Ep. 143: What to DIY & Where to Get Help
When business is chugging along and you’ve got more money to invest in help, it can be overwhelming wondering where to best invest it.
The options are endless and everyone has different suggestions. In this episode I share my thoughts on how to approach the various areas of your business where you could get help and how to decide on which help to invest in.
Remember, you can keep your business as simple or complex as you want it as you grow. But if you want to grow faster, getting expert help in areas where you struggle is a smart choice.
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Welcome to this week's episode of the sell it sister podcast. I'm really excited to talk about this topic this week, because it actually came from a past Rebellious Success.
Client of mine, who, uh, when I put out on Instagram, you know, what are some suggestions that you all have of things I should talk about on the podcast? She said, I would love to know how to know what to DIY and what to delegate as my business keeps growing. And I was like, oh my gosh, that's perfect. Love, I love talking about this because I love delegating.
I have loved. Ever since. I mean, gosh, since I was running a multi-million dollar huge, very busy retail store and I absolutely had to delegate, I had no other option or I would have been eaten alive by the sheer volume of stuff that needed to get done on a daily basis there. And, uh, but I know that delegation.
Can be something that is really difficult in our businesses. But the reality is, is that as your revenue keeps growing, especially on its way to six figures. And especially if you're already making six figures and you're going for seven, you cannot do it alone. Does not mean that you need a giant team or anything like that.
But you just cannot do it alone. I mean, unless you are somehow a consultant that gets paid like a million dollars a contract and all you need is you. I, but I mean, w why are you listening to this podcast? You, you don't need this podcast, right? I think you're good. Um, if you're closing million dollar contracts, I don't, I don't, I'm not going to presume that you need that you, uh, that you need my sales help.
Uh, really though, you're, you're going to need some level of help, even if it's very, very part-time, even if it's just for, um, certain projects it's imperative. Uh, now there are ways that you can certainly simplify and minimize the help that you need. Uh, Hung around my corner of the internet for very long.
You know, one thing that is my jam is simplification and I'm all about it. I'm all about what is the simplest path to cash? What is the simplest, uh, way that you can set up sales in your business so that you can get more of them with less effort and, you know, having a simple. But highly profitable business so that you can enjoy all of the other fun stuff in life.
So you're not working all of the time and risking burnout. However, one thing that is really tricky, I think, in the online space and when I hear from my clients is this decision fatigue around what to invest in, right? Because there are just so many brilliant, brilliant service providers out there. And. It can be really tempting to be like, I want to work with all of them and I want to work with all of them right now.
And I also want to stop doing literally everything that I don't like doing. Right. I just want to be in my zone of genius, doing what I love with people I love and like, that's it. Right. But the reality is is that even when you have a multiple six-figure business, even when you are really successful, There are still going to be sometimes in some seasons where you cannot just be doing your zone of genius work.
Sometimes there are just going to be things that you have to do that you would rather not. That don't light you up. Right. And that doesn't mean that you failed or you did anything wrong or that it has to be forever. It's just, you know, it's the ebbs and flows of life, right? I'm sure you have probably worked in a job before where all of a sudden, you know, somebody quit and it's like, oh, now you have to take on more of their work until you can find a replacement.
Right. Obviously there are things you can do to help. Reduce this, but also as a CEO, there's just sometimes going to be things that, that you gotta do. However, you can certainly be smart about it and set your self up in a way that allows you to keep taking things off your plate that are really important to keep your business going and growing.
Um, but that you would. Not do it's right. So you're established entrepreneur. I got a website, you got some sales pages, you got some social media. You might even have like a small team right now. Right? Like you might even have a part-time VA or somebody who helps you. With your content or, uh, is helping you with like backend systems set up whatever, like you may already have that, or have experienced with that.
And that's awesome. And you might be thinking like, okay, what is next? Or you might be thinking about like, okay, I'm ready to invest more. And how do I, how do I prioritize this? So one thing I would suggest doing that was a huge game changer for me is taking the Clifton strengths test. I think it's only like 50 bucks or something.
I took it in 2020. It was so eyeopening for me because it has four primary categories. One of them being execution, which is like getting shit done right now. I'm pretty good. I get shit done, but it's very energetically draining for me to do a lot of like computer type tasks. Like. Tech stuff or, you know, creating graphics or anything like that.
