25 – How to decide which tasks to outsource

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Ryan: I’m Dr. Ryan Debell. This is the Health Fit Business podcast episode number 25 and what we talked about in this episode is how to decide which tasks to outsource. You can multiply your productivity and multiply your time by delegating and outsourcing tasks that do not require you to directly do them. We always want to do everything in your own business. You always wanna make your own photos and edit your own videos and make your website and do every little particular thing but that is such a waste of your time. So, if you didn’t already listen to episode 24 which is last week on auditing your own daily tasks and habits. I highly recommend you listen to that because it is what helps you determine which tasks to delegate. So, in the episode, we get into more depth on knowing which tasks you should be doing that with and how as well as giving examples about how I’ve done that with the Movement Fix and how Anthony has done that in both of his, in his clinic as well as with pureWOD. So, we get into those specific details and I think you guys will find that once you take step into hiring people to do work for you that you don’t necessarily need to be doing yourself, you will make leaps and bound. So without further ado, let’s listen in to episode 25.

Ryan: Welcome back to the…  

Anthony: This is the Health Fit

Ryan: I tryna’ lead you in… to follow the words…  

Anthony: I thought you… And I spoke and now you’re supposed to continue with the Health Fit

Ryan: Biz. Ness. Podcast.

Anthony: Podcast. We’re rusty ‘cause we just recorded an episode.

Ryan: It’s almost like we batch recorded this. It’s almost like that’s more efficient.  So, episode number…

Anthony: Show notes.

Ryan: 25. This is episode 25. We now have 25 listeners. We gain one. Thank you to all 25 of you. This is amazing.

Anthony: Thank you Laura in Cincinnati.

Ryan: What? Where do you even come up with this?

Anthony: It popped up in my news feed.

Ryan: Yeah. It pops up on your news feed like…

Anthony: My Health Fit Business bulk recording dashboard.

Ryan: In the future? It’s also a crystal ball. It tells me who’s gonna be the new person in three weeks when I post this.

Anthony: Anyway, we talked about last time how to assess daily tasks and what you should be doing and if you should automate, eliminate, or delegate any of these things. And since then, we had tons of questions about how…  

Ryan: You’re just like being… You’re just lying. There will be a lot of questions.

Anthony: I’ve had yet.

Ryan: In the past?

Anthony: We’re anticipating a lot of the questions after that episode. The week in between. Okay.

Ryan: How do you decide what task to outsource?

Anthony: Outsource which should be really delegated and that’s what delegating is as outsourcing it. So, there’s a lot of things that should be taken into account here. And this thing is especially when you’re going from very very small business. It’s very difficult to outsource things and to delegate them.

Ryan: Yeah because you don’t wanna pay someone to do it. You just wanna do it because it’s free. I mean but it’s not really free.

Anthony: No, no, no.

Ryan: It’s actually very expensive.

Anthony: Yeah. And so last episode we’re talking about things like, so let’s just chat about something that we’ve outsourced recently delegated  that we shouldn’t have been doing which is…

Ryan: Do you wanna go first?

Anthony: Yeah.

Ryan: Or are we doing…?

Anthony: Yeah. Our image creation like why are we doing this? Just because it was quite uneasy and we had too many things going on.

Ryan: It really wasn’t easy. You know what I mean? Like it was because we were, I mean it’s almost we’re kinda too lazy to like… I think when people wanna outsource things it’s hard to like teach someone how to do it and get it a set up. So, it seems like it’s easier and faster to just like, “Uhh! I’ll just do it this time.”

Anthony: Yeah and that time turns into too many times.

Ryan: Exactly.

Anthony: And then you start, like you… We probably gonna could have recorded ten more episode of this podcast if we just didn’t do the images. How stupid is that?

Ryan: That’s really dumb because…

Anthony: No one beside the AI and it’s coming in the future…

Ryan: And it’s not even ready yet. AI is not even ready.

Anthony: No. It’s supposed in the future. It can’t record this podcast but us. So, we can’t outsource that. We have to do this and we like doing it and it’s fun for us. But the graphic design is not necessarily fun for us and we don’t have to do it and it takes up our time to not do the podcast. So, like you said I think this is large resistance to two things – one, having to pay people no one likes to do that especially when they’re very very small like “We have no income.” And I guess our books are coming in and all ten listeners have bought them which is basically…

Ryan: Can I say that we sold many more than ten books, okay? Don’t under sell us, Anthony.

