SCALING SERIES PT 2: How to Know When It’s Time to Outsource (and What to Start With)

Summary

In this conversation, Christa discusses the critical aspects of scaling a business through effective team building and outsourcing. She emphasizes the importance of time management, identifying tasks that can be delegated, and understanding one's zone of genius. Christa provides practical tips for hiring the right employees and overcoming the fear of delegation, ultimately highlighting that time is the most valuable resource for entrepreneurs.

Takeaways

• Scaling requires a clear understanding of your business goals.
• Time management is crucial for business growth.
• Outsourcing can lead to more efficient operations.
• Identify tasks that can be delegated to free up your time.
• Your zone of genius should focus on income-generating activities.
• Hiring the right employee can significantly impact your business.
• Don't wait for the perfect time to hire; it will never come.
• Trust your team and allow them to take on responsibilities.
• Your time is your most valuable resource; invest it wisely.
• Successful businesses often have shorter to-do lists.

Thinking about joining Uncapped or Intensive coaching? 

DM me the word COACH to www.instagram.com/christa_rene for a no pressure convo on if this could help your business grow to the next level.

Thanks for listening! We’d LOVE if you left us a review!
Connect with Christa on Instagram HERE!
Enjoy a free 20-min training on adding $50k in income from products HERE!
Apply for Uncapped HERE!

Transcript

Christa (00:00.631)
We're back, this is the second part on scaling. We're gonna be talking about outsourcing and team building. And even if you're sitting there like, I'm nowhere near that point, this can still be really helpful. You might surprise yourself with maybe it is the right time to build a team. Maybe it's not. We're gonna go over all of that. I would encourage watching these in order. So if you missed the last episode on scaling and first looking at is what you're doing actually scalable? Do you want it to scale? Why do you wanna scale? That's gonna be really important. But one of the first things that I often run into coaching is Krista.

I don't have enough time. We all hear it, we've all felt it, we all have the same hours in a day. Like I mentioned, I've built multiple, multiple six figure businesses at this point and I'm having my second baby. I know what it's like to be busy. I have very, very, very, very, very few students who just say, I have so much time and I don't really know what to be doing, right? We all have stuff going on personally in a business and I don't really think you can separate the two. It's gonna overlap. So.

When that happens and you just find, and I get it y'all, we all have different weeks where it's like, okay, this week was just like, hey, why are crazy? Okay. But if we are continuing to chug along and kind of keep seeing that happening, something needs to change, right? If we're like, hey, I'm not able to work on the things that are moving the business forward, that's a problem. And so we find out, hey, maybe we don't have a time problem. Maybe we're putting our energy and time when we are spending it on work.

on the wrong things. So obviously we have to make time in our business, right? Like think of your business like a baby. If we don't take care of, let's use a puppy instead. This is like, this will be a little better. If we're not taking care of the puppy, then it can get sick, right? And it can get sad and needy. And I know the same thing is true as a child. Just makes me less sad thinking of it with a puppy than a child. But it's going to need attention. needs care. needs to be let out. It needs to be fed. You have to give it water. Like we have necessary things we do.

to keep the puppy alive, okay? And it's going to be the same with our business. So we can't really expect our business to grow if we're not even doing the necessary things for our business to survive. So when we look at that, we see, okay, well, first of all is I have to make sure I am putting aside time into my business and then I'm gonna kind of skip past that, I'm assuming you are if you're here and at that point. It's maybe you're saying I am putting time into my business, I just still don't have enough time for everything I want to do.

Christa (02:23.848)
So when we look at this, we have to get clear on creating more space to scale, but it's not just about creating more to do more. That can't be the answer. So I love talking about time management with my students, but that's not the only piece of it. It's like how much longer of a to-do list can I make and get done? What often actually happens with very successful businesses is they see growth the more they get off of their plate.

and the to-do list gets actually shorter. So very high level CEOs often you see don't have this incredibly packed random to-do list. It's a very structured, it's a very intentional, they don't start their day wondering, hooty hum, what should I work on? There's a system and a plan. And I wanna give you some tips to really get going with this to see, am I at a point, maybe I need to bring on some help? And I will say, I see more photographers do this and I would...

