My road to outsourcing.
When I started All the Admin, I’m not sure I realised just how much I could enrich my business by outsourcing.
On a practical level, outsourcing has allowed me to expand my business: I’ve been able to diversify the services that I offer, extend my ability to take on new clients, and create more time to zone in on the aspects of my business that I’m most passionate about.
Sounds great already, right? But my favourite gain from outsourcing goes beyond the practical elements of workflow and services— it’s the sense of community. The process of finding my associates was more than a search for employees. It was the first step in establishing what I like to call my VA family, which has become central to the ethos of All the Admin.
As a remote worker, it’s easy to feel like you’re taking on everything alone.
I definitely felt the strain of this early on in my business, as I come from a very different work environment. Before starting All the Admin, I worked in the TV industry, where I enjoyed the camaraderie of being on set, the collective excitement of working on location, the sense of building something as a team. That professional back and forth is so important and is something that can easily get lost in the shuffle as a VA… and it’s not surprising why! After all, the first steps to starting a VA business rely on you, your skills, and the computer screen that lets you get them out into the world. That setup doesn’t entirely lend itself to a lunchtime coffee with a co-worker! But as you settle into your business routine, you’ll likely realise how beneficial a team dynamic is for both the quality and reach of your work, as well as your own personal development (and sanity!).
It is totally understandable why you might get stuck doing it alone; taking the leap to outsourcing is a huge step forward, and requires a bit of confidence to invest in growing your business. In hopes of helping you find that confidence, I’ll give you a glance at my outsourcing journey, and a few tips I’ve developed along the way:
A huge push to hire my first associate was the ability to expand my services— specifically, Pinterest services. A few clients were asking about how to expand their presence on Pinterest— this wasn’t a service I had previously offered, but it was something I knew would compliment my offering for my creative clients, and is such a specialty that I knew I’d want support to develop it as part of my packages.
To begin, I kept my hiring process simple. I put an ad out in a Facebook group geared towards VA’s called VA Handbookers (which is also a great space for community involvement!). When writing this callout, I placed the focus on the kind of working relationship I wanted to establish with my associate, rather than just the skills I was in search of. I made it clear that I wanted to ensure we worked well together before releasing new services to my clients. By doing this, I gave myself the time and space to find the right associate for me and my VA family dynamic.
Through this post I found Lianne, my first associate and an extremely talented Pinterest guru. We then worked together to create new packages for my clients that focus on Pinterest services, seamlessly combining my business and the skills that Lianne brought to the table.
By bringing on Lianne before I launched these services, I pre-empted the burnout I could have run into had I attempted to do all of this myself. This is a really productive way to manage your schedule when introducing new associates and employees into your VA business, and is something I would highly recommend. Keep tabs on how your business is expanding, and start your outsourcing journey a few months before you think you’ll need the extra help— your future self will thank you.
The process of hiring my next associate, Lucy, played out a little differently. I put this down to my own tendency as a business owner to follow my instinct at every turn— if you’re similar, I would recommend the same! Lucy and I had some mutual contacts, and I had been following her socials for a little while. I reached out and we began a back and forth, where we quickly realised how similar we were. When we finally had a (virtual) face to face conversation, I was thrilled— my gut told me that I had found my social media associate! Finding Lucy was such an organic process, which really shows how valuable a sense of community can be. I get it, the idea of networking pops up so often that it can sound like a chore. But when you break it down, I found Lucy because she was part of my ‘network’. Having her on my radar was the first step to reaching out and building our fantastic working relationship, even while we’re both working from our own homes behind computer screens.
At the end of the day, outsourcing has created a network of support that proves vital to my business every day.
My ultimate recommendation? Put time into your network— this is where you’ll find the camaraderie your business needs to thrive!
If you have any questions or would like to discuss the road to outsourcing in more detail you can email me at stacey@alltheadmin.co.uk