Ask The Expert: Outsourcing Secrets for Business Growth with Jessica Koch

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Hello, helloAmplify You family Michelle Abraham, your host here today. And I am so excited to bring you an awesome ask the expert interview today. I've got Jessica Koch with me today. I sounds like Scotch it's always called her Jessica Koch right? Did I say they got their

Notch like scotch? You got it?

I always remember the right. So that's how I can remember to say it right. I love it. So I will first of all say hi to Jessica and then I'll tell you a little bit more about her. How're you doing Jessica?

I am awesome. And I'm excited to be here.

I'm so excited to be here to just get to spend all day with us last week at Potter palooza. She was an interviewing Rockstar interviewed so many people throughout the day is second time you come to Potter Palooza you already signed up for the next episode, I believe says you're hooked on portfolios app. And I love that about you see, you're so open to interviewing everyone on your show. So tell us a little bit about your podcast and and what it's called.

That's called profound professionals. And I did started about five years ago. And the concept was I was out there virtually networking, far before the pandemic. And meeting to so many amazing blow my mind brilliant experts globally and thought you know, I want to share these people with other people. So I decided to do the podcast, these experts specialize in helping someone improve their life or grow their business. And I decided when I started to do this, it really was just because I loved it. And I thought you know if I'm going to spend the time and energy to do a podcast because I love it. I am a big fan have multiple wins. So one of the foundation pieces of the show is that our guests all share a cause that is close to their heart that they care about. And so we're taking this time and energy put this podcast out and feature them and feature me essentially and also then taking a moment of pause to spread awareness about some beautiful, amazing causes I didn't even know existed as I've done this over the course of the years, I've learned about so many things that help so many people with so many different unique and special needs. That it's been just a beautiful story. So that's that's our show.

Wow, that's so awesome. And I love that you've just connected with so many amazing people through Potter palooza. So what a cool way that you can get a whole bunch of episodes done. They meet hordes of incredible people all at the same time is so so glad to have you on our featured podcasters team at pedophile is super awesome. Let me tell you guys a little bit more with Jessica. So Jessica has been a national sales professional for more than 25 years. She's worked with Fortune 1000 clients like Disney and Verizon, and with national power utilities, hospitals, governments, universities, colleges, so many unique and awesome places that you she's coordinated and work with. And Jessica, you've successfully trained and managed multiple sales teams nationally, that were always consistently in the top producers on their teams. You speak all over the world and and you've been featured on so many podcasts. And now you have a company that really helps specializing in supporting entrepreneurs with all things of a virtual team. And I'll leave it at that because I know there's a lot we can dive into with this here. One of the things that our entrepreneurs that are listening today are sitting at home, some of them still thinking about doing a podcast, some of them jumped into podcasting. Some of them are the beginning stages of their entrepreneurial journey. And I know when you first start being an entrepreneur, it's so easy to be the one man show and do absolutely everything yourself. And that is the one road to disaster if in my opinion, because I can only say that with love because I've done that several times. So myself I try to do it all because I'm trying to save money and in the end of the day I just like off just crash and burn and need to find some support when in support should have come a little sooner than it did. So take us to why you started helping entrepreneurs with this with these with these tasks that we think we can do ourselves.

