What does it look like to take a slightly elevated view to your fledgeling freelance business or idea on lifestyle design? If you’ve been following along at all, I’ve taken the resources Source Control, Work the System, and the Under 30 Rockstar Business Series and applied their advice toward one of the core tactics of lifestyle design; life business automation, and outsourcing. I’ve found they go hand in hand, and would argue that outsourcing is really an extension of the overall automation system you can set up to free your lifestyle and charge your business for growth and idea testing. Amazingly powerful, it’s what you’re missing in the move from grunt to owner. Here’s my real life experience.

Outsourcing Results

I detailed the automation process theory in a previous post, but it boils down to a lot of upfront work (that’s just reality) breaking down tasks that are worthwhile and capable of being automated, and then documenting the exact steps to accomplish those functions. My tasks in question were related to my IT business which right now consists of web development services and mostly mac support. Although my IT services won’t be a residual income producer, (I hope future information based products will be) I needed a business playground to test outsourcing with. Results? Better than I hoped.

VA Search, VA Found

I searched through several VA directories online (Google “virtual assistant directories”) and assessed them by their website design, and advertised prices. I’m cheap so I wasn’t going over $5 an hour. I shot the admin contact a quick prewritten e-mail (edited from Source Control) if they made my snap judgement for being a qualified virtual assistant. The e-mail wasn’t anything special but I specifically asked for a 10 hour trial, so I knew exactly what I was getting into. The other search I ran was Craigslist for the cities that were usually listed on the VA directory websites. I searched for “VA”‘ and responded with the same prewritten note. I received about 10 out of 15 e-mail replies. It was pretty easy to scratch off anybody that came back with $15 an hour price tags or completely broken English. I narrowed it down to 3 candidates, and sent them all different “dummy” tasks…just to see who would jump on them and how their writing skills were. One company stood out (Cubesquare Informatics), from a Manilla Craigslist ad I responded to. The rest is history…we worked out a PayPal payment with specific details and a 10 hour trial. Hourly cost, $3.

I wrapped my head around IT Arsenal being a launching platform for things to come. I’ve had this passion to help people with their technology all my life, but until I “owned” the business instead of “ran” it, I never realized the potential.

VA Managed, Business Automated (mostly)

It’s all in the documentation, I won’t try to beat this horse again, so here’s the specifics of how it went down. I have one task tracking google spreadsheet with task titles on them, then for each task I breakdown the steps in detail or link to other documents (mindmaps, screen casts, whatever flavor of instruction works best) that in detail describe how to do that task and what is expected as a result. The document is written so any techy off the street could accomplish the goal. I request an e-mail before my VA starts the task telling me in his words, what the task is about, and at the end of the task when it’s finished. Below are snap shots of both so you can absorb how this works in real life.

What sucks is this takes time to set up, what’s awesome is this actually works. (and is repeatable) I went from grunt worker in my own freelancing nonsense to feeling like CEO of a tech support and web design company. It’s not as glamorous as that, but my eyes are opened to employee management, and working on my business not in my business. I haven’t blown apart ALL my IT tasks yet for outsourcing or automation, but I’ve successfully outsourced and automated finding gigs online, and for the cost, I don’t have to go hunt down work again. I “get” it, holy crap, that’s the difference between owning a business and running one.

2 Weeks of VA testing later, I have converted myself from “do it all grunt” in my own freelancing business to CEO, at least in my mind. The big ticket here is perspective, again I find perspective is paramount to a lot of things in business. As an entrepreneur I have a hundred ideas a minute, with this system in place and a front name (IT Arsenal in my case) I have a platform to move forward instead of stagnate. For instance, after I finish redoing www.ryanchristophersbyob.com and www.triesterphoto.com (two recent clients), I’m going to take time to break down even more how I build a site so I can offload that many more steps to a VA and focus on an information product to guide people who aren’t backing up their computer to do so. I would never have thought to attempt this if half the IT business processes weren’t offloaded to automated processes or a virtual assistant.

The impact is huge, in real life it hits me like running a computer application. Run task 002, IT Arsenal Gig Finder. VA spends 4 hours sending out 100 customized e-mails on job boards, costs me $12 dollars. I pick 2 of the 12 potential gigs, roughly 2k worth of work. VA manages x, y , and z of task 003, THIS WEBSITE while I make the important decisions, etc.

I have a platform in place, so I won’t be going at it all willy nilly, I’ll be writing down the procedures, quickly and concisely, ones I can repeat and update as I’ll undoubtedly have another business idea or direction in the near future…stop starting from square one each time you haven an epiphany, have good documentation and passion. I’m working on moving swiftly as well, I have a tendency to harp on the details. I’m eager to finish with these two clients, and actually looking forward to working on more documentation. Sounds bizarre, but it’s addicting once you realize the productivity. It literally does feel a lot like the business is automated. So while the business is “maintaining” I can work on growing it (offering more products, easier web design options for small businesses, screen casting services, etc.) I’ve decided to do it this way because in todays digital world you can test an idea for profitability and usefulness in a matter of weeks (more on that as I move to the next stage, producing income through easily managed businesses). It’s simply not worth it to crack up a brilliant idea, put months of R & D into it and then realize your product is gold but your target market is poor as dirt…or any other number of things that kill good ideas. I’m all about (and unless I’m getting it wrong, so is lifestyle design)…creating streams of income that you manage, not find yourself in the trenches of.

More Real Life at thelifedesignproject.com

• Finished reading Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, started Getting Real by 37 Signals. (set this goal, read 10 pages a day, it’s like paying yourself first for knowledge)
• Researching effective copy, sales page design, and PDF guidebook writing skills.
• Researching testing niche product ideas.
• Still re-learning how to check my e-mail twice a day and work in blocks.
• Loving the contacts I’ve made by simple reaching out, commenting and creating with people. (Thanks David, Cody, Greg)
• Working on a Resources page, even though I think they are a dime a dozen.
• Enjoying helping people with their technology more than ever, need help? www.itarsenal.com

What are you working on?