for 8-12 months. We can’t reach them with questions, we don’t hear a peep from them. They come back and realize what we have been doing isn’t correct anymore because of changes in their business we were unaware of.

Keep your provider focused on the actual result you are looking for rather than just going through the process and getting it done. For instance, if you have delegated a process of going through Craigslist and finding leads that match a certain criteria the actual result you are looking for is “Find my business great leads.” Unless you emphasize that is the goal, it is easy for a provider to slip into a mindset that their job is to follow directions and check that process off their list. You will get far better results by keeping them focused on results rather than processes.

After the initial set up and feedback period, you should schedule at least monthly check-ins. These are a good opportunity to meet with your provider and brainstorm, “How can we make this process better?” It is this analysis that ensures that you get more bang for your buck over time and your provider stays engaged (because they know that meeting is coming up and you will expect them to have ideas).

In summary, be committed, give feedback, and be patient and you’ll be a small business owner the reaps the benefits of outsourcing.

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After going through Part 1 of this “Beginner’s Guide to Outsourcing,” you should have a value-driven, prioritized list of projects, tasks, and responsibilities ready to be outsourced. To jump into outsourcing unprepared will leave you frustrated and likely to waste time and money.

But don’t start looking around for a provider just yet. To research and pick an outsourcing partner without carefully defining your needs will leave you frustrated and likely to waste time and money.

There are two important considerations at this point:

Documentation and training:

My feelings on documentation are mixed.

On one hand, I feel that documentation is only important to the extent that it will actually happen. Too many times I speak with a new client who is excited to get started working with us and the conversation ends with, “Alright, well let me work on my documentation and then I’ll get back in touch with you.” Two weeks later I reach out to see what happened and they say that they are still working on their documentation and they’ll be ready soon. After that, I generally never hear from them again.

As with so many other things in life, doing it is sometimes more important than doing it perfectly if you are never going to get it done perfectly. It is better to jump in with weak documentation than to never jump in because all the i’s and t’s aren’t dotted and crossed. Perfect is the enemy of good. – Voltaire

On the other hand, good documentation is helpful and generally helps things go much more smoothly.

Taking both hands into account, I would give this advice: create as much documentation as you can in one sitting and consider that good enough. Then, knowing that everything might not be perfectly complete, be very available early on to answer, and quite tolerante of, clarification questions.

While video documentation is very easy to make, it is not great for the person responsible for the work. A lot of it is wasted time as someone is walked through things they could have easily figured out on their own and then the brief, important moments that are actually helpful are hard to find and refer back to later. Written documentation is the way to go.

Putting that written documentation in the cloud, for instance on a wiki, and encouraging your outsource partner to edit and add to as necessary is a great way to make sure that you both stay on the same page with how things are supposed to be done.

Pick the appropriate service provider:

Now, this is where I have an unavoidable bias but I will try to be fair and even-handed here (Full disclosure: I own a virtual assistant company that competes with the alternative outsourcing solutions I will discuss).

Referring back to your list, next to each task you are considering outsourcing write down all necessary skills, resources, and training.

If you have a recurring task of posting your blog articles onto various social media networks your qualifications may be:

• Ability to write well
• Knowledge of social media
• 4 hours of free time a week

For this task, you wouldn’t want to outsource to a non-English speaker and you’ll need someone with tech-savvy. Another task may be to create banner ads of various sizes promoting your new book. Your qualifications for this task may be:

• Knowledge of graphic design tools
• An eye for design that mirrors your own
• A quick turnaround time

For this task, you may want to be weary of a busy freelancer because they may be bogged down with other projects. Now, list requirements that may be more general and not task specific. Such as:

• Stability (will be in business next year)
• Availability (I can reach them when I need to)
• Dependable (don’t call out sick or “show up” late)
• Security (legal protection, bonded, security protocol)
• Budget criteria (how much do I have to spend on this project per month?)

Consider what type of outsourcing partner is most appropriate:

• Freelancers (eLance, oDesk, Rentacoder, Behance)
• U.S. virtual assistants (work from home, alone)
• Virtual assistant service (work as a team, work at an office)
• Foreign virtual assistant company (work as a team, work at an office)

To summarize the pros and cons, foreign will be cheap but not well-suited for complex assignments. A U.S. virtual assistant will be most expensive. A U.S. virtual assistant service will have middle of the road pricing and offer a wide breadth of services. A freelancer will be very good at one thing but won’t be able to assist with anything else.

Please see this chart for more information on the pros and cons of different outsourcing options.

In Part 3, the rubber hits the road and we will discuss best practices for beginning the outsourcing process and how to keep the relationship successful over the long-term.

Outsourcing can be intimidating to start and there are quite a few pitfalls along the way for beginners. Some people try hiring someone on Elance a few times, have a horrible experience, and, unfortunately, go back to doing everything themselves.

Drawing on my knowledge as the owner of an outsourcing company, I am starting a three part series of posts that will help you avoid many of the common mistakes, lay out a strategy that will give you the greatest chance of success, and help you get the most value out of outsourcing.

Part 1: Deciding what to outsource

Deciding what you will outsource is what determines the value you get out of outsourcing. All the leverage resides right here, before anything is even delegated. Many people forget this and don’t put enough thought into this all important planning phase and find that, though they are outsourcing quite a few projects, they aren’t getting any value out of it — they are just as busy and stressed as ever and their business is not moving forward any faster.

