By Ezra Firestone | December 9, 2020
Learn how to better organize your projects, build and manage your team, and create systems that are repeatable and scalable.
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When it comes to scaling your brand, you have two options:
You can either outsource the jobs to freelancers or agencies and rent their skills, or you can hire your own employees and invest in owning those skills in-house.
So, which is better?
I think you need both when you’re starting out, but you better understand why before you go hire every Tom, Dick and Harry off the street (or in our case every John, Molly and Larry!).
In this video, I talk with Jeff Lieber of TurnKey Product Management about which jobs I outsource, which jobs I hire in-house and the most common mistakes people make when scaling their brands.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
• Mistakes entrepreneurs make when trying to scale
• Which jobs should I outsource first?
• The one job I always bring in-house first
• Why certain skill sets are worth owning
• The main pitfall of hiring employees
What mistakes do entrepreneurs make when scaling?
I think it’s really important to look at which jobs to outsource first and which jobs to bring in-house first.
One of the mistakes I see business owners make is trying to bring everything in-house all at once — that’s way too overwhelming.
Or they make the opposite mistake and outsource everything. They never build a team, and instead they become totally reliant on outsourcers to run their business.
And if you don’t have an agency that has integrity — that’s been in the trenches, that knows what they’re doing (like Jeff at TurnKey) — then you can end up paying for services that don’t produce great results.
“The problem with outsourcing is that agencies have a lot of clients, and the work filters down to the lowest common denominator.”
Which jobs should I outsource first?
The first job that I think everyone should outsource is customer support. You should not be doing that yourself.
Customer support is usually not very difficult, and you should be able to teach someone how to do it pretty easily. Either outsource this job or hire someone in-house to do it for you. Hiring is my preference, but I like to build a team and bring things in-house.
Copywriting, on the other hand, is a job you should do yourself (at first) or bring in-house.
“As the business owner and visionary behind the brand you want to own your own messaging.”
And here are some jobs that you probably wont bring in-house quickly, but that you should when you can:
• Design
• Development
• Video editing
In the end, this will be a little different for every business. Look at the ongoing cycles of your specific operation then ask yourself, “Which of these roles are the most valuable to the business?”
Those are the jobs you should bring in-house sooner and outsource the others.
The one job I always bring in-house first.
Paid advertising is the fuel that drives a business forward, so you should definitely own that skillset yourself.
That’s why I bring advertising in-house as soon as possible in a new brand. I want someone who will put in the extra effort to care about and optimize that side of the business.
Why certain skillsets are worth owning.
When you outsource these skills to someone outside the business you don’t own them, you rent them — and you have less control over the results.
For example, you should NOT be outsourcing product.
As the CEO, you should be deeply involved in what you’re selling, why you’re selling it, the value it adds to the marketplace, and how it fits into your brand vision.
“You should never outsource product, because product is the heart of your brand.”
The same thing is true for your:
• Copy
• Messaging
• Story
You need to be deeply involved in these because they’re so important to the brand.
The main pitfall of hiring employees.
Hiring and team building are skills that business owners have to learn. The problems start when you try to hire too many people at once.
“When you’re first learning how to bring new hires on, start with one person every six months.”
It takes you a couple months to get in sync with someone, train them up, give them goals, hold them accountable, and give them feedback…
But then your efforts start to compound.
“It took me two years to hire five people and another two years to get to 60.”
You’ll be able to bring people in faster once the wheel’s spinning and you’ve got ongoing cycles. But until then, my advice to you is don’t hire too fast.
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