It's probably across the board in general, but I've just coached more photographers than in the other industry who don't or outsource soon enough than those who outsource too soon. So if you're sitting there at the end of this thinking, I think I really need to do this, but is it too soon? It's probably not. So the very first thing I want you to do, grab a pen and paper. If you're a pen and paper kind of gal, or if you're a Google Excel kind of person, write down everything you're doing in your business. Now here's the deal. You're not going to sit there and think of everything in the first sitting.

Take this list around you for an entire week. And I'm talking everything. I'm gonna give you a to get you started, but this is by no means covering everything. Posting on Instagram, sending invoices, sending client reminders, calling, editing, prepping for your shoots, sending client gifts, emails, specific responses, getting the online gallery uploaded and set, adding in the online store.

for me, selling, right, offering products, getting those products ordered, getting those products to the client, updating the client. There's so much that goes into running the business, posting on Instagram, if I haven't said that, posting on Instagram stories, blogging, updating your website, okay? And really write down everything that is taking your business for it to get going. The thing is you can actually do this now on another column in your personal life.

Christa (04:47.883)
Okay, driving the kids to school, making lunches, cleaning the house, laundry, folding clothes, cooking dinner, cleaning up dinner.

And sometimes what happens is I've talked to photographers who once they put all of this down and they look at here's what I actually want to get done each day. There's actually not enough hours in the day to get done what you need to get done. And that's why they're often feeling frustrated because what they want to get done, it's just not possible. Like the numbers don't lie when it comes down to what it's actually taking. And that is really discouraging if you're holding yourself to a standard that's unrealistic.

and beating yourself up for it over and over like, gosh, another day went by and I still wasn't able to get everything done I wanted to. And it's not even about not sitting here saying, yeah, keep doing everything, you just need to be more efficient doing it. It means there's things on our plate that needs to go because what's happening? Well, we're kind of like a paddle boat going upstream. We're not actually making any traction because we're working in the business treading water instead of on it.

And that's when a lot of businesses stall out and suffer is because they don't have enough help and they didn't focus enough on what were the next steps to market and scale. So after you've made this list, I want you to take a different color pen or highlighter or whatever it is, and I want you to underline the tasks only you can do. And even that, I know it's gonna be really pressing to be like, could this be someone else? like,

Maybe take the emotion completely out of it, just very objectively. Could someone else do this? Could someone else send a client gallery? Well, no, because they might mistype it. but you'll save a canned response. You don't need to send a custom email every time. Just change a few things, right? Could someone else send these images to your editor? Could someone else pull for you? Could someone else now edit for you? AI, thank you.

Christa (06:52.779)
what really has to be you? And those are the $100, $200 hour tasks that require all of you, because there's only one of you. We can't duplicate you. And so I had to get really clear on what are the things only I can do and ask yourself, are these the money-making tasks? And normally the answer is yes. when I looked at this, and often, okay, there's some mindset stuff here. So if you,

haven't really outsourced too much, it is gonna be scary, especially when I say things like giving up editing. I can't give up editing. It doesn't mean you have to. I have some very successful friends and that is one of the things that they chose to keep in house. It's up to you, but they've given away a lot of other things that you might still be doing.

So it's normal to be really scared and to think, can't give this stuff up, Krista. I have built this with my two hands. And I'm gonna give a few examples interwoven through this, okay? But let me keep going here for sake of the, if you're tracking with me, like, let's keep going, okay? But if you're struggling with the mindset, you are not alone. There's nothing wrong with you. It's very normal to feel that way, because you have built something big and beautiful. You've made this business child, and it is scary to think of someone else taking care of it, okay? Hang with me.

What I did is I realized my zone of genius that is what really has to be me is shooting and selling. So I am full service. I meet with my clients before and after. You can even outsource some of those things. So yesterday I had a session and at the time of recording this, I'm about to have my second, I didn't know if I'd go into labor or not. So I hired a very trusted, she's actually a past student and now works for us. I hired a very trusted photographer with a very similar skill level. I completely trusted her with this.

to photograph a session for me, made that very upfront with the client, they were great with it, I pay her, I'm still able to serve them and make money, okay? So there are pieces to this that you can outsource if you want to build a model. The model I did though, I did keep myself shooting primarily sessions and I just make a few exceptions like the one I just gave you, it was a return client I really wanted to work with and didn't wanna outsource, Or sorry, I didn't wanna refer away, I wanted to keep her as a client, okay? So what does that mean? So that means I got clear on

Christa (09:09.009)
What brings me income is the more I shoot and the more I sell. So if I can get more off of my plate and have more time for those things, my business will grow. It'll make more money. It'll serve more people. It'll be more profitable. What's not gonna help it grow if I'm doing things that are taking away, that if I'm building a business taking away from those main things that are actually bringing an income that have to be me.