Anthony: But yeah. It’s tough when you have revenue coming in. A lot of times I think like, “Oh it would be a good thing to pay somebody.” And also like you said, it’s a lot of a work to set someone up to have it, have them do it your way but the thing that you have to think about is that either you would be doing the work all the time, every time you have an episode, or you do the work once  up front, train someone well and then make him do it forever. The thing about that it’s a one time investment versus a continuous obligation.

Ryan: Can I give another example?

Anthony: You may, yes.

Ryan: Thank you for permission, Doctor. This is a great, this is a, well, so by the way side note on what you mentioned. We were paying people to do tasks for us for Health Fit Biz and we were not even generating revenue. It was just we knew that we need to pay people to do this in order for us to have to time to do what’s required to do a good job with Health Fit Biz. So, for the Movement Fix one of the things that I, so I have to quite a bit of marketing for live events as much as I would love to say that I just announced Ryan’s going to this city and you know there’s a 50% waiting list.

Anthony: 15,000 sell out crowd arena.

Ryan: 15,000. I now have the arenas you know like anyways, I’m not…

Anthony: Tony Robbins of it.

Ryan: I’m no Biebs! I’m no Biebs!

Anthony: Tony Robbins experience your life.

Ryan: Well, you know what? Tony Robbins has a lot of paid…

Anthony: Dr. Ryan experience…

Ryan: So, Tony Robbins actually runs a lot of paid Facebook ads. Have you noticed that?

Anthony: No. I don’t… I’ll probably will click on it now and then I’ll see 50,000 of them.

Ryan: Right. I get a lot of ads in my… I see a lot of Tony’s Facebook ads. So and that’s because…

Anthony: You bring all trampoline to your…

Ryan: I’ve never been…

Anthony: Live events?

Ryan: Yeah. Pump the limp. Pump the limp. So anyways, point being I have, you know, there’s fair amount of promotion that goes into with doing live events. That’s something that I’ve created I would say pretty decent system around this point but I used to do it all myself. So, if I was going to a city like, well I’m going to Denver in a couple of weeks. So, I’ll say a city like Denver. There’s like a hundred Crossfit gyms and that’s just Crossfit gyms. That’s not even like Pilates studio, rock climbing gym, et cetera, et cetera. And I would go in like post on all their Facebook pages about the event then I would collect all their information so I can send them stuff in the mail and a good buddy of mine…  

Anthony: Who’s that?

Ryan: He’s name is Chris Small who is a lawyer and somebody who’s like… He’s influenced me a lot in terms of like thinking beyond myself. This is really before you and I started doing this.  And he was like, “What are you… Why?”  He’s like, “Hire somebody to do this.” So, then I hired some virtual assistants and now what I do is I write a, I have a pre-written sort of like marketing message about you know, “Hey this event is coming up and I talk about the benefits not the features. Future and previous episodes.” And I have her, Abigail, she goes and submits information to all the facilities, she collects all of their addresses for me, so that essentially all of the marketing is automated. You know, from my perspective I don’t spend my time clicking around the websites like putting in messages that somebody else could just copy and paste and put in to get the word out. Sometimes I have like 5 to 7 events per month. Imagine, that could be like 700, 800, 900 facilities that I was reaching out to. Yeah. Imagine how much time that took. And you know what’s funny at the time I was like, “Oh man! This is so cool. I’m busy. I feel like I’m doing a lot. I feel accomplished because I’m doing all these work.”

Anthony: Wrecking mistake.

Ryan: Right. But I could pay someone to do that then I could go make videos for my blog or write articles or record podcasts with people and that’s so much more valuable use of my time  and then use some of the money that you’re gonna be generating to pay somebody to do those other tasks for you.

Anthony: Right. And this is a good point to just emphasize quick. You once you started paying people, you could do the things that only you could do that actually end up making you revenue.

