These last few weeks have been the most fun and productive times in my life. I just got back from a trip over to Hong Kong and Thailand and to share with you what I did, I’ve created a little video right below here that shows one of my most memory events whilst on holidays:

The reason why I show you this event is because when I look back over the time whilst I was away, not once did I check my email or have to worry about what was happening in my business. I literally left my laptop and mobile phone in Australia and I headed overseas and just had FUN! When I came back I was not surprised to only get 32 emails that were from my virtual staff and personal friends. Last time I traveled overseas when my business was not setup with the proper systems, I received easily over 200 emails in that same period of time. What a change it was!

How Did I Setup My Business To Allow Me To Be Stress Free Whilst On Holidays?

The key is outsourcing. I have a business that has core systems in place that allow full-time virtual staff to manage and run the business whether I am working or not. I spend a majority of my time creating video content which is the heart of my business and my members appreciate this. The rest of the work that still needs to be completed, such as customer billing, technical issues and marketing are all outsourced to people I hire from the Philippines. Though, even having full-time virtual staff working for me it is still vital to have proper systems in place. I am going to share with you the top 5 tips on how you can prepare your business to allow you to enjoy a stress free holiday:

Tip #1: Plan Ahead Of Time

Within my business, delivering video content is like running a TV show and if I want to ensure that my viewers receive what they paid for, then I need to follow a schedule. The best way to look at this is if you are writing content for a blog or uploading video to an online channel website, then you need to plan at the beginning and consider what you want to deliver to your market. As the saying goes, “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. Before I left for my holiday, I already had created over 8 videos which will be delivered over one and a half months. That way I am already prepared ahead of schedule. The same thing also applies to virtual staff and you will need to discuss with them the necessary work to be completed over the course of the year.

Tip #2: Set Dollar Productive Routine Weekly Tasks

I get asked this question a lot: “What work should I give to my virtual staff?” Firstly, it’s not a tricky question. The simple answer is to look into your business and find out the most dollar productive tasks to give to your virtual staff. It comes back down to the 80 / 20 principle. Basically we want to find 20% of the tasks (dollar productive tasks) that will generate 80% of our income / output. Once you have found these productive tasks, have them set as weekly routine tasks. For example you may find that creating websites targeted in specific niches that generates $50 a day is a task that needs to be completed weekly. Then you will need to create training material and action steps for your virtual staff to complete these tasks weekly, as it will help you generate an additional $50 per day for each website they create. The more websites they create, the more income you earn and the less work you do.

Tip #3: Use A Project Management System

I remember my experience when I hired my first virtual assistant very clearly. It was very easy to communicate with her via email and to send work to her. Though as the business grew and I started hiring another virtual staff and the third and so forth, I started to get headaches just from checking emails. I became frighted to see what would be in my inbox the next day. The reason was because I didn’t know how to manage them and I would literally get 50 – 60 emails a day back from my virtual staff asking lots of questions on how to complete tasks. When I discovered the power of using a project management system my life completely turned around emails dropped dramatically down to 2-3 a day. Furthermore, information such as training material, documents and all related items to the projects were all stored online in one system. If I didn’t make this change early on I would still be under the ground with more work than ever.

The project management system I use and have customised is called Projects2.us. Essentially it is the ActiveCollab system with a few extras that make life easier for my virtual staff.

Tip #4: Use A Ticket Support System

Once you have your virtual staff under control and all the projects are managed within one system and the processes are automated, the next step is to handle customer support. The common method is to setup one email account, for example support [at] yourbusiness.com and have all the emails routed there. Though what happens if emails don’t come through, or staff overlook the emails because they were confused with which email to respond to? Well, you can minimize these problems by using a simple ticketing system which can allocate the customer support queries to the right department or virtual staff. Furthermore, with an assigned ticket number, customer’s queries will never get lost or blocked by spam filters. The customers can easily login to their account and check their query if they wish as well. A free ticketing system that has been very effective in my business is called HESK. Easy to install and use for any business.

If you want a more advanced system, try the Kayako Support Suite, which I also use as well.

Tip #5: Provide Access To Relevant Accounts

If you want to ensure your business runs smoothly, you will need to let go a bit. Many clients have asked me is it safe? how can I trust them? what can I do to not give them access but have them complete the work? All valid questions and the simple answer is to put trust into your virtual staff and ensure there are fail safe mechanisms in place to handle account abuse. All of my programmers have full access to my websites and the reason why I give them this is because I trust them. I give them trust at the beginning because I know they are going to work for me for the long-term. If I am paying them to complete work, then I have already opened my business to them to trust them to get work done. Whilst I was away, access to the server to update information and make changes to websites were important and it would keep the business running smoothly. Therefore it’s important to provide account details for your virtual staff to access whilst being away on holidays and to leave it there. All of the information to usernames and passwords are all stored securely in a encrypted database and therefore I have complete faith that my websites or account details will not be abused.

Time To Prepare For The Next Holiday

The most challenging aspect of any business owner I believe is letting go of control. Control in the aspects of getting work done, knowing what happens with every deal, and running the business. It does take a leap of faith and the mindset to allow this to happen. A question I leave with you is to ask who will complete the work that can free up your time?

Time to plan for the next holiday and remember to mass outsource for a great life!

Tyrone Shum
Traveler And Outsourcing Expert