We opened our pool this past week & the kids had a blast! I never thought I’d want to own a pool, but it has been such a fun time and a great distraction for the kids now that school is over.
But I didn’t always feel like I would have time to enjoy swimming in the pool with my kids. When I was first starting my business and growing my channel, I felt overwhelmed with how much work there was to do: Email, shooting, editing, publishing, social engagement, creating products, writing sales pages, and more. I was reluctant to hire a virtual assistant because of the money and time it would take. But after I did it, I wished I had done it sooner. I made some initial mistakes at first, but was then able to start working on my business again instead of being stuck working in the business. (And more time to just enjoy the people I love.)
On this week’s podcast, I talk about some of my mistakes and how I find and train people today for my team in a way that enables us to move forward and take new ground as a business.
But first, our Creator Spotlight: @Undecided with Matt Ferrell
In one year he went from starting his channel to being full-time on YouTube. HOW?? He boiled it down to one principle. Full-time effort = Full-time reward. He was laid off from his job soon after he started his YouTube Channel and decided to use the opportunity to focus completely on his channel. His plan was to experiment, see what worked well and then, lean into what people really liked. Check out his channel to see some really good examples of creative intrigue with titles and thumbnails, increasing the intrigue with a hook, and then delivering with quality content.
But, back to hiring help for your YouTube Channel. You might be thinking, how do I know when to hire someone? How do I even start the process? I go through all of this in detail on the podcast but I want to hit the main points here.
My Biggest Mistake
The biggest mistake I made early on was expecting to be instantly freed up when I hired someone. It turns out that when you hire someone, they actually take more of your time at first. You can expect that in the first few months that they will take more of your time while you train them. BUT THEN, after they are properly trained they will free you up to do what only you can do.
This training period is why it’s so important to hire someone before you are completely desperate for help. Hire at a time that you know you have about 3 months of extra capacity to train someone. Then do it! – And it doesn’t have to be full time help. Many people are looking to do just a few hours a week or just completing certain tasks. So start planning now! Make a list of tasks you’d like to offload and then start searching for someone to hire sooner rather than later.
Where to Find Help
I have used services like Upwork in the past, but a personal recommendation goes a LONG way. So start asking around. Do you know anyone who embodies the values that you hold important? Do you know anyone who enjoys the things that you need done? Find out!
Interview
I prefer to not start with a one-on-one interview. After people apply and I look over their resume, I prefer to start out by testing out their skills. For my personal assistant, one of the key tasks they would take over was answering email. So I put together 10 emails straight from my inbox and asked my applicants to answer them. If you need someone to edit your videos, send them a video that you have edited yourself to get your style and then ask them to edit another video for you. Do you like their work? If yes, meet with them and see if they are a good fit.
Training
Set aside time for training. And if possible, do as much of this beforehand that you can. About to do a task you’d like to offload? Take a video of yourself doing it. Save it in a file for training purposes. Or write out your process in a SOP. The more that you can have ready for them to reference, the better.
Also, part of our process AFTER hiring is to complete DISC personality tests. These are extremely helpful to know right away how you naturally process information and communicate. Taking these tests and then meeting together and talking about the results have been key in allowing everyone to feel understood and start off on the right foot.
Recommendations
Some of our favorite tools and apps that we use in our company are Helpscout for email management, Slack for internal communication and Monday.com for task management. Also, a couple books I would recommend would be Virtual Freedom by Chris Decker and E-Myth by Michael Gerber.
Power Tip
There is a new analytic that was added to YouTube this winter. You can now see which videos are growing your audience on the Audience tab in YouTube Analytics. This can help you understand what specific videos are growing your channel. Who doesn’t want to know that?
Do you have any specific questions on hiring or anything else? Send us a voice message! We are going to be using these really soon in an upcoming podcast.
Keep Changing Lives!
Tim Schmoyer