Ryan: Well sometimes like what I found to be very effective was like calling facilities that showed interest. Like facilities that were like, “Hey! We’re thinking about signing five of our coaches up. Can we get more information?” I will go on the phone with that person. You know, like that’s a very valuable thing. But if I had to submit all those and then think about all the up coming ones, I wouldn’t have time to do that. That’s one example but that’s not exactly what you’re describing.

Anthony: Yeah. If you are so busy doing outreach to market your events but had no content because you’re doing all that then you wouldn’t be incredible person or be providing anyway any value in the first place.

Ryan: Yeah exactly. So then I can, I could like fill up my podcast schedule more. I could do a better job with my videos. I could do better research when I’m thinking about, you know, like I have to kinda brush up on things before I do videos so I’m accurate.

Anthony: You don’t just make all these stuff and then know it all immediately?

Ryan: I wish know it all. I actually was reading this morning. I was reading Grey’s Anatomy you know like the 2000-page like anatomy textbook?

Anthony: Oh yeah. Gray Cook?

Ryan: Yeah. Not that one.

Anthony: Grey’s Anatomy?

Ryan: No, the actual like, you know what I’m talking about. So, not his anatomy.

Anthony: Oh G-R-E-Y. Okay.

Ryan: Sure. So, but I was like reading that this morning so I could just refine all the details in my mind before I make a video about it but if I was out like marketing and doing all the stuff that could easily be outsourced or delegated I wouldn’t have time to do that. That makes a lower quality of video. That means I can’t provide as much value to people. And so, I can make better stuff. I can make stuff you know with less stress because I have more time. Men you can’t buy your time if you think about it and if my time is worth, let’s say a $1000 an hour, Anthony. Let’s say my time was worth a thousand dollars an hour. By paying someone, let’s say fifteen, twenty, even a hundred dollars an hour, you’re buying your time at a discount essentially.

Anthony: Right. Good investment.

Ryan: Yeah.

Anthony: I think the thing that you kinda brush on briefly which is a very important thing is, let’s say you’re going through  this daily task or auditor habit assessment, whatever you wanna call it and we talked about it an episode before this.

Ryan: Yup. 24.

Anthony: What you should do then is, okay then, identify this cannot be eliminated and cannot be automated and I shouldn’t be doing it so it needs to be delegated.

Ryan: Maybe you should put a dollar map how much would it cost you. Is that what you’re saying?

Anthony: Even before that though, what I think a lot of times if it’s the first time task or something that you don’t feel comfortable with people feel just like, “Oh I don’t wanna do this!” And then, when you don’t know what’s going on… Oh not good. Like I’ve been in that scenario before where I’ve outsourced things and delegated them before I really understood them.

Ryan: Not good.

Anthony: I think that is big pitfall as well.

Ryan: You have to do it yourself.

Anthony: So, I think like put some time in and this is kinda goes back to hang up of the upfront cost of your time to figure it out to be able to delegate it effectively which is you need to put some skull sweat in and figure out “How do I do this?”

Ryan: You use a skull sweat?

Anthony: Yeah. Like you need to think. You use your brain.

Ryan: I’ve never heard of…

Anthony: Never heard that before?

Ryan: I’m gonna put that in the show notes. Skull sweat.

Anthony: We should make a product called Skull Sweat. It’s like a…

Ryan: We’re gonna make… We’re gonna have Margot use the Skull Sweat somehow in the featured image.

Anthony: Got to get… So, use a skull sweat and think about, “Is this like a… What’s the best way to do this? Is it like this? Should I just try to use this thing or should I use that software? Should I have an image look like this? Should I have it look like that?” Kind of go through these things. You know, what I do personally is of comes sketch out. I use my sketchbook. Sketch out what I think is the best way to do it and I go through do it a few times and when the last time I look, okay, I got it. Nailed it. What I do then is open up a Google doc and then as I’m doing it again I take screenshots and write out, “Oh step one log in here. Here’s the data. Step two, do this. Step three, do this.” All the way through it. Even if I don’t have somebody to delegate to at that moment whenever I do, boom! Ready to go and I can say here is this. Let me know if you have a better way but this is the way I figure it out. It’s already done.

Ryan: And sometimes you might do it like do this task only like once every couple of weeks and you might forget how to do it. And then you have to like and then you have to remember like, “How do I do this again?” And then that takes energy. That takes time. So, if you can like document it as you go through that better for you while you continue to learn how to do it so that you can delegate it to somebody else because if you don’t understand it you have to understand it.