It's anything that feels like homework to me. I'm like, no, no, thank you. I don't, I don't want to do it. Right. Um, and I was really judgmental with myself for a long, long time about that until I took that test and I realized that I score very low in execution strengths. Now on the flip side, My business manager scores, very high and execution strengths, and she loves it.
She loves being behind the scenes. She loves implementing, she loves, uh, doing tech stuff. She loves it. So you know what it makes perfect, perfect sense that that is her wheelhouse. And I delegate that to her. And then I do more of the stuff that I love, which my, uh, Categories are, um, influencing relationship building and strategy.
Just kind of funny, cause I'm like, yep, no, no surprise there. Right. So right there that will really help you to kind of see. A better picture of where you're at, but you can also just trust what you personally know to be true. Right. So I knew even before taking that test way back when I launched the first course I ever had, and I was going to do a webinar style launch and I was not super familiar with active campaign, which I used for my emails.
And I was like, I don't know if I. Should deal with the learning curve of the DIY thing of this whole like automated email sequence and tags and whatnot. Like I know intrinsically I am smart enough to learn that and figure it out and do it and trial and error and all of that. I know that about myself, but I really didn't want.
I knew it was not a strength. I knew I would get really frustrated. I knew it would delay the launch. I knew that I would be very prone to fucking it up. So I was like, I'm gonna find somebody who, uh, this is like a specialty of theirs and I'm gonna pay them for just a project. Right. So they're not going to be my ongoing VA.
They're not going to be my tech VA. They're not going to. Um, constantly be doing this for me. I just it's like a one and done. Right. So I've found someone who would do that. It was awesome. It was amazing. And the best part was, was she recorded a video of the whole thing, explaining it afterwards when she delivered it to me.
Right. So I could look and I could actually see like, oh, that is why she built it that way. So then lo and behold, after. Before I actually had a VA who could go in and regularly do it for me. I was like, ah, I know how to do this now. And I can, I can set this up for myself. Still. Didn't love doing it, but at least like I could.
Right. So that was really wonderful. Um, and then also, you know, you probably have other things that you. Really, really, really just, they, they take you forever. You absolutely hate doing them. Like maybe that is, um, I don't know, social media graphics, or maybe it is like emailing your list or maybe it is coming up with systems or maybe it is your like updating your website, whatever is trust yourself.
But then also things. Is this something that I know I need right now that is going to give me a good return on my investment. Now or in the near future, or is this more of like a shiny thing that I feel like I should be concerned about, right. Or that I should invest in right now, or that I wasn't intending to invest in this, but then I saw somebody launching this thing and they make a lot of good points.
And so now I'm considering if I need to. Invest in that. Right. Because that's just normal. It's human psychology. Right? You, you see something and you're like, oh my God, like you just start thinking like, that would be, that would be so amazing if I could just like, have somebody else do that for me, because I hate doing it.
But then, you know, you gotta put your CEO hat on and be like, is this actually a smart, it's a smart business decision right now? Or is this just me like, Feeling tired and overwhelmed and wanting to get this off my plate, because honestly, that is what happens a lot with like marketing and especially social media.
I hear all the time where people were like, I just, I just want somebody to take over my social media and it's like, cool, cool, cool. You could totally do that. There's a lot of great social media managers and strategists out there, but if you. Have your strategy in place first, if you don't know how to show up on social to actually drive sales, then that is not going to be the best.
You're not going to get the best return on your investing. Possible for that. So here's what I mean. Let me, let me explain a little bit further. So, uh, so you can understand how to like filter this for yourself, right? So when thinking about things that you might need, think about, like, I'll actually illustrate this with something that I did early on that I'm so glad.
Did not invest in this thing. I was thinking about how amazing it would be to have a really phenomenal nurture sequence attached to my first opt-in my main opt-in. And I knew a woman brilliant conversion copywriter, and I was like, Yeah, that would be amazing because if I just had these beautiful, phenomenal emails, then I could make so many sales of my course that gets pitched in that nurture sequence.
