When I was new in my first Director of Operations role, one of the main things I’d need to ask for help was to find people.
My manager at the time seemed to always have a person.
I need another PM.
I’m looking for a content writer.
I’m looking for a man in finance, 6’5″…
She would always have a person. Or have a person who would have a person.
It made her a resourcing master.
I wanted to be a resourcing master.
But how do you go from doing everything yourself, to having “a person” for everything?
Where does this little black book come from?
Who are these people sitting on the sidelines waiting for you to call them?
Fast-forward a couple years in the role, and my team was coming to me with their needs:
We need a video editor.
Where can I find a designer.
Who’s good at media buying?
It happened! I was the person who knew people now!
It didn’t happen overnight, but it was worth the effort.
It started when I was asked to update some marketing materials to reflect our new fonts and colors.
We had a $100/hr designer and a $50/hr designer, but this felt like $15/hr work, max.
We need someone with the programs, a decent eye for aesthetics and balance, not more than that.
Equipped with a job description and UpWork account, I posted my job and searched for some high-rated candidates in the $5-15/hr range.
I made it clear I was only going to pay for 1-hour of work.
And I had about 10 designers send me their final work in about 2 days.
Total cost: ~$100
I got the job done and a couple new contacts.
Rather than spending $50 to get it done by the mid-range designer I knew and liked, I spent $100.
Not a win in the short term, but a massive win down the line.
Not only do we have redundancy, we have options at different price points.
Something similar happened to a client of mine a couple weeks ago.
Her normal video editor was unavailable, and she was planning to edit her own videos until her editor came back from vacation.
I encouraged her to take the opportunity to build her bench.
She did. She found a new editor. So from now on, she has redundancy.
She’ll never need to edit another video again.
When we make a habit of filling in the gaps in our business, we think we’re helping, but we’re actually holding ourselves (and our teams) back.
When we make a habit of resourcing the gaps, we build a munch stronger foundation.
To be perfectly clear, I’m not talking about having a bunch of people on salary.
I’m talking about having a little black book of people you can call on to get a job done.
I’m talking about never having to pull yourself away from $1000/hr work to do $10, $20, or $50/hr work.
Staffing your bench with a backup video editor is $100/hr work that you’ll only need to do once.
Editing a video is $10/hr work you’ll probably need to do again.
This is one of those things like planting a tree – the best time was 10 years ago, the next best time is now.
So stop filling in the gaps in your business. Start staffing your bench with talent.
What are 1-3 things you’re doing yourself, that you know you really shouldn’t be doing?
If you’d like some help getting them off your plate, I’m here for you.
Joey