Episode 8 - Outsourcing

Esther

Good morning and welcome to the Monday morning marketing podcast, I'm Esther.


Melanie

And I'm Melanie.


Esther

And today we're talking about outsourcing, a very new word to a lot of people, but it's something that I think everybody does to some extent or another. Melanie, what do you outsource?


Melanie

As much as humanly possible, I don't do any cooking, my husband does that, I don't do any shopping, my husband does that. In fact, the more I think about it, my husband does a lot, actually, but I also outsource, get my car fixed, getting my house clean to a certain extent as well, my windows I don't do those myself, I get somebody else to do them. I mean, outsourcing is just a part of life.


Esther

It is. And we were just discussing how, you know, we wouldn't go and cut our own hair, although my son, my youngest, decided to take the beard trimmers to his hair the other day and ended up doing himself an injustice with his haircut, so we had to take him to the hairdressers and get it fixed. But, yeah, there's photographs, there are photographs for his 18th birthday or his wedding day, and we will be sharing those for his embarrassment. But yeah, everything has a way of outsourcing. I mean, you know, get in touch with Melanie if you want to know how to find a man that will do all the cooking, shopping, the cleaning and everything else. Mine helps with a lot of that stuff. But I wouldn't say he does it all, although a lot of the DIY stuff around the house he would do, and that's, you know, I mean, if somebody asks me for a screwdriver to fix something, I'll hand them a knife because that's just the easiest way to do it, you know, instead of going to the shed to get the screwdriver, just use a knife. That's the way I would do it. He shouts at me for doing that, obviously, because you have tools for everything that you have to do as well, but when it comes to outsourcing like we were just saying, you know, getting the car washed, outsource it to our kids, that gives them life skills, that gives them, you know, sometimes pocket money depending on how bad the car is, maybe. But there's a lot of things in our businesses as well that we need to outsource or that we should at least consider outsourcing to free up our time to focus more on what we need to do within our business ourselves. So, Melanie, if you had a million euros right now or a million dollars or a million pounds, whichever is the highest, what would you outsource while you're lying on the beach?


Melanie

I would probably outsource finding content. More than I already outsource it, which is three Post Planner, I get somebody to look through Post Planner whilst I'm sitting on the beach.


Esther

Right. OK, a good plan and I mean, at the minute, at present, we probably both outsource our clients, we have an accountant, I wouldn't imagine, I wouldn't dream about putting in my tax return or my VAT return myself. I know I would just mess it all up and I also have a bookkeeper who keeps my books right and processes them and gives them to the accountant so that everybody is on the same page, but what else can we outsource in our business?


Melanie

Well, there is graphic design, there is website management, we could also hand over to other people, but at the end of the day, outsourcing is quite a personal thing, you have to build some sort of relationship with the person you're going to outsource to. It's all based on faith, trust, reputation and recommendation as well. A lot of people get outsourced work from recommendations, personal recommendations, and depending on who's recommending it, makes it more worthwhile. When we hear about influencer marketing and the influencer mentioning let's start buying this product is fantastic, is excellent, that's not as trusted as much as it used to be. I find a more personal recommendation or even from a smaller influencer, not necessarily, you know, a massive, well-known influencer, has more impact these days. So I think outsourcing is really a very personal thing, and I think that's why you can have a good look around, you can work out what each person's USP is and understand where they stand, what they represent, and if they are suitable for your business, then you can approach them.


Esther

Absolutely. And word of mouth is definitely still very strong when it comes to knowing who to go with. So when you're looking for an event planner, for example, you could put out feelers on LinkedIn, ask for recommendations on Twitter as well, or while you're attending another event, ask who helped organize it. All these things can really, really help you, but yes, as Melanie says, get recommendations, get references from the companies, the testimonials, definitely, and see where they have helped other people in the past. For example, ourselves, Melanie and I, we both work with social media so people can hand over their social media accounts to us and we will provide the content and well everything really.


Melanie

We can respond, we can create, we can curate, we're absolutely no competition to each other at all, are we Esther?


Esther

Absolutely not.


Melanie

Not even slightly.


Esther

And it's an easy way to free up two to three hours a day or a week of your own time within your business when you do that, another aspect that myself and my company, IPA Group do, is web management, web site management, so we will update your website, we can write blogs for you, definitely keep it secure. And just in general, free up your time so that you, for example, if you're looking for new clients, you have that time to go and look for the clients, or if you are in, let's say, sales, if you're selling a new product, you can find a product photographer to come and take photographs of your product so that they've seen in the best light so that they're interesting for people to look at on your social media and on your website, also videos, I mean, yes, we all have mobile phones, but that doesn't mean that we all know how to use them, and I, for one, will not go on to video myself using my phone because my hand wobbles and it just doesn't look right.


Melanie

Can I just can I just tell you there is such a thing as Gimbels. Yes. Gimbels, Esther.


Esther

I know Melanie. Moving on... I still like to have somebody else tell me oh you're standing in the wrong light or you know change maybe your head one way or the other.


Melanie

You've got to go with what your best Esther, and I mean, for a long time you try to be especially as a sole trader and as a small business, you try to be a little bit of everything to everybody and you very quickly realize you can't do everything by yourself.


Esther

Absolutely. There are not enough hours in the day to even try to do everything yourself, so whether it is outsourcing, you know, the painting of your house or the building of DIY furniture or, you know, there's somebody for everything and every job in this world, so you just have to look for it, and if it comes to, for example, digital products like what Melanie and myself offer, you don't even have to be in the same country as the person that you're outsourcing to, and sometimes that can make it easier.


Melanie

And you just reminded me you were saying about getting somebody to do your DIY, I had somebody do my IKEA. Yeah, yeah. We moved from one house to another, we set up all the units along the the side of the wall, took us two and a half days, OK, we moved three years later. One man came along, we thought he was mad, at least two of them. One man came along. How long do you reckon it took him? This is the same exact same thing.


Esther

Three hours.


Melanie

Exactly three hours, by himself!


Esther

Yeah, because he's trained in it, he knows how to do it for you and me it's like reading the manual, looking for the piece, reading the manual again, looking for the right piece, and, yeah, it's just not a good use of our time to be doing that, so when you're thinking of outsourcing, like Melanie says, look for recommendations, look for people that click with you and you click with them, you're not going to get along with everybody, sometimes it's OK to say no, and that goes to for the people who are accepting the outsourcing work, they might not be your ideal client to work with, so say no, walk away and find somebody that is.


Melanie

Yeah, I mean, there's nothing worse than working with somebody you can't get along with every single phone call, every single email makes you feel tense and anxious, so you've both got to you both got to want to work together and in fairness.


Esther

Absolutely. But yet the sky's the limit when it comes to what it is that you want to outsource, who it is that you want to outsource to. Definitely get recommendations, definitely see where you can save yourself time, and at the end of the day, even though it may cost you something to outsource, you will be making more money back when you're spending more time working in your business, it's something that you should really look into. That's it for today, I don't think there's any homework, is there, Melanie?


Melanie

Well, only if if you are in the market or looking to outsource, don't fall for the usual ploys, you know, by now and get two months off, that sort of thing just doesn't work, really do your research, sometimes there are some fantastic deals out there, but the best way to get personal recommendation.


Esther

Absolutely. And sometimes you could just be outsourcing to Abbott, which is, you know, bare all those things in mind. Thanks for joining us again today. And we'll be back for another episode of the Monday Morning Market podcast next week.


Melanie

Bye.