Hello from Bangkok!
Things have been a little quiet around here and that’s because I’ve been busy figuring out my life. Ha – not really an easy task. My plans keep changing, even though I announced some new plans. I’ve decided to hang around in Asia for a little longer, am going to head to Cambodia for a week (my favourite country in the world) and then base myself in Chiang Mai for 2-4 weeks to trial it out as somewhere to live. There’s a massive expat community there, so I’m curious to see how it goes for me. And then New York and Guatemala to volunteer.
There is a common misconception that small businesses do not have the resources to outsource, but this is simply not the case. I outsource as much of my work as possible because it makes my life easier. Even as a small business owner, it is a good idea to outsource payroll and other daily tasks to take some of the pressure off yourself. By hiring the right PEO, your business will end up saving money every month, which can help the business to grow and you to earn even more in profit. I highly recommend it if you are serious about expanding your small business.
One of my goals was to start outsourcing everything. It’s something I really believed in but my ex partner (business and relationship) was apprehensive about it. My VA has worked for me for almost two years and she’s so incredibly helpful to me. When the split happened, I decided I wanted to keep her working for me and only me. Because of the nature of my work, I didn’t want my partner to have a common assistant who might share contacts and my business with him.
Also because I taught him literally everything, it didn’t feel appropriate for him to potentially have access to my contacts still – I needed to protect my business. So, I asked my VA to discontinue working for my EX. She was more than happy to do so as I paid her more, gave her more regular hours and was the person who originally hired her.
As she would be down some income – whatever my ex paid her – I wanted to make it worth her while. As such, I decided to completely restructure my business. She would be doing a lot more tasks and being paid a lot more money.
Why Do I Want to Outsource Everything?
Because my time is my most precious asset and I don’t like trading it for money. While I tell people I have an online business, the truth is I am just an employee of my business. Most weeks I work between 20-40 hours, which maybe doesn’t seem like a lot for my income, but considering I want to volunteer FULL TIME in Guatemala, something had to change. By volunteering full-time in Guatemala I mean 8 hour days, 7 days a week with 22 days on and 8 days off. So, very, very, very full time. Also the volunteer accommodation doesn’t have electricity.. so that’s another challenge.
The first week of my goal to move towards ‘outsourcing everything’ is over and the results are FANTASTIC.
My Outsourcing Everything Fears:
I was worried. I was worried that I would end up spending too much on writing costs and for my VA. And truth be told, last week was VERY expensive for me… but I think it was worth it.
I was worried that I was giving up too much of my business and my VA perhaps could replicate it without me. However, she only knows 3/4 of the business so I don’t think she could (or would).
I was scared I’d make less money and be increasing my expenses – sounds terrible, right? Well… let’s look at what happened:
After a Week of Outsourcing:
*I spent over $550 in writer and VA costs. This is huge… huge. I mean $550 is what I used to earn a week and now I’m sending it away? But that was for over 45 hours of work. Would I want to sit there and pay myself $11 an hour for a full time job? Um, nope.
*I earned a LOT more money. Last week I did around $6,300 USD in work. Insane! If I could keep it up that would be some $25,000+ a month, USD! Amazing. And it was easy for me – not stressful at all! To be honest, I think part of the reason the week was so busy is that because I hadn’t done much the previous weeks as I was pretty heartbroken and confused, so I’m not sure what it will level out to be, but I was VERY happy.
*My VA is better at my job than I am… I am paying her an hourly rate, a per invoice rate and then also a commission per $1000 after the first $1000. This week she earned close to triple to what she would usually earn, plus her hourly wage was pretty close to $10USD. That’s amazing as she lives in the Philippines and originally bid on the job for $2.50 an hour. A 4x pay raise over the course of 2 years? Fantastic.
*The high outsourcing costs are WORTH IT. I earned more than usual, and while I spent a LOT, earning $$5,750 in a week (profit – expenses) with minimal hours put in (maybe around 10 as I was training her) = AMAZING. That’s an hourly wage of $575 USD. I can live with that.
So one week into outsourcing and I’m really excited to see where it goes. Obviously I have good weeks and slow weeks so it will be good to see the overall trend for next month.
As I basically didn’t work at all for two weeks of this month, my monthly total is not so impressive but thankfully all my VA’s hard work last week is certainly help it level out.
So there we go… my goal of outsourcing everything is going fantastically! I wish I’d done this a year earlier…
Do you outsource anything? What and how much? Let me know in the comments below 🙂