Do you know what it means to scale your blog based business? This basically means getting your blog to the growth stage in which your business continues to grow and grow.
How do you get to this stage?
Well, in my opinion, the second you decide to start a blog, it is time to start thinking about scaling it.
One part of scaling your business is knowing when to hire out certain tasks to other people.
See, there are always going to be tasks that are just not worth your time…..even at the very beginning.
Also, there will be tasks you just don’t know enough about. Hiring someone with experience to take on these tasks for you not only frees up your time to focus on what you are good at, but also helps to ensure things will get done correctly.
Why Did You Start Blogging?
Don’t forget, starting a blog based business is not just about writing.
Often newbie bloggers know that they want to start a blog based business but don’t necessarily understand all the facets that go into it.
It’s a lot to take on!
I believe that you should start a blog for two reasons:
- To help people
- To be your own boss with more flexibility and exponential profits
It’s OK to be overwhelmed. But, do something about it. Don’t quit. Just hire people to help you.
How to Let Go of Control
I once read a quote from the founder of a large company, I thought it was Richard Branson, but I can’t seem to find it now.
Anyway, the quote said something like, “When I enter my boardroom I want to always be the dumbest person there. That’s how I know I hired the right people.”
I love that! What a great way of looking at things.
See, it can be difficult to let go of control. Your blog based business is like your child. You built this thing. You are protective of it. You feel as though you know all the ins and outs best.
But, when you remind yourself that people out there may know how to conduct singular tasks in a better manner than you can, it becomes easier to let go.
Justifying the Cost
I get it, it’s hard to think of spending money to hire someone for a task when your blog based business might not actually be making a ton of money (or any money yet).
But, I always justify it that me trying to learn to do everything myself is not doing my business any good.
Spending the money to hire someone to take on a task that they know way more about than you do will help you actually reach a profit milestone much faster.
It frees up your time to work on things you are good at, keeps you from having a mental breakdown trying to learn something you just aren’t good at, and ensures the job will be done by someone that actually knows how to do it.
Sometimes you need to invest money in order to make money.
The Best Tasks to Hire Out
To start off, the best tasks to hire out are:
Social Media Manager: A Social Media Manager can schedule and organize your social media posts across all networks. They can engage with potential customers and implement things such as contests or competitions on social.
This is a great task to hire out because it will free up a lot of your time, has the potential to exponentially grow your audience, and is something that you as the business owner do not need as much control/ micromanaging over.
SEO Specialist: A SEO Specialist can analyze your business from an SEO standpoint and provide guidance for furthering your search engine reach. They can fix all technical aspects, help you get more backlinks, help with proper content writing etc.
I suggest hiring someone for SEO because it may not be something you know a lot about. This saves you from spending huge chunks of time focused on learning and implementing SEO properly. It also has the potential to completely explode your blog traffic to new heights.
Graphic Designer: Hiring someone to create all your social media graphics and graphics for your site will free up your time, can easily be done by another experienced person, and the graphics may look better than what you can create on your own.
Accountant: I suggest anybody who is starting their own business hires an accountant. An accountant can help to make sure you are running your business legally from a tax perspective, can ensure that profits/ losses are recorded accurately each month etc.
Product Creation: When it comes time to create your products or services, hire someone to help you. For example, if you are creating merch, hire someone to do the design for you. If you are writing an ebook, hire a ghostwriter and someone to design the book layout. If you are creating an e-course, hire someone to make all the slides with your content.
None of these need to potentially be full-time positions to start. All of these can be people you hire for one specific task or on a part-time basis.
Where to Find People to Hire
Now comes the tough part. Where can you find awesome people to hire to take on your tasks?
There are three ways I like to go about this.
- Facebook Groups: Join Facebook groups of other like-minded bloggers. Then post in these groups asking if anybody has recommendations for people to hire for a task. Weed through the replies and find your person.
- Your Readers: Post on your Instagram or other social media channel that you are looking to hire someone for whatever task. Sort through the replies and find your person. I like this method because if someone is following you on social then they already have a connection to you and your brand.
- Hire Some From Fiverr or Upwork: I have had mixed results with Fiverr and Upwork. Typically results seem to be a bit more favorable with people I have hired from Upwork over Fiverr.
Future Scaling
Everything I wrote above was things you can scale now. As your business grows your scaling methods will have to grow as well.
Please, just don’t overwork yourself. You are not doing your business or yourself any good by trying to do it all.
I suggest sitting down with yourself every quarter to consider what parts of your business need scaling and coming up with a plan to take that on.
Summary:
- Scaling your business means getting to the growth stage in which it is necessary to hire outside help
- I suggest thinking about ways to scale your business from day one
- Good places to find professionals to hire are Facebook groups, through your audience, and on platforms such as Fiverr and Upwork.
