The Power of Outsourcing

Hi, friends! I hope you are having a fantastic week. We are staying busy over here at CCS, with tons of new clients and exciting projects we’re working on! We’ve experienced a ton of growth lately, and as many of you probably know if you follow us over on Instagram, we’ve added two members to the team in the last three months! 

Adding new team members was an exciting, but also a scary process. Part of being an entrepreneur is the “I can do it all!” mindset. We are self-starters and motivators, and while coming to the realization that you can outsource is exciting, it’s a daunting thought. Handing over my work to someone else? Giving up total and complete control of the business I’ve built from the bottom up?! Well, when you put it like that, yes, it’s quite scary. But when you reframe your mindset to: I get to lead a team. I get to collaborate with others who can help bring my visions to life. I can take on more work. I can work more efficiently. Now that is something to get excited about! 

But, getting to the point of being able to outsource was a long journey, and it requires many prerequisites before being able to do so! I took my first client in 2017, but it wasn’t until 2019 that things really started to take off and I was actually able to think about CCS sustaining me instead of my corporate 9-5 job. But, things were a mess. I didn’t know how to say “no” and I was taking on every single client who came to me. My branding timelines were around 2-4 weeks and website timelines were around 5-7 weeks. When I finally made the jump and quit my job, I hired a business coach who quickly saw signs of burnout and advised me to hire ASAP. I quit my job in April (yes, of this year!) and made my first hire in May. With this first hire, those timelines have drastically reduced to about 1-3 weeks total for branding and/or website timelines. 

Amy was our first addition, as our Creative Director. She handles all things design, branding, and is the true creative asset to CCS. Most recently we’ve added our Marketing Coordinator, Izzy, to help with all things social media, copywriting, and creative brainstorming. After hiring Amy, my business coach still saw signs of stress and asked me a great question: “What is something you hate doing?” The answer was marketing myself; I hated planning out my weeks ahead for social media, and I never utilized all of the marketing channels I made for myself. I just simply did not have enough time in the day to get done all of the things I needed to do. And voila, that’s how Izzy came to be! As a team, we are really able to bridge the gap between logistics, creatives, and technicalities. I like to think of myself as the developer and integrator (i.e. give me all the implementation and I’ll put it into action), Amy as the creative and visualizer, and Izzy as the bridge between those two assets. 

As for the actual hiring process (which is super FUN!) – I made posts announcing I was hiring on Facebook and Instagram to see what was out there. I also, in true Instagram fashion, searched through hashtags and found Amy that way! I reached out to see if she would be interested in joining the team and totally lucked out – she was so inviting to the idea and applied, and it only took one interview before I knew she was a perfect fit. Hot tip: don’t be afraid to reach out to people! You never know what you may find 🙂 

I feel very lucky to be in a position where I can outsource – it has been crucial to my own happiness and ability to stay on top of this CEO stuff. Outsourcing can be a beautiful thing, not only because it’s a huge, amazing step in owning your own business, but because the things you may not be *super* passionate about, someone else is! And that person can help bring your vision to life. I could not believe how quickly Amy and Izzy were grinding out work when I first hired them, but I realize now how crucial this step was because of that. 

Outsourcing can be scary because it’s a loss of control, but what you’re really doing instead is leading. Having a team is a wonderful thing, and I’m so happy I made the jump in doing so. I am able to reallocate my time to the parts of my business where I thrive and am passionate about spending the most time with, and I can say with the utmost confidence that outsourcing is a crucial part of scaling your business – so take the leap and see who, or what is out there than can help you 🙂