Stop doing everything poorly

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
I recommend to many high income professionalsand entrepreneurs, especially business owners and executives,
if they want to level up theircredibility in a marketplace, if they
want to become an authority, theycannot try to do it on their own.
First off, most experts don't dothe work themselves. They guide and
lead in a strategic way the workof other people. And that's what your

(00:23):
client is going to expect. So, whether you're a copywriter, a marketer,
a subject matter expert, or somebodyelse who wants to lean on their
knowledge to create influence in a marketplace, You've got to pay close attention.
You're not going to be able todo it on your own. I'm justin
hit with ad briefings, copywriting tips, and inside strategic relations. Now.

(00:44):
I've been doing a lot of comboepisodes because a lot of what I talk
about influences the sale of words itselfor strategic communications, and also influences your
ability to get more done. Solet's look at this from a perspective of
how do we position ourselves as anexpert in the marketplace and legitimately get more
done. Well. We see thisin outsourcing. I wrote a program called

(01:08):
staffing arbitrage, and it specifically washelping clients in order to build up their
business quickly with temporary teams. Now, I started writing this back when outsourcing
was just getting started, back inthe nineties, and it was basically about
hiring qualified contractors. Whether it's anemployee, whether it's a vendor, whether

(01:29):
it is an outsourced team in anothercountry, it doesn't really matter. Hiring
them on purpose to facilitate growth inyour business, growth in your position in
a marketplace, and ultimately growth asa result of the implementation of resources.
See, outsourcing isn't about how muchit costs. Outsourcing isn't about what people
do. Outsourcing is very often aboutbecoming more strategic and delivering the solutions that

(01:53):
you offer. So let's say you'rean architect. As an architect, you
have a primary skill of architectural drawings, whether they're cad or whether it's researching
old designs and remodeling them for currentstandards and rules. It doesn't matter what
that is. That's probably the verymost important thing you do. It's what

(02:14):
you're comfortable with. It's the defaultposition for many entrepreneurs or business owners to
do what they're comfortable with. Yetthat business requires like any other business,
marketing, public relations, it requirescustomer service, it requires following up on
emails, tax related items, doingbookkeeping, all these other items. If
you try to do what the typicalDIY person does and try to get good

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at all of these areas, what'sgoing to happen is you're going to be
a flaming mediocrity, just an exampleof a mess. There's just going to
be constant fires, There's going tobe constant frustrations, miss deadlines. If
you're able to outsource, however,you outsource hiring an accounting company or a
bookkeeping firm, hiring a marketing companyor a marketing agency, just simply not

(03:02):
doing certain things. By using softwareautomation, you're going to always be in
a better position. See, youdon't need to know how to do the
technical elements of what you're doing.Another program I talk about podcasting for profits.
Primarily that program is about using audioand video in order to reach more
qualified buyers in your marketplace. Well, you don't know how need to know

(03:24):
how to edit a video or editaudio or write a script. Somebody can
do that for you. But whatyou do need to know is is to
focus on content that generates leads sothat you can offer more in depth sessions
in the form of a consultation,in the form of a meeting or a
discovery day, or as paid consultations, even webinars, because your expertise and

(03:50):
value to that marketplace is far beyondthe commodity skill of editing and uploading videos
and writing descriptions. Now I writethe descript I write outlines. I involve
myself because that's how I stimulate mybrain to stay focused on the outcome this
recording. Right now, I haveon my screen the outline of what I'm

(04:11):
producing, the gist of our presentationtogether. So a lot of you folks
have been thinking about getting help,a virtual assistant, hiring an assistant,
hiring somebody on staff, even hiringsomebody who can do the exact same thing
you do so that you can leveragetheir time and generate additional passive income.
Now we know it's not passive becauseyou've got to manage people, and that's

(04:31):
probably the biggest fear. But Iessentially I'm right. I have an outline
up on my screen, and I'mjust going through the outline, giving you
the insights, giving you the tipsgiving you the strategies, helping you understand
that if you're going to do thisall on your own, there's a lot
of work that you might not evenknow exist. It's going to be on
your shoulders, a constant pressure,a constant frustration. You may even feel

(04:56):
like a fraud because in your corearea of expertise not be able to give
it it's all now. Most peopleI work with, they have full time
jobs, or they're already running abusiness that's demanding on their time. They
say, how can I produce morewith less input? That's not a very
useful question. They're really saying ishow can they put less into it and

(05:18):
get the same or better results?And the only way they're going to be
able to do that is to findadditional resources to supplement, compliment, or
otherwise augment what they're already doing well. This means you need to know what
you do well versus what you're notdoing well, and then ultimately drive forward
a system that makes this run onautopilot so that you can get a little