My sales course, I could get so many sales and that would, oh my God. Like I was having visions of passive income, just dancing in my head. I was so sure that it could happen. And then the more I thought about. I was like, wait a minute, how many people are actually coming to my website and opting in for that right now.
And then thinking about conversion rates, like how long would it take me to not only make back the money that I would have to pay her for that nurture sequence, that amazing nurture sequence. But also then to start making money on said nurture sequence. And I was like this, this literally does not make any sense.
I did not have for like the price of the course, which was like in the funnel at that time, I think it was like 50, 50 bucks. So the price of that at $50, even if it was $250, right. In that funnel, even if it was $250, the amount of people signing up through the opt-in, who would go through that entire funnel, that entire nurture sequence.
And then the small percentage of those historically based on like, you know, typical online conversion rates that would then purchase that. Would literally be years before I would have even made back my investment on paying her much less making any money. And I was like, Nope, that does not. Nope, Nope, Nope.
That does not make sense. We're not going to do that. And like there's, we're going to have to pick a different option here. Right. A different option to, to drive, to drive revenue, to drive profits. Right. So when you're thinking about. It's really important to think, like, where is the friction lying for you right now?
Is it low sales? Is it, uh, you are like struggling to get your marketing completed? Uh, is it that like, you're doing your marketing, but it's not converting into. Sales, is it like, are you getting sales calls booked, but you're not, you're not like able to close enough of those sales calls. Like, is something off in there?
Is it that like your back end systems are kind of a mess and things with your clients are always like falling through the cracks or, um, with people who might be like interested in working with you. Doing proposals, anything like that? Like are those sorts of things falling through the cracks because then that is likely more of like a systems thing.
Right. Um, or, you know, is it that you've just been at this awhile and you're like, you know, I'm really starting to pivot and I really want to level up my whole image and my whole brand and I need a brand strategist or, um, I really want to take my. Client work and turn it into a course. And I w I really want like an instructional designer, or I want to work with somebody who's an expert in creating and selling courses.
Um, or is it just that you're like, I'm relaunching something and I need a marketing strategy. I need a launch plan for that. Once I have the plan I already had. You know, me and my team can just implement that plan. We could just delegate on that plan. Um, some other things would be like customer service emails, right?
Um, scheduling, uh, writing sales pages. There's, you know, again, this is where the decision fatigue and the overwhelm comes in. Right. But it's really important to always think about like, A where's the friction point and B what is the simplest way right now that I can start to solve this? And when I say simple, I don't mean janky.
I don't mean like we're just, you know, slapping this thing together with some duct tape, whatever, what I mean is that it's very, very easy. Going back to the example of the. Me not wanting to pay for those emails because it didn't actually make any sense. What I really wanted was more money. I want to make more money in a simpler way.
Cause I was having those, those visions of passive income dancing in my head that I would be, you know, getting core sales in my sleep and all this stuff. Um, but, but really the way that I could have solved that problem. Instead of trying to sell something for like 50 bucks. Right. What if I could just have something that also didn't require a ton of my time, but where I made more money.
Right. So where I could actually, uh, like work fewer hours, both in marketing and in like delivering the content. Cause that's, you know, part of the beauty of like was something that. Some more passive as like, you're not having to show up to deliver on the content, but you're still having to do marketing.
Right. You're still having to drive people to it. And so the answer of there was like, I need to have a one-to-one offer or a one to many offer that is going to bring in more revenue that I can get sold in a simpler way that is not going to be eating up a ton of my time. So that, like, if I'm spending five hours a week on marketing, I'm actually making like five grand a month instead of like 500 from a bunch of passive core sales, I'm trying to sell organically for too little money.
Right. So I had to really shift my thinking and be like, okay, what is the easier problem now? Because then if I'm working fewer hours and I mean, You know, $5,000 versus $500 a month, then I have more money to play with to keep expanding. Right. So then I can say like, okay, what is the thing I need now?
Right. And depending on what I'm offering, you know, maybe that is maybe if it was still, you know, one-to-one coaching and small group coaching, which is what it was at the time, uh, you know, w what do I need help with now? Well, it's all that, like, backend. Tech stuff and like creating marketing assets, like creating workbooks, things like that, creating slide decks, things that are, um, can be really time-consuming and they are not the best use of my personal time, uh, to do them.