So it's kind of like the law of like addition and subtraction. If I take away certain things on my calendar and have more room, I can take on more of what's bringing you money. So then I also want you to then circle what actually gives you energy though. Because what we don't wanna do is fill our calendar with things that yes seem high level, but just completely zap us. Because even if you have the time allotted to be able to go in and do certain tasks, all of them are tasks that

you just dislike and are soul sucking. Maybe that's something you need to outsource. And I tell my students that where sometimes they're like, Krista, I can do this. I really just don't want to. And I sit there while that stares at me at the to-do list. I just don't wanna do it. I get it. Often that means it's actually a task that you probably don't need to be doing. That's probably why you feel that way. And so I've become completely addicted to outsourcing. I wanna get everything off of my plate that doesn't give me energy and that isn't making money.

Obviously it needs to be making money, but you know what I'm saying, that aren't the highest levels of things I have to be showing up for. Now, what do we do with everything else on the list? I'm not saying just leave it, because there's probably things on the list that you're like, I can't just delete this, but I really want you to look through, do all of those things actually have to get done, or are you filling your to-do list with things just because you're seeing someone else do it, and it's not actually moving the needle forward in your business at all? So that's the first thing I look at. Are there things I just need to take off? Do I really actually need to be doing

these things, is anything coming from them. Now I'm not saying, Crystal, well, you said to blog, I've been blogging, nothing's coming from it. Don't stop blogging, okay? But maybe there's other things that you've been doing that aren't super necessary. The next thing I look at, can AI do certain things? So like, imagine AI or Evoto can really help speed up your editing flow. If you're not using those things and hand editing everything in Lightroom, you need to start using something like that. It's pennies per image. That's the easiest way you can start outsourcing. So are there little things like that or?

Christa (11:33.272)
Can your CRM send certain reminders to your clients and help you get them booked faster or easier? Right? Like what are little things like that? And then finally, when there's still things on the list, that's what we look like. What would it bring it be? What would it look like? Gosh, I can't talk. If I already know how to do these things and have the skill set for them to bring in a part-time employee to help a few hours a week, and you might say, Krista, no one would want to help me with that. That's not true. That is not true.

about every upper level student I have helped hire has been shocked that there's someone out there so excited and eager to do it that actually does it better than them. They've been shocked. I didn't think anyone would want to help me. Of course they would want to help you. And when I have coached students who've made the most successful hires, it's been in their circles. They didn't go, have to go through and find an agency and go on Indeed. Like they shared an application form that I give my students. They shared it like just,

on their socials, in their circles, and they were shocked. One of my best hires, most recently she's become my operations manager. She was actually a past bride of mine that I'd photographed her wedding for and reached out. So keep that in mind. Don't let that get in your head. But then you might say, what if they mess it up? That's when you come alongside as an employer. So you wanna hire the right person, but you train them really well on those specific tasks. I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm just so excited.

So what would it look like to get those tasks off of your plate that are actually $20 an hour tasks, not $200 an hour tasks? What would that mean for you? Krista, $20 an hour? So you're saying if I have someone help me, let's say it just starts out, y'all, let's do some math here, four hours a week. What would it look like to have four hours of things you don't wanna do and that don't have to be you back?

Four hours, let's say you're paying them $20 an hour, which I know differs where you're at and skill set and all of those things. So don't use this as a benchmark. I am using this as an example. That's $80 a week, multiply it by four, that's $320. So I know and I knew I am averaging two grand per session after I upsell. If I book one extra session because these things were taken off of my plate with that amount of work, that is a drop in the bucket. Do you see how that works?

Christa (13:55.035)
because I have more time to work on the things that matter in my business. Maybe it's like education and you're like, well, I need to learn how to upsell Krista, but I don't have time. Great, if you learn to upsell $300 a month, which I could definitely show you how to, having someone take those other things off of its plate already equates itself out, okay? So it's always thinking like with that bigger picture mindset when it comes to this. So.