Anthony: And I think one of the things that… So, I did this exact same system and this will enable us to grow and in my clinic in San Francisco from one to six locations in under three years was because everything I was doing we were making protocols and systems, and then outsourcing them and delegating to the staff that was more appropriate so that the doctors could focus only on training people.

Ryan: Yeah. That’s huge.

Anthony: That’s when we move any other task, any sort of administration stuff, any scheduling meetings, any phone calls, any taxes, anything. So, then that way one thing came up we go, “Okay, this person takes care of this. This person takes care of that.” And we have come with map in this tree of this delegation set up so that we could grow and just do the things that we could do. If I’m, as a clinician, responding to an email that I shouldn’t be responding to or scheduling a lunch or something like this, I’m not seeing a patient, I’m not getting someone better, I’m not bringing revenue for the clinic. It’s just it’s a loser’s game to not delegate things that you should be delegating.

Ryan: Yeah. It is a… It’s hard when you first start doing it to think about paying somebody else to do something that you could do but I think the more you do it the more you wanna continue doing it because you see how powerful it really is and there’s sort of this leap of faith that you have to take.  

Anthony: I… Yeah. I 100% agree to that. I guess we’d say the weekly challenge…

Ryan: The weekly challenge is use…

Anthony: One second. One second. We’re gonna put you in pause and I wanna know how many people doing these challenges. Can people email us or something. What is the email address there in you? How can we figure out if people are doing these challenges? Can you go to our…  If you’re doing these challenges, can you message us on Instagram we probably check that the most of anything. Don’t you think?

Ryan: Yeah yeah. Go to the Instagram. Go to the Health Fit Biz Instagram page and message us and let us know…  

Anthony: I think it’s Health Fit Business. But I wanna know how many people are doing, have done even one of these challenges. Either a comment or send us a message on there. I’m honestly just curious if anybody’s doing this. I’m gonna go, I’m gonna keep saying it to others but yeah I’m curious.

Ryan: Yeah. You guys’ feedback is very helpful for us to know or you know, is what we’re doing helping you know, you actually take that action because…  

Anthony: ‘Cause that’s what we care about. We don’t care about just fluff and sort of pump people up like I want you to listen to this episode and actually go change something that’s the whole point why this is not three hours long and why it’s…

Ryan: Yeah that’s why they’re 15 to 20 minutes long, right? Because listen to it and then use that other 40 minutes of blah blah blah that would’ve been there that we cut out to go actually do something.

Anthony: Yeah. it’s a get after, right?

Ryan: Yeah. It’s that. Are you trying to end the episode right then? That’s like the end….

Anthony: No. No. Weekly challenge. Weekly challenge. So…

Ryan: So what is the challenge?

Anthony: If I just lost half of our forty listeners just by saying get after it like, “Oop! Done.”

Ryan: Oop! Off. You have to use what you did in episode 24, the daily habit or task audit as a way to go one of those task, right?

Anthony: Weekly challenge listen to the last episode and then take that and then figure out one thing in the next week that you can delegate to anyone. And if you don’t know how to do it yet that could be fun and we could go over that on another episode. But just say I should delegate this. Make a process on it like you would be delegating it and then we could walk you guys through how we’ve done that in the past.

Ryan: Yes. So, don’t let the act of feeling like, “I don’t know how to delegate, I don’t know how to actually get someone else to do this.” Don’t act like that. It’s no problem at all. And write down what you’re…  Right now what you’re doing is preparing it for that person. Don’t even worry about the next step until you take the first step.

Anthony: Yup. So, first step assess your daily tasks. Figure out what you’re doing that should be delegated. Make a process and act like you’re gonna be handing that to somebody this next week.

Ryan: Alright. Well

Anthony: Get on Instagram and get after it.

Ryan: Get after it.

Ryan: Thank you guys for tuning in to this episode of the Health Fit Business podcast. If you found it helpful, please share with someone that you think it would also help and leave us a five-star rating on iTunes. Make sure also to go to healthfit.biz and sign up for the email notifications to which you can find right on the homepage so that you get all the updated podcasts and blog posts sent directly to you. Until then, we will see you next time.

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