But I was still writing my own sales pages because for me that doesn't weigh me down in the same way that setting up like a whole text. Does. Right. So that is the first part. The second part is to then really think about what is the level of support that you want for that thing. Right. So you're first going to assess, do I actually need this support or is there a simpler problem that needs solving first?
And I'm not going to chase this, this shiny object. I'm going to try to solve a simpler problem first and then leverage. What the good stuff that comes out of that, which is, you know, nine times out of 10 is like either more money or less time or a combo of both, then leveraging that into more support.
And then it can be a matter of, depending on what it is, if rather than DIY. If it's going to be a fully done for you, or it's going to be a done with you. Right? So this might be something where you're like, you know what? I have this offer. I know it sells, I just want to sell more of it. And so I am going to have a sales and marketing strategists.
Like somebody like me, that's what I do. I'm going to ha I'm going to hire them for an intensive where we just plan out the next launch. Right. I just want to have a more successful, easier launch the next time. So me and my team, we are going to be the ones doing the launch, but I want a better launch plan.
Cool. That's like a done with you approach, right? Or it could be that you're like, I am. Making money. Things are good, but I'm like, I'm, I feel like I have, I'm kind of shifting I'm morphing in a, in a new direction. I'm really ready to Uplevel. And I just, I feel like I need to, I need my brand to reflect who I am and how I am now in my business.
Right. So even amongst branding and I know, cause I just went through this. There is like a done with you and there's a done for you component to this, right. You might be totally cool with like your visual brand and you're just like, I just need a new brand strategy. Right? So you could book in with a brand strategist and you could have them help you.
So maybe you keep the visuals the same, but you just change the messaging. Right? You change the tone, you, you change like, uh, all of that stuff that switched to refining. And recalibrate your brand. Or maybe you do what I did, which is where you do both right. Where you're like, no, I don't just want the strategy.
I actually want the strategy and the visual identity. And you do them both at once. And you hire somebody who will do that for you. Right. So a totally done for you. Kind of set up where they are going to take care of all of that. And then even then there's like the next level on that. Right? So not all brand strategists and brand designers are then going to like build out your website, but some will, or you can also outsource taking all of that, you know, brand identity and brand design.
And having a different person create the website for you, or you could take those assets and use something like Squarespace and you're like, Nope, I'm just going to plug them all in myself. Right. I'm going to DIY this part of it, but I'm going to. Delegate. I'm going to invest in this other part of it. And again, you know, you best, you know, your time, your capacity, your like mental, energetic capacity, you know, your capabilities, you know, your budget, you know, all of that, but that is something where, you know, you don't necessarily need to be spending.
Seven grand when you first start on all of that, because it will probably become obsolete very soon as you start working in your business and things will change and evolve rather quickly. And you'll be like, oh crap. Why did I spend all that money? Right. But you know, when you're five years in and you're like, Yeah, the things need to shift.
They need to change right. Hire the expert, right? Not, not necessarily worth your time to try to like, learn all of the fundamentals of brand strategy that people spend years of their life to learn, and then like try to do it on your own and hope that it comes out really well. Right. Same thing. I'm going to go back to sales pages because this is a really common one.
So. Uh, copywriting and knowing how to write copy, and just knowing the fundamentals of sales and marketing, I think are crucial. Again, I know I'm biased, maybe like, well, you're biased, Erica. I know I am. I own that. I, I can, I can handle that. However, what is so essentially. Is that when you know, sales and marketing, it's not as hard as people make it out to be.
When you understand that you can act quickly, which means you can get results quickly. So here's where I think hiring a copywriter. If writing copy and writing sales pages makes you want to tear your hair out. Here's what I would suggest. At the very least, it's good to understand sales and marketing language and some fundamentals of copywriting, right?
That way you're not beholden from a too early on phase in your business and your revenue growth. You are not beholden to paying an expert to write all of your emails and all of your like marketing collateral. For you and your, your like sales pages, all that stuff. Right. You can actually do a lot of that yourself.
What I would suggest though, is learn from expert copywriters on how to write great copy. They're also brilliant copywriters that also will do like intensives or audits or things like that, where they can. Review and give you suggestions on copy that you've already written. And that will also teach you kind of like my example of like the tech stack BA she walked me through why she did what she did and then I could replicate it on my own.