(05:41):
bit of relief. This isn't abouthiring somebody so you can sit on the
beach and drink martinis. This isn'tabout socializing and living the experience of business
and not getting in the details becauseyou've got someone else taking care of it.
I will tell you from my ownpersonal experience. I've been ripped off
by bookkeeper cpa'sw I've been ripped offby employees in house, staff out of

(06:03):
house. There's always somebody looking toget a piece of your action. But
as long as you're focusing on theimportant and valuable actions that are necessary to
grow your business, whether you dothe work or somebody else, you can
move towards an environment. Now,I'm not going to pitch you on a
lifestyle. I'm not going to pitchyou on things being perfect and money just

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rolling in while you sleep. Thosethings can happen. But the truth of
it is is you're going to havefrustrations and challenges. It's just are you
growing and getting bigger and better frustrationsthat have higher upside potential. So if
you are doing podcasts, for example, or speaking at events in order to

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find an audience and sift and sortand find decision makers who can say yes
to what it is that you haveto offer, you might benefit from somebody
who's doing booking, somebody who mightbe researching the right audiences, somebody who
might be doing fall up mailers andoffers, somebody who writes those that copies,
so that you can have an offerthat drives people from sitting in an
event and listening to you to raisingtheir hand and then joining you for a

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paid consultation or a consulting program ora coaching program or something that's a multi
day event. I've seen roofing contractorspresent at a trade show and then have
follow up to everybody who came throughthe booth, and then segmented that audience
between people who had older homes andpeople who are building new homes, and
then go through all that back endstuff. And the guys who put on

(07:34):
the roof only know how to puton roofs. The guy who owns the
company only knows how to put ona roof. All this other stuff is
taken care of in his marketing systemsand how he's leveraged other people's skills,
talents, abilities, and time inorder to grow his roofing business. Now
they have a series of YouTube videosthat demonstrate the same things that he was

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demonstrating at these trade shows. Andnow he doesn't even to go to the
trade shows if he doesn't want to. However, he still goes to the
trades shows with a new mindset.And this new mindset is to ask people
what do they want in a roof, What are they looking for, what
are they trying to avoid. He'sdiscovered that the majority of his buyers want
who already have an existing home,who's out of a certain age, so

(08:18):
the buyer's age and the homes age. They want to prevent leaks. Some
people just want the roof to stopleaking. Some people want the roof to
look a certain way. He's ableto segment up these audiences and then he
applies his staff to write letters andfollow up and Facebook campaigns and follow up
ad campaigns. He's actually doing morework now than when he was just knocking

(08:39):
on doors the left to the right, to the front to the back of
the houses. He was replacing roofs. He's gone past doors, the little
plugin signs out in the front ofthe yard, and he's able to have
a steady stream of high value customerscoming to him day after day. Because
again he didn't rely on just himdoing it all himself. He didn't ask

(09:00):
the question, oh, everybody's chargingso much Listen, everybody charges market rate
when you buy. And let's talkabout buying procedure, because I'm a big
controls and procedures guy. If youhave a procurement method of buying, you're
going to get three to five differentquotes. You're going to have an idea
of what the market price is.You're going to know for every hour that
you have on your team, thatyou're going to have a certain amount of

(09:24):
contributed overhead, and that you're goingto have a certain amount of value as
far as what they're doing, andthat has to be at the same or
above the value you were able tocreate. Now a lot of us have
to admit that we're actually in theway of our successes. We're working in
the business rather than working on thebusiness. And often after years, many
of the business owners and executives I'veworked with, they figure out that they

(09:46):
have not been progressing. They aren'tkeeping up with inflation, they aren't keeping
up with rising labor costs, theyaren't keeping up with competitive changes and advantages
in the marketplace that other people areacquiring because they've been working in the business.
Too scared to hire an assistant,too scared to hire a part time
person, they've been watching YouTube videostrying to figure out how to edit video

(10:07):
or edit audio. A lot ofwhat I do is about you packaging some
of the knowledge you have in away that gets people to raise their hand
and say they want more or tobring to you a specific project because they
know you are the credible expert.You are the person to turn to,
You are the person to ask questions. Now, if there's a point,
if you're dealing with consumers that you'regoing to have to go get on media

(10:28):
and get interviewed, or you're gonnaneed to have a spokesperson. You're going
to need to do trade shows andevents. You're going to need to do
demonstrations. If that's not your skillset and you just want to do the
thing the business does rather than marketingthe business, then you will be stuck.
You will be frustrated, you'll beannoyed, you'll be challenged around every
corner because you're just holding it tooclose. If you want to build something,