Investing a little thought and time into picking the right projects and tasks to outsource ensures that you get the most out of your outsourcing. This is the plan I generally propose:

Step 1: List off ALL tasks and projects within your business

Don’t just list off the projects you think are good candidates for outsourcing. Don’t just list off the ones you don’t feel like doing yourself. Just dump everything your business does into a list. Here are some prompts to help you get everything onto paper:

• Recurring tasks
• One off tasks
• Tasks required for new customers
• Marketing tasks
• Administrative tasks
• Bookkeeping tasks
• Advertising tasks
• Neglected tasks
• Procrastinated tasks
• Favorite tasks
• Tasks you hate doing
• Time-consuming tasks
• Fun tasks
• Tasks you’ve planned but haven’t executed
• Large tasks
• Small tasks
• Things you should do but don’t

Step 2: Can it be outsourced?

Go through your list and cross off those tasks that cannot be outsourced. Be careful that you are not crossing off tasks that could actually be outsourced – there are typically very few activities that need to be done by the business owner.

STEP 3: Determine your value criteria

What is valuable to you at this point? What matters most? Do you need more time? More money? Do you need to feel less stress? Do you need to move your business forward?

Pick your top two or three most important value criteria and rate each item on your list of projects on a scale of 1 to 10.

For instance:

Find new advertising opportunities
Time savings: 7
Make money: 9
Average: 8

Taking the average of those ratings should give you a good idea of which items you should begin outsourcing.

In Part 2 of this “Beginner’s Guide to Outsourcing” I will be discussing how to pick the best outsourcing provider and the preparation work necessary to making sure things go smoothly.

Burnout can become a downward spiral — you are burned out so you avoid your work, you feel guilty for avoiding work so more negative feelings are associated with work, making you more likely to continue avoiding work.

The typical advice for overcoming burnout is “take time off.” For some (most?) small business owners, that isn’t an option. Yes, they’d much rather be vacationing in the Caribbeans for a couple weeks but they have responsibilities that can’t be neglected. But that doesn’t mean you should have to continually fight your lack of motivation and force yourself to move forward inch by inch. That will make you miserable and contribute to more burnout in the future.

Here is my three step burnout busting process guaranteed* to get you back at the top of your game…

STEP 1: Mind hack: Imagine motivation.

This one may sound silly but I used it religiously in college to find motivation to study for exam after exam. When I found myself dreading the idea of cracking the books I’d simply imagine what it would feel like if I was motivated to study. I concentrate on what that feeling feels like and, within a minute or two, what do you know, I’d feel like studying! This mind hack leverages the fact that it is difficult to imagine a feeling without actually feeling it. After imagining what it feels like to be loving work for a couple minutes you should be able to easily move onto Step 2…

STEP 2: Read a book that gets you juiced.

I can only read “Blue Ocean Strategy” for about 15 minutes until my mind is reeling with ideas and I can’t wait to jump up and start getting things done. You probably have a book like that too. Whatever that motivating title is for you, grab it off the shelf and read until you start to feel energized. Then force yourself to keep reading for a few more minutes until you can’t wait to hop up and get something done. Once you are there, don’t get back to work quite yet…

STEP 3: Take a “working break.”

Rather than forcing yourself into doing the work you are dreading, search for something you can work on that inspires you or seems fun. Give yourself permission to postpone that work you are dreading. For some people, shifting from admin work to creative work will get them juiced. For others, who are burned about by tight-deadlines and hectic, stressful schedules, a few hours of mind-numbing data entry might do the trick. Whatever your case, try to find something you’d enjoy and dive in. By working well for a bit you’ll break free of inertia and find it easier to switch that energy and motivation to other work later.

Ready to get back to work? I’ll bet!

* Not really guaranteed.

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1. iAnnotate PDF or Goodreader for productive reading – There is no shortage of ebook apps but as small business owners, we need to be able to highlight and create notes so that we can pull out actionable information. iAnnotate has a great interface for that and Goodreader’s just awesome in general (though it lacks some of the UI flair of iAnnotate.
2. Instapaper for information processing – Information processing is not only important, it is essential to making it in the information age. When I come across something I read later, but shouldn’t read at that moment, I just hit “Read Later” on my browser and, whoosh, it is archived for later digestion.
3. Dropbox for file access – This one’s a nobrainer — cloud backup, file syncing between computers, and mobile access to files? Yes, please.
4. Calcbot for calculating – Big calculator that keeps a record of all your calculations via a “virtual tape” which you can then email to yourself.
5. Outliner for organizing thoughts and planning – If you like outlines, this app has no peer (though I believe an iPad version of Omnifocus Outliner is on its way…)
6. Popplet for visual thinking – I think this is an underrated app. Basically, it’s great for informal, visual thinking.
7. Ideawell for idea organization and prioritization – Got ideas? I think it is a common feature (flaw?) of small business owners that
8. Ego for stat checking – We all do it, no matter hard we try not to. At least you can check the big metrics from one app — Feedburner, Google Analytics, and Twitter followers, among others.
9. Pomodoro for productivity – If you are into it (the Pomodoro Method), this is the best iPad app for tracking. It’s actually refreshing that they didn’t try to work a tomato into the UI (though wood paneling was an odd choice
10. Omnifocus for task management – If you have a lot going on (and what small business owner doesn’t?) then a simple “to do” list will not do. I’m addicted to to-do apps, I’ve tried them all, and I prefer Omnifocus — the syncing with the Desktop app is flawless.
11. Plaintext for writing – It’s not often that I am using my iPad to create a presentable document so the feature set of Pages and similar apps is overkill. Usually, I’m just trying to get something out of my head and on record. For that, Plaintext is bee’s knees. It has all the features you’d want (Dropbox sync, folders, etc.) without any bloat.