How to Outsource Well
Tim B. Green??
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Test to find the best, then train them to find and train others.
If you have the time and money,? outsource it.? The challenge is to find someone trustworthy, reliable and skilled.?
A great, outsourcer is worth their weight in gold.? If your needs are short term and immediate, hiring a highly skilled ( and probably expensive ) one is probably your best bet.
Anyone who is or can reliably connect you with quality outsourcers is probably someone worth having on speed dial.?
For longer and larger projects it's probably better to hire and train them from the ground up.
You'll have to put aside as much time as it takes to train them PROPERLY.? Until you do so,? you have no right to complain about the results.
1 ) Time
Time is the only REAL universal currency so it's ever more valuable as your income increases and your free time decreases.? Any quality outsourcer or employee who costs less than your hourly, and create profit are worth their weight in time.? I'll use outsourcer as interchangeable with an employee in this article.
2 ) Money
Since time is money and outsourcing well makes money,? you should outsource EVERYTHING you neither love,? nor crush at.? Provided it's done right,? everything you outsource is a win, especially if the outsourcer feels the same way.
3 ) Focusing on your strengths.
Gallup says that focusing on and developing our strengths produces more success and satisfaction than improving weaknesses.? Outsourcing everything nut you strengths will maximize your success.?
Research show the opTimal income for happiness is between $60 - $95K per year for individuals.? Beyond that,? time and freedom tend to become more valuable than money.?
Outsourcing frees you to spend more time doing what you love whether that's kitesurfing or growing your business.
The rest of this article will focus on creating a system to automate outsourcer discovery, creation and training.
4 ) Systemizing Outsourcer Training
Use strategic disqualification from the start.? The better an outsourcer can think and make decisions for themselves, the less training and supervision they'll need.?
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To find self directed outsourcers,? give them a REAL task, the end goal and one hour, with no other details or instructions.? It needs to be real and vague to test their autonomy.
i.e. Please go through my LinkedIn recommendations and summarize the main benefit in each organized by industry and main topic.
Some outsourcing companies may resist the assignment without clear step by step instructions,? just tell them "They can do it whichever way they think is best. ? After one hour, please send their work their work so far. Then we will give them feedback and clarification. "?
Review the work and decide how well they managed the task.? This isn't easy, and you shouldn't expect much from them,? it's purely an autonomy test.?
You will probably have to do this with several people to find one who does it well.? Pay and thank everyone for their time, then take the top candidate and give them the next step to complete.? If none are able to do it, tweak the instructions and repeat the test with different people until at least some can achieve the outcome goal.
You're looking for the most capable person available.
The above method is similar to how they train Chicken Sexers here in Japan.? Chicken sexers are people whose jobs are to identify the sex of chicks.? It's notoriously difficult to do accurately but a skilled sexers can identify 8,000 chicks per day at 99.7 percent accuracy. Yet it's virtually impossible for them to teach others how they do it:-0, so they teach by using ONLY feedback.
The trainer stands behind the trainee, allows them to examine the chick and select the sex they THINK it is.? The trainer then says "yes" ( you are correct ) or "no" ( you are not correct ) IMMEDIATELY after they choose.? The trainees get better and better UNTIL the trainer decides they're sufficiently skilled.
There's a sweet spot between chicken sexing and micro-managing instruction for outsourcer/s.? You'll have to find that for yourself by experimentation.
To make them independent, define end goals, let them work autonomously then give them feedback to improve their results.? Encourage them to ask questions, but ONLY if they're unable to find the answers for themselves.
It will almost certainly cost more and take longer to train them is way, but they will be far more independent. You may choose to combine this with more traditional training, but they will be more dependent and less able to make their own decisions. Each method has a different cost, one is money the other independence.
To take training even further,? teach trainees how to engage in deliberate practice.? Reward those with the best strategies and use their methods as part of your ever evolving training curriculum.? For more information on how to apply deliberate practice read this article.
Your first outsourcer is trained to find and train OTHER outsourcers in all necessary tasks as necessary, and ultimately a supervisor or manager if they wish it.? Once that's working smoothly you've systemized your outsourcing full circle.? Now KaiZen it;-)
Test to find the best, then train them to find and train others.
tim #bgreen??