(10:52):
I'm not saying you have to havea big team. What I am
saying is is you have to havethe right people in the right place,
all working within the ecosystem of yourbusiness to generate more revenue, more profits
than you're putting out. Now,you're creating jobs for people. There's a
lot of folks out there that theywant to work for somebody else. They
want to have the stability of acompany that's growing. They want to work

(11:16):
with a leader like you. Andso when you go hire them, whether
you're hiring them from India, Philippines, Brazil and by the way, these
Fortune one hundred companies I've worked withover time, they are hiring people all
around the world as part of theirstrategy, not part of losing American jobs.
If you want to create an opportunityfor Americans and the people in your
community. Now I have customers allover the clients all over the world,

(11:39):
and I encourage you to build local. But if you don't have the talent
local, there's no sense you learninghow to do it or getting someone on
your team to learn how to doit. There's an unlimited supply of other
people's labor. The key is andthe strategy is, is to understanding the
cost benefit analysis. So when wetalk in thefving arbitrage program, we talk

(12:01):
about selling ahead of your labor supplybecause we want to have a pipeline of
valuable customers who trust you over anybodyelse. They want to do business with
you rather than anybody else in themarketplace. Building up that demand, you
can even create a standard where yousubcontract other individuals to deliver your standard.

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I share the story about how Iwhen I had the computer consulting business and
we moved to being an integrator,I had twenty seven subcontractors working for me
from as far south as North Carolinaall the way up to Pennsylvania, and
they were all serving my customers whoI brought on board. And many of
these companies love the fact that Iwould bring them a project that was specifically

(12:43):
suited for their business, and I'dput them in a good team. I'd
put them on a good project plan. I'd take care of all the project
management and overhead, and they couldhave ten to one hundred employees out on
a site, going from site tosite doing the work, because again they
were better at the logistics than Iwas. They could deliver the network installs,
they could deliver the computer integration,they could deliver boxes of white box

(13:07):
built computers. They could get thestuff done on site inventories we were doing.
And then my clients loved it becausethey dealt with one person, and
if something happened on a job site, I could swap out a contractor.
All these contractors, twenty seven ofthem, were running around working on my
behalf. Now did it cause meto have more labor? Yes, For

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ten years I worked three shifts andended up with medical issues because of it.
So I had a good strategy.I wasn't respecting my own health and
well being. I built a tremendousamount of wealth for my clients, for
my contractors, for the folks thatI worked with, because again I didn't
hold everything so close and believe thatI had to do it all myself.

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I helped people do what they didbest, and I positioned them in the
right place so that there was enoughmargin for me to cover my work and
there was plenty of margin for themto continue to work with me. And
in fact, when I had thedot com crashed and I had some challenges,
especially the amount of customers who failedto pay, I was able to

(14:11):
make good on my contractors. Nowunderstand this clearly. The contract I had
with these subs was if I don'tget paid, they don't get paid.
So I had strategies towards the endthere to make sure everybody got paid,
because you do have a greater responsibilitywhen you're hiring people. You're not responsible
for their decisions, but you areresponsible to keep that very best talent working

(14:33):
for you rather than somebody else.But here's the long story short. I
ended up transitioning to a business developmentmanager or business development consultant for the key
client, the key subcontractors I had, and for me, I had very
little transition problem when it came tolosing pretty much everything due to the dot

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com. Now, yes, Itell the story how I was homeless and
I slept on my brother's couch,but I turned that was more my mindset
than it was opportunities in the marketplace. And you have to understand this.
We're in the people business. We'resolving problems for clients. We're helping people
grow, and by doing this theright way, they see us as an
expert. They have evidence of ourexpertise, they can see our leadership,

(15:18):
they can see that if they hireus over anybody else, they're going to
have the results that they are lookingfor. And so if you want to
do it all yourself, that's great. I highly encourage my competitors to do
it all themselves and to try tobe the center of attention and try to
be the cog and the bigger wheel. But instead, if you want personal
freedom, financial freedom, and theability to make decisions, you need a

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team. That team, again canstart out with a personal assistant, a
bookkeeper, an accountant, and alawyer. These people don't have to be
on full time. They just haveto be available when you need them.
Now. In summary, if you'retrying to go at it on you your
own I don't even want you asa client because you're going to have that
frustration and that struggle. Instead,I like people who are willing to invest

(16:07):
in their business and willing to grownot only the availability of their own time,
but the successes and growth of theirteam. You'll end up with a
core team. Sometimes it's only threeto five people. When I talk to
copywriters, we talk about becoming afrom freelance copywriter to become a small agency.
A lot of times that's three tofive people, mostly part time people.

