What You Should (and Shouldn't) Outsource To Grow Your Business

Let's make it clap! Let's make it clap! It's Q & A Tuesday time!

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This question comes come from Olivia and Olivia writes, Q: "Hi, Marie, I've been loving all the wisdom you share in your videos and hope you can help me with the dilemma that I've been facing lately? I'm in the process of building a business I'm super passionate about, Roystonwriting.com and in a few months I'll have enough money saved up to devote myself full-time to its launch. If I'm careful with my budget that is, so far I've invested money in educating myself with programs, not to mention reading tons of books. Now, I'm getting to the point where I have to start making decisions about things like getting professional photos taken or hiring someone to do a few videos for my website, or figuring out a way to do these things myself. My question is is there a reliable way to know what's worth outsourcing and what I should just do myself when money is tight? You're the best, Olivia.”

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A: How great is that question! In general you want to keep your business as lean and 

mean as you can. Especially in the beginning, so you want to get as much cash flow coming 

in and keep your expenses very low. Knowing what to outsource and what not to is really 

about four key things; first, you want to hire out what simply can't be done by you. You have no capabilities and you have no interest. 

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Let me tell you a little story about how I hired things out when I was first designing my book, So Make Every Man Want You, How To Be So Irresistible You Barely Will Keep From Dating Yourself started off as a self-published book. And, I remember thinking to myself you know, "I'm not a designer and I'm not a copyeditor, and I really need to hire those things out." So I budgeted and here is the vintage version of my book. Not many people have seen this puppy! 

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So, I got like a little stock photo and I got a designer, and I really told them exactly how I wanted this thing to look because it was important for me to have a super-high quality.  I wanted this puppy to look just as good as any book that was in Barnes Noble. And, this is the modern day version of Make Every Man Want You in bookstores all across America. But wait there's more! Yes, this is the French version of Make Every Man Want You, oui, oui! And yes, this is the Chinese version of Make Every Man Want You because I don't know how to do a Chinese accent. Oui!

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Two, you want to hire out simple tasks that really should be done by someone else like customer service or even a personal assistant. That'll really free up your time to focus on the big items. Also, remember in our global marketplace it is so easy to find fantastic talent for reasonable prices. Two places that I can recommend for you are oDesk.com and HireMyMom.com. Three, remember that it's totally okay to do things yourself if it sounds like fun, you have an interest, and it's going to feed your soul and your bigger vision.

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You may have heard some other advice about outsourcing. For example, if you earn about $50 dollars an hour in your business activities. Other business gurus may suggest that if you have something on your plate that you can pay someone else to do for say $20 bucks an hour, that you definitely should pay that person. Here's why I disagree, slightly with that. 

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Another story from Marie Land: It was 2008 when I first started experimenting with video marketing and you can see a lovely little example of that, my older videos. Right here! I didn't have fancy editors. I didn't have a film crew. I didn't do any things that I did now. I started with just my Mac and a flip camera, and editing myself on iMovie. Why? Because I really wanted to learn it, it brought me pleasure. I wanted to understand how to craft a story. I wanted to be able to upload videos on the fly and I wasn't sure if this medium was right for me. 

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So rather than hire someone to do it and I could have technically afforded it at that point. I figured I wanted to do it myself because I really wanted to learn. So for me, shooting and editing my own videos in the beginning was a fantastic break from all the writing that I normally do for my business.

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So while I understand that philosophy and agree with it sometimes, it's important to hang onto things that sound like fun and you actually have an interest in. Finally, number four is you have to trust your gut to know the difference. It is vitally important as an entrepreneur to understand how to allocate your resources so you can stay profitable not only for the short-term but for the long-term, too.

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So Olivia, that's the A to your Q! Congratulations on your new business and thank you everybody for watching! If you're digging these videos, give it a little thumbs up! If you really dig these videos, you should share it with all of your friends in social media land.

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Yay!! And of course, if you're not yet on the newsletter list, come on over to marieforleo.com, jump on it! I will see you next time. Thanks again for watching.

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Hey, RHH LI.VE is coming up! Are you coming? Go to rhhlive.com for details.

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So, I'm going to tell you a little question. Oop, I'm going to tell you a little question! I'm going to tell you that question! I don't ask questions, I tell you questions!