Hiring Others to Achieve Goals for you

Goals are important to you as a writer and as an entrepreneur. We set lots of goals. How many words we’ll write, how many submissions we’ll make, how many pitches we’ll send, and so on. As a writer entrepreneur, we also have business goals. How to manage social media, what to do to market your book that day/week/month. It can get really overwhelming trying to balance life as a writer AND a business.

Whenever you set a goal for your business, or get ready to jump to the next step, look at your step or goal and assess whether or not you actually have to be the person to initiate and complete it.

If it makes no difference to your endgame, your branding or your company “voice,” then get others to achieve that particular goal for you and focus more time or energy on your writing or other important tasks. Outsource the difficult or boring task; or the areas of your business that drains your time, energy, and habitually derails you from doing things you’d really prefer to do. Like trying to figure out how to properly format your Kindle book, as an example.

Before you outsource, however, keep two things in mind:

1. Finding the right person/business/contractor/consultant/freelancer is crucial
2. Clear communication is essential

If you are hazy about what you want your consultant to achieve or which skills she needs to specialize and excel in, chances are she will either do the wrong thing or simply not do as good a job as if you had communicated clearly what you want to achieve and what you expect the end result to look like.

Let’s say you have a list of twenty “goals” to achieve:

Goals for 2016—achieve by July 31

1. Write eBook on “Cracking the Communication Code”
2. Create incentive—sample chapter?
3. Write 20 posts for my “speak and be heard” blog
4. Learn all about Facebook advertising
5. Produce Power Point presentation
6. Produce SlideShare presentation hitting the high points of the book
7. Set up a new WordPress blog for the book
8. Take photographs for the blog and book
9. Start social media campaign
10. Format for Kindle
11. Create flash cards to accompany book—shaped like eggs?
12. Write email series for free funnel
13. Write email course
14. Set up autoresponder
15. Research shopping carts and sign up for one
16. Create SurveyMonkey survey
17. Create worksheet and template packages
18. Set up shopping cart for flash cards
19. Clean up my bookkeeping from 2015
20. Re-organize office

Holy cow that’s a lot to get done! But that’s what it may take for your specific goal. When on earth do you WRITE or work your business amidst all of this?

Before you begin a single task, pick up a highlighter and either highlight only those tasks or steps it is essential for you to do personally… or highlight every task that can be outsourced.

If you’ve never outsourced, scratch these tasks out and write in one single, simple step instead:

“Learn how to outsource effectively.”

Then go to our SERVICES page and see what I might be able to do for you! 🙂

In all seriousness, there are many people out there who can help you with these projects and get those nagging tasks off your plate.

Thinking of your 2016 to-do list, what do you most want to outsource right now?