Let's see the why starts a little bit out there. I won't go too far. out there. But before years ago before my company even started, which has been around my firm, my consulting firm has been around for about seven years now. I was driving down the road and the sky was just like those beautiful cotton candy clouds like they look so thick and fluffy. You could just reach out and pick on me and now it was just beautiful and I was driving along I kind of get into that meditative state. And for me it's sometimes i It's a really great place for me to connect the spiritually and almost meditate some okay, I know I'm driving, but so far, so good. My husband says angels protect my car, and I'm good. But I am focusing on the road, I promise but came to me almost I know sounds a little bit corny, but I swore I heard seed to Orchard and I didn't really know what it was for didn't have any intentions of growing you ever starting a business thought it would be a great business name. It really describes a lot of my experience and my knowledge and sales, growing things from seed to Orchard, right? That's the sales process. And then my business didn't come. You know, a lot happened, right? You grow your food, grow your profits from seed to Orchard and you sell more and you spend less you cannot attend an orchard with your own two hands. So early in my business days, I remember. And it was probably six or seven years ago. In my really early days of consulting, I remember sitting in my car and feeling that yucky Oh word that that overwhelm word. There's a couple of good oh words in our world that I love a lot of but, but that one was not one. And so I decided I made this decision to really take that word out of my vocabulary to not say that about myself anymore. I did this meditation and it came to me that my so it started with a cup, you know, because everyone says your cup is overflowing, right? Or, you know, and it came with this, this chalice or this cup and it was overflowing with blessings. And I just kept expanding it to a big, beautiful Punchbowl, and then to a big giant swimming pool and then to all the oceans of the world and then to all the universes that are in existence. And I said, okay, all my resources, the people, and the financial resources I need in order to achieve what's in front of me, are available to me and abundantly flowing for me. And for me that meditation, say saved myself, a wonderful piece would wash over me and that yucky not icky feeling in your stomach, you get when you feel the O word just melted away. And I was like, Okay, I this can be done. It wasn't an I can do this. It's this can be done with the resources that I need to face the tasks in front of me and the universe is going to send those resources to me, be it in people, or money, or knowledge or whatever I needed to achieve that. And so as I started working through as a sales and marketing consultant, and also doing social media training, which we still do all those things, and all my speaking and thanks, people kept coming back to me. And right, the July before the pandemic for one solid week. In July, I got 10 times the same question. And the question was, Jessica, everything you teach me everything I've learned from you, or I see you everywhere. How are you doing this? I'm I'm feeling the O word so much. And everyone wanted to know how I did it. And the truth of the matter was I didn't at that point in my company, I had about a dozen people working just for me just to take care of the things our company needed. And they were virtual systems from all over the world that I had nurtured a relationship and worked with and had them doing all the things that I knew I didn't want to do. I'm the Italian mother of seven. I've been speaking nationally for 25 years and internationally before. And I know a lot about sales and what has to be done in the follow up of the sales and those micro tasks that have to manage by also I'm very hardworking and loyal and dedicated. And just a long list of great things about me. Yes. But most importantly, I decided at this point in my life, I wanted the option to be lazy. And the have that option to say it's the middle of the week. It's a Wednesday, I've been to six networking things virtually. I'm now with my family and having dinner and walking by the water. I'm playing Yahtzee. And guess what? Every one of those people I went to network with is getting followed up on there. All their information is getting organized into a spreadsheet. They're getting their LinkedIn invitation to connect with me. They're getting their email thanking them sending my calendar like telling them about how we could collaborate if they're open to that, right. Oh, my I play Yahtzee that thrilled me. And so when I made that happen, I thought everybody needs this. Everybody needs this So I think that is the journey I went through to add this new division to our company about three years ago when we did seven.

Yeah, I agree everyone needs that. Because I can't tell you how many 1000s of networking events I've been to and how very few people follow up. Follow

up the time to attend it. But we don't book the time to do the other stuff, because nobody wants to do it. Right. Right on to the next thing, and to the next thing, and to the next thing. And you forgot all about that.

Yeah, exactly. And when you especially when you're on a call with someone, and you're like, Oh, that was a really great connection and want to follow up with that person. And then two days later, you've totally forgotten about them and moved on. That's, that's not good. So just get that the only thing that you guys do is like help people support them with like a follow up system. There's other things that you guys can sort of support our entrepreneurs with it as well, right?