(16:30):
But it is a different perspective.I don't want to say your lifestyle
is going to get you know,you're gonna have more free time and you're
gonna get more money and stuff likethat. Even though that does happen,
there is a transition period then,as you get the systems in place,
as you get the controls in placeto know what works and what doesn't work,
as you get the measures in placeto make sure that you're on track,

(16:51):
you will get results. I tellyou about the horror stories in my
own life, because I don't talkabout the horror stories of my client's life.
Because we're about solving these problems,these issues will come up. Your
fears are well founded. However,doing it all by yourself, you're limited
to twenty four hours in a day. If you add a team, you
can make that amount of time availableunlimited. And then you can also gain

(17:15):
from their specialized skills, just asyour clients gain from you. And this
is what I don't get, andI'm going to wrap up with this.
There are people who will go throughall the trouble to get me on the
phone for a paid consultation, andthen I'll set up a strategy call or
set up some kind of call tomove forward, and I may ask them
to get three or four people ontheir team to do things that that person

(17:37):
just told me they hate getting done. You know, somebody tell me all
they hate bookkeeping. They can't neverget it done on time. Their tax
returns are never on time. Isay, okay, let's get you an
accounting firm to do that for you. Oh no, I can't have them
do that because I need to knowwhat's going I want to just reach through
the phone and slap them in theface. Because if they're a subject matter

(17:59):
expert and they're expecting clients to hirethem because of their subject matter expertise,
yet they won't give up something thatthey do poorly for someone else to do
it for them who has subject matterexpertise, then they're really in the wrong
business. They need to go workfor somebody else. Because the foundation of
growth and the evidence of your valueis in your ability to do the things

(18:21):
that other companies can't do, todo the things that your clients are not
willing to do, to do thethings that your clients are not capable of
doing, and you provide so muchvalue in that that you level up that
client. And so when people cometo me and they say, all my
clients are getting great successes, I'mdelivering results for them, but my company

(18:42):
isn't growing, or my margins aretoo small, or my taxes are too
high, or I can't ever getanything done, or my marriage is falling
apart. I say, look,you've got to step back. Let's break
your business down into the smallest parts. Let's identify people who can do this
work better than you. Let's getocusedon measurable outcomes rather than who's doing what,

(19:04):
and ultimately grow that way. Andthey say to me, oh,
it seems like a lot of extrawork. Well, you're failing right now,
and so maybe failing is your default. Maybe failing is what you feel
comfortable with. We either got toget uncomfortable with failing and start getting results,
or maybe you're in the wrong placenow. Again, it sounds harsh,

(19:26):
but you've got to ask yourself.Are you doing your best work?
Are you working on the business ratherthan in the business. Are you ultimately
growing the business with measurable and tangibleresults. It's so hard to justify the
hiring of someone if you don't knowthe value of your own time. So
if you take nothing away of whatI've discussed here today, find out what

(19:48):
the value of your time is,and then any work that isn't up to
that value go ahead and hire somebodyelse. It could be mowing your grass,
housekeeping, It could be you know, going out to dinner a couple
nights a week so that you canspend time focused on your family. If
you're ready for results, if you'reready to start getting more from your business

(20:08):
or more from your executive level orsubject matter expertise, contact me at www
dot justin hit dot com. Askyour sincere questions on the contact page.
Now, if you visit Adbriefings Copywritingtips dot com, oh AD Briefings Copyrighting
Tips newsletter, you can learn aboutstrategic communications and using words itself. That

(20:33):
website is www dot Adbriefings dot codot uk. Now, if you're interested
in more strategic strategies for managing otherpeople and getting the maximum results from those
individuals while you're a subject matter expertiseserving clients, then you're going to visit
www dot inside strategic relations dot com. Both of those last two sites have

(20:55):
free newsletters. You don't even haveto pay to get started. You can
read the backlog of the podcast aswell as free newsletters to kind of get
some ideas about how you're selling yourselfshort by not knowing your value by not
focusing on the outcomes rather than theincome the inputs, and then missing the
opportunity to leverage your time to growwhat you're doing, to grow your business,

(21:18):
to grow your executive position, toincrease and improve your career. Thanks
for listening. I'm looking forward tohearing your comments and at your questions because
this is an exciting place in yourlife where this a little transition which is
basically getting the right people inserted intowhere your organization's going is going to just
transform what you're doing. I'd loveto hear your success stories as well.

(21:41):
Thanks for listening. I'm just inhit with Inside Strategic Relations and the AD
Briefings Copyrighting Tips newsletter