What would that five to 10 hours look like back in your business? So I wanted to give you just some really quick tips on getting started. And the first one is don't wait until it's perfect. There will never be the perfect time to hire an employee. There will never be a shining star that puts it in the sky and you have a dream and you're like, today is the day I hire. You will never hit that point. And if you wait for that point, you're gonna see that growth stalling out. You're gonna see that growth being capped and it's gonna leave you stalled out.

So my very first employee who really, it's not my first, yeah, I should say employee, because I think I did make her employee, but I'm gonna back up a little bit more, sorry. One of my first hires was actually my photography teacher reached out and said, I have someone here, her name is Annika, I love Annika, we're still very good friends, and she needs an internship, okay? And I'm gonna shoot y'all straight, I've also had internships not work out well.

I was very fortunate that this was someone who was a very high achiever, very motivated, very passionate about learning. actually she was able to even have upsells of her own photo business. moved, on to bigger and better, but was able to scale from there. But when I had her come in for a handful of hours, she would come in Tuesdays and Thursdays. She was local to me. It was a kick in the pants for me to actually have stuff ready for her.

So we blogged twice a week at the time to really ramp up SEO. So she would do that. I sent her the social media calendar. So she would go ahead and post that and tag everybody. Before weddings, she would go ahead and organize what are all of the vendors handles so I could be marketing well at the wedding and tagging them behind the scenes. And I really looked at what can she do in that group. And eventually she had to move on. So I brought in and put out hiring for someone else and her name is Laura. And she is about 40 minutes from me meeting. She could pop in and out if she needed to.

Christa (16:17.616)
But most of the stuff I realized really was remote that I needed help with. And so Annika kind of transferred the reins to her, showed her how to do certain things, because I don't need to do that. Annika was doing it, she knows how to do it. And I still actually paid Annika. So I paid Annika to show Laura, here's how to do the things we were doing. And then Laura even, took it a step further. And I looked at even more things that could go off of my plate, like scheduling appointments, like sending out galleries, sending things to our editor at RetouchUp.

downloading them, organizing the gallery, I can approve it, she's pushing things out, placing client orders, that's something that doesn't have to be me, no one knows if I'm sitting there behind my computer placing orders or not. And then every now and then, when we would get a lot of orders in, she would come and we would just bulk organize them all together. And so it started small, it didn't start with Laura doing 30 hours a week, even though we did eventually get there at our time of max capacity, and we were doing a lot, like it was.

It was so much fun, we loved it. But it didn't start there. It started really small with having someone come in and taking the basics off of my plate that I already knew doesn't have to be me, but they need to be done to keep the business moving. That's how our business hit 400,000. Yes, it had to start with the sturdy foundation of I was at a four figure and multi four figure average pursuit. But then we looked at how do we market it, consistency, how do I do that when I have limited time?

I have someone come in and help me blog really intentionally and regularly and help me stay connected on Instagram, posting and things. And that's the main way I built my business. And then I had more time and freedom to build in-person connections with people, to shoot more, to sell more because those other things were taken off of my plate. So it can start really, really small. It can start with just a couple hours a week, but it's putting on that CEO hat to be able to get to that next level. So,

The way that I have had my best hires is you can go through different VA firms, you will pay more than if you just hire someone to come in house and then you can call the shots more. The times that I would hire through a company is if there's a skillset that I'm not equipped at to learn. So someone on my team now is like that. Where she comes in, when we shifted to education, there was a skillset that Laura and I just didn't have and we're having a hard time figuring out.

Christa (18:38.372)
So we actually hired someone already trained in that space to come in to help us set that up. And she's since stayed on the team. And often you're gonna be paying more for that. For instance, you're gonna pay more for a blogging expert to come in and blog than for me to have figured out blogging and to train someone in-house. Same with social media. And there's not one right or wrong. I just wanna walk you through the ways you can grow. But the main things that I would look at if you're hiring your first employee, and let's say,

you know what you want them to do. You don't need to hire an expert professional in that field, photographer. You don't wanna actually hire another photographer, why? Because at the end of the day, their business growth will always come before yours. You wanna hire someone where even if they start small now, they can have room to grow with you, why? Because you're gonna grow as you get stuff off of your plate and you're gonna become so excited about having them do more. And if they're the right fit, they're gonna love it and they're gonna want more.