Right. So that's a really great first step. Once you are selling a proven. Program or if you've made a new program that is like an offshoot of something you did before. So like, let's say your course defying your methodology, right? So you already know, like it's a proven thing you've been selling this transformation for while you're just doing it in a different format.
And now you're busy and you're like, I don't want to write the sales page. Absolutely hired that professional. It makes perfect. That you would hire them because you already have proof of concept. Like, no, even though you've not, not necessarily sold it as a course, you already have the fundamentals that they're going to need from you in order to write the best sales page possible.
Right. Because you will be able to say, I know who I do this for. I know the transformation or the results that it gets and so on and so forth, and they can create a brilliant sales page for you. And so that is another way of just thinking about, you know, do I do a full done for you? Do I do a done with you or do IDI Y the thing, and again, at any, at any given time, like this is going to change depending on what you have going on and what makes the most sense.
So I will leave you with, uh, this other element of how I think about it and how I teach it. So in my rebellious success program and my flagship program, there are six key growth fundamentals for ongoing, consistent growth that does not lead to burnout and does not compromise your values. I have found.
Over the years, working with hundreds of people, there are six key elements and these are elements that I, I not only teach them, I use them in my business all of the time. And I actually have a past episode. Um, it's the thrive framework episode. If you want to check that out, actually cover what all six of them are in there.
So every time there is a friction point in my business, because I'm at a point now where I'm at. The less that I DIY the better, like literally at this point, the only things that I will DIY are like, if it's my own intellectual property from my brain and I need to like convey it outward, uh, first, because it lives in my head like, like this podcast, I will do that because nobody can do that for me, but then I want other people to take that and do other things with it.
Right. Um, I really, I. I, I love, I love my free time and I don't want to DIY anything unless I absolutely have to at this point. So this is how I assess what needs to be done. So I go through that whole framework and I figure out where are the friction points? Where are things breaking down? Where are the growth gaps in that framework?
Right? Is it something with my messaging? Is it something with my schedule? Is it something with my. Offers or maybe like the pricing for my offers is my content off, uh, is, or, you know, or do I need to do like something different with it? Do I need to expand it to an, you know, something along the lines of my content or is my overall marketing plan need tweaking?
So once I can like diagnose my own business using my own framework, kind of like do a self audit and then I'm like, ah, I know, I know where it is. And then, and this is actually what I did in 2021, because I invested in a lot of experts in 2021 and I was so, so happy to, and then I can also look at like, what are my goals?
What's my, my vision. And I can actually sync up those investments perfectly with exactly what I need and when I need. To get the greatest ROI from those investments. So just as a brief example, cause I know it's getting long, but as a brief example, I knew when I was relaunching rebellious success at the beginning of 2021 that I wanted to hire my friend who does very similar work to me for launch strategy, because I really wanted that outside opinion because we're all too close to our own work.
So hiring. That was fantastic. Got the launch plan and did the launch. And it was amazing. Then I knew that's about six ish months later, I was going to relaunch rebellious success. But at that point I knew it was going to be. The third cohort. And I knew this was like, this was it. Love this program. I love the results people get from this program.
I was going to go all in on this program. So I hired a woman. I know who is a phenomenal instructional designer. To make sure that the program could be as good as it could be, that it could get the best results possible. So once people were already in, at once cohort two was going, um, I worked with her and we.
Did that. And then over the summer I updated the whole course. There wasn't actually a lot that had to be changed, but I went through and I rerecorded all the videos and I, um, I added some things and I streamlined some things and it was really, really awesome. Now, meanwhile, I have my team on the backend who is doing all the tech, right?
So they're captioning the videos, they're getting it uploaded to the private podcast feed. They are pulling the transcripts. They are uploading it into our course platform. They are creating worksheets. Like they're doing all of the things for me, right. So I can keep showing up and doing my best work in my business.
So they are doing all of that. And then I also, for the fall launch, I hired another launch strategist for the fall launch. Um, and then I also hired, um, a past client of the program to be. My copywriter for the launch. So then she came in and she wrote the sales emails, which I know how to write. I have historically written them, myself.