Yeah, we find that we do a lot of things. Everything from building social media, and scheduling and posting it and editing videos, adding things to YouTube, adding the tags and descriptions, writing articles, and blogs, creating landing pages, and funnels, and newsletters, and even some website creation, we're not going to do a big fancy website, I'm going to refer you out to someone that you need some sort of octopus of a site. But we've done some really basic sites that are really supporting our clients well, including e commerce, and checkout and all of that, too. And some of our clients come to us with websites, and we just make an update or add a program or you know, those kinds of things, just all the stuff that they again, don't want to do manage their skin, their calendars, and even send out invoices for them. I've even done, you know, tracking on proper financial accounting and bookkeeping stuff to tag things appropriately to get him ready for taxes. And maybe that's not like our skill set or high level don't know, and conduct that. But we've had clients really, we just try to really work like a custom boutique and really listen to our customer. And if they if we can learn to do it, or they can train us to do it. Or I can hire a skill set to do it. Whatever the challenges that they're facing, we try to be the solution. You know, and I come with the old transparency of the Oh, we've never done that before. We haven't tried that yet. You want us to try that together? Would you? Are you open for that? And they're like, Yeah, I'm all in let's go out together. And it's kind of this really beautiful, beautiful thing that I don't think you can get everywhere.

No, and I think that people have us feel like such a sense of relief when they find you. Yeah, is there anything you can help them with the things that are seemed kind of random, but like, are really sticking points are especially technologies making people just want to pull their hair out and want to quit. And I've seen so many people do that, over over small things that could be easily like easily supported, they can easily support it with a team to help them do that. So one of the things I've also seen happening in the entrepreneurial space is, so get all excited, and we go and hire a team or hire someone to help us and then we don't know what to do with that person. Or we don't know how to manage that relationship, or how does that work. That's something that you help guys out with to share with us the best ways to go about working with a team.

So that is actually a real thing. And when I first started the consulting firm, I had a couple people find me they're like, I have a small team, I have the tiger by the tail, I don't know what to do with it. Now what. And I was actually literally paid my hourly consulting fee, which is not small, just to work with the team, they already had an existence and that client and get some direction and clarity on what are the best ways to use that team's time and what's the best return on investment for it. And one of the formulas I have. So with our company, when you onboard with us, there's a lead person and a support person. And in that vague onboarding called which takes about an hour and a half to two hours, we really identify and get a clearer picture of especially where we start, right? Because of course this can grow into whatever it needs to be for the client. But where are the what are the three tasks that we're going to tackle first, that are going to really be the best use of your time. And so I asked our clients in the onboarding call every time this question What makes you the most money in your company, not just what makes you the most money but also what brings you the most joy and is easiest for you to deliver to your customer. So those three that is a powerful three combination. When you can identify in your company what brings you the most joy? What makes you the most money and what is easiest for you to deliver to your customers. Then you have something that's really really powerful. And we identify that with a customer then we say okay, what are the micro tasks in the background that lead to a customer and a sale like that of your service? This. And so then we start to figure out how can the team do those for you. So I always say try to do 1/3 of the time you're paying a virtual assistant with the money making actions that are those microtasks the background that are going to lead to that solution. Then the other third is social media. Because we need to be there, we need to be consistent. It is it is what it is and won't necessarily make you direct sales. But it does affect your brand. And it does have a component that does participate in your sales. And it can actually make you some direct sales in some cases. And then finally, add many things you know, and sometimes those Admony things are things that lead you to money, like one of the very first things I outsource was invoicing, I am totally open to money, I have no money blocks, windows doors, open opportunity, money can come in any anytime. But you know what I found out about myself, because I was totally blocked by the desire to never ever have to write an invoice I didn't like write down voices. So guess what happens? When you don't invoice your customers? You know? People don't just wake up and go, Oh, my thing I'm gonna mail Jessica money today. And like her, I wish they did. That's okay with me if you decide to, but um, you know, you need to send an invoice. And so when I got that off my plate and was able to outsource that, guess what happened, my regular steady revenue of income started just showing up like magic. Because it always is going out on the regular. So that was an ad we need to ask, but it had money making action implications. So you just think about those three categories, really, as you're deciding to outsource and you're thinking about tasks that you want a team to do for you. And that that's really helpful.