and then you're gonna have this time over here to bring in even more clients and to scale in the way that you want it to and get intentional about where your rates need to be and how you're upselling and doing different things in your business. And they ideally can come with you, okay? No, I'm not saying do you have 70 hours a week eventually, you can work for me. No, that's not what saying. But I would be hesitant to hire someone who says they only have two hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays and looking them as a long-term option, okay? So some really easy things that you can start with is now that you've made your list,

of what to do and what you want to get focused on moving off of your plate, and then you know what is bringing you in the most money those tasks, you can just start making a catalog of little videos as you're going through your day-to-day operations. So the website Loom, L-O-O-M, you can just record your screen and say, is how I'm sending an invoice. This is how I'm sending an online gallery. This is how I upload an online gallery. This is how I send a client reminder. This is how I reply to this email.

And so what's possible is getting to a point where your business can operate. You're not having to put, I'm out of town responders and things don't have to halt. They can continue running. What this looks like for me, again, kind of pulling back the curtain a bit and the coaching space is I'm gonna shoot y'all straight. The hires that have been hardest, like the roles that have been hardest for me to let go of have been the most rewarding to let go of and allowed the business to grow further. Things that I really thought

Christa (21:01.494)
I don't think I want to manage this. don't know if I can. I think this has to be me. Doing that is what led to, and I said in last episode, those, I just remember vividly, I had a few month old baby. I jumped back into work. I was scaling and scaling fast. Those were the nights I was laying on my floor at home crying, because it just wasn't working for me. I was doing tasks in the business that were draining me.

that were taking me away from actual coaching, which is what I'm so passionate about and teaching and growing. was doing tasks and it was very lonely at times. I might do an episode on this and add to the series of when you're running the business, it can feel very alone and even having someone like in it with you is wonderful and very insightful. And I love when my team,

brings ideas to me and says, hey Krista, what about this? And I let them know I'm always open to that because you're seeing things that sometimes I don't see. And I don't wanna hire a duplicate Krista, I wanna hire someone with strengths outside of what I have. It's so important. And so my role can be as a CEO, not micromanaging all of these different things. So there comes a point where you do start having to trust the people around you.

and you understand they're gonna make mistakes. And guess what? Can I tell you all a secret? I make mistakes all the time and my team sees it. The other day, y'all, I ordered a wedding album wrong and it was something the client had already waited a long time for. I thought I had triple checked everything and I ordered the wrong size. And guess what? I have a team member who's ordered the wrong size too. And it keeps me very humble because they're going to make mistakes, but that's still worth, that is still worth me not doing everything and hitting that capped point.

So often I hear, I need to know exactly the number is on when you hire and the exact percentages of your profit and all these things. I am not here to give you a formula because I do not have one. So I would be talking out of my booty if I were to make something up for you. There's different industry standards. You're welcome to go online and look them up. Once you hit this volume and this income, that's when you hire. But ultimately, I believe not enough people do it soon enough. And then,

Christa (23:18.944)
I saw it working in my personal life. And I remember when my husband actually, God bless him, was the one who actually brought in our first cleaning help. And I saw the benefit of that, of I can stay at my office and take one more meeting and close out this two grand portrait sale, or I can come home and clean the house. Or I can pay someone a couple hundred dollars to do it, right? You start weighing things based on your time. And I want to end with this, and I should have started with this. Your time is your most valuable resource.

Your time is the resource you will never get more back of. And I believe it is the resource that is looked down the most on, where people structure their days and structure their lives without really taking into account that we have limited time. And you have to look at what it's worth it to. That's why I'll coach a lot of photographers who come to me so tired of spending so much time for a few hundred dollars when they look at really everything that goes into it.

and they're capping their sales and they know there's nothing else they can sail past this, right? Being a mom that changed things more than ever. It's why a lot of my top students are moms, because they come to me for coaching, because they see I don't wanna be shooting myself, ragged, running around all the time, doing all these things for such little return. Your time is your most limited focus, but when you can focus on what actually is driving the business, making money and giving energy and skills faster, and then,

when you pay someone, it feels smaller when you're able to book bigger. So I'm glad you stuck around for this episode. There's gonna be lots more goodies ahead and I hope this is helpful on your hiring and outsourcing journey.