I have. Some clients with their launch emails as well. But again, I, so I know how to do it. I have the skills I had been DIY buying it. I knew I was getting great results, but I didn't want to spend the time. So I wanted to work with somebody else who could also get me great results. And then I could use my time to focus on other things.
So she did that and then we launched and it was great. And then I was like, okay, cool. That is now done. And then the end of the year, I knew I was going to start a rebrand. And I also hired somebody who was a past member of rebellious success. And I was like, this is perfect because January is usually a project month.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to do a photo shoot. We're going to do the rebrand. And then I'm going to have my business manager helped me get the new website all set up in Q one. So as you can see, it was a very like w well thought out well-intentioned plan. And everything happened in a very specific, uh, very intentional order.
And here is the best part. So usually what happens, maybe I should've said this at the beginning, in addition to the part where I was talking about being overwhelmed with. But a lot of times, because people are overwhelmed with options and they're not really sure. And they're just like, Ooh, I don't know.
It's the shiny thing, I guess I should pay for this course core reels or whatever. They end up exhausting their business development fund part of their budget. Right? So they're like, ah, I just keep throwing money at things. And it's not to say that those things are bad things. A lot of times they're really good things.
They are just happening out of order in a way that is going to again, get you the best ROI for what you want to do right now. So it's. Spending money on things that aren't actually going to move the needle forward for you right now. And then you, if you don't know how to consistently bring in new revenue or at least enough new revenue, then it's going to be really hard to actually invest in the things that will move the needle forward for you.
And as you can see, this creates this sort of vicious cycle, right. Which you might find yourself in. Right now. And what I love about my system is that not only do you know the, kind of the order of operations of what you need and when you need it, because you can self audit your own business and you can self diagnose what needs.
Right now to move the needle forward, but you also have a system that is able to bring new revenue into your business on a more consistent basis. So now you're no longer having to like bargain shop or DIY or do all these courses and do things on your own. Because you don't need to, you don't need the thousand or $2,000 course where you're going to have to spend hours upon hours learning it and then implementing it and hoping that you get it right.
Instead you could spend like $2,000 on a strategist or $2,000 on emails or a sales page or something like that instead, and just have it off your plate, and then you can focus your attention on other. Enjoyable activities. Revenue-generating activities, both all of that. Right. So I really love it. My clients really love it.
And, uh, you know, you might have a system. That already works for you. And if you do, that's awesome. And I'm really, really excited. Um, but I would say again, just to reiterate from the very, very beginning, there is a point with growth where again, you don't need a million people working for you in order to have a highly profitable business that pays you really well and leaves you with a lot of free time, but you are going to need to stop DIY ING.
And also the answer is not simply just like throw tens of thousands of dollars at the problem and like, I hope that done for you. People can do it for you. There, there is always sort of like a beautiful, a beautiful middle ground, uh, there. So if you are interested in learning more about my methodology, if you would love to be coached by me and be in community with me and other amazing people who are also using and implementing.
My favorite, my thrive, uh, growth strategy. Then I would highly encourage you to check out my rebellious success program. Because it starts very, very soon. We start, um, March 16th. So if you are listening to this before March 16th, then go to rebellious. Hyphen success.com and check it all out again. It's rebellious, hyphen success.com.
And if you listen to this after March 16th, Uh, enrollment might actually be open, um, or there might be a waitlist page who knows. So if this sounds really great, if you're like, hell yes, I would also love to be able to know how to do this for myself and have a recurring revenue system for my business too.
Then also. Highly encourage you to go check it out@rebellioushyphensuccess.com. If you get there and you have any questions before you apply, you can always email them to me at Erica, at Erica turbans.com or send me a DM on Instagram at Erica Tevin consulting. And regardless, I hope that you love this episode.
I know this was like, this is a lot. I mean, it's, it's really hard to say because right. It's it's gonna depend for every single person. There's no a hundred percent cut and dry. But I hope you did, uh, take away some really valuable insights. If you know of somebody who you think would love to stop D DIY so much in their business and would be well-served by this episode, I would love it.
If you shared it with them, can even share it to your stories and tag me, because I always like seeing who is listening to the podcast again, that is Erika Tebbens consultant. Where a hangout over on the gram and as always happy selling.