It's awesome. What are a couple of mistakes you're seeing people do when it comes to like bringing on getting someone to outsource some tasks to

two things, two main really, really important things, one, learn how to download all your stuff, okay? The FBI is hackable, you are not immune. Even if you hire the best humans on the planet. They could be hacked by accident, they could be a good soul. Nothing was they didn't do anything malicious, their stuff got hacked, which is clipped to your stuff and stuff happens. So don't be a devastated victim, the one that just has their knees scanned. And what I mean by that is if you've backed up and download your things, and you put them in a virtual cloud and an external hard drive, then you can recover from whatever has occurred. I hope it never occurs to any of you or any of us. But at least back yourself up. I onboard new clients all the time. And physically My stomach hurts when they say Oh, I didn't know you could back up your email. Oh, back camera. I've got 10 years of Campbell graphics on here. I never backed up my camera, you can do that.

I think I'm one of those people.

Though. $1,000 in my Facebook group, and all of our programs go through there you can backup Facebook and LinkedIn. Yes, you can make up all the things and you don't own any of these platforms, and you better backup all those things because you're on any of those platforms. So you need to own your content, your data, your relationships, you need to hold ownership of that. The only way to do that is to back it up properly. The second thing that is the biggest mistake is bless their hearts. People think that outsourcing is a magic wand and they're gonna wake up and all the little wells I'm gonna make the really cute shoes and they're gonna come down and go hop, this is great. Give me my coffee. I'm good. The day is over. I can just do my business thing and smile at people at networking events. No. You need to properly train them there needs to be really really clear communication. They they if you tell them I don't like the graphics you made me they're boring. What does that mean? boring to me is interesting to someone else. I'm just going to tell you that you know and and sometimes the event fascinating thing I've found in working with both clients and team is the client didn't really know what they didn't like about it took a while to figure out and go through the things is it the font this is the font that hooks to your brand, but is it the font that you don't like? Is it the color? No, it happens to be those faded polka dots in the background. But nobody knew that and neither did the client truly and so we identified it Okay, no more polka dots we got it nothing round circles. We're gonna go all lines and square. That seems to be what appeals to your brain but you they didn't even know you know. So. Really good communication is important when you train someone who their English is their second language especially. And sometimes their English is better than mine and they correct my grammar. I'm just going to tell you, they're brilliant people but when you train someone like that, you need to show them click by click and a video with them live on with you is better. And then hand them the mouse and say okay, now you do five of those or 10 of those and I'm just Don't watch. And if you need me, I'm here. And we're going to, if there's something comes up different than what I showed you, because that happens when you do tasks, it doesn't happen the same every single time. Oh, and we come into that instance, this is what you're gonna do. Or when you see this, this is how we're going to handle it. And then that person gets confidence and comfortable. And I can do this tasked with you in a way that you're not frustrated, and they're not fresh, and they have the video training to go back to and look at later and you have it when they win the lottery and decide never to be NBA again, you can hand it to the next person, you know, because they're human beings and life happens. I try to give all good life example happenings. But we all know things happen. And people stop, you just get like, oh my god, they know me, they know how I think they can read my mind. And then life happens and they're doing something else that doesn't involve you anymore. And you have to be ready for that and being ready for that it's important. Also hiring in threes instead of one person, that's a nice three things. But always hire three people because you don't have to pay them full time you can pay them by project. But if three people know you, and you're comfortable with them, and they know the things if one person falls off because they've won the lottery, then you don't have to start from ground zero job interviewing and hiring and starting all over again. Which also never happens if you're working with us because we have 70 plus VAs and multiple people know your project. And multiple people are have their hands in it so that, you know when that person wants a lottery and is no longer a VA, and they were working on your project, someone else can easily or more easily step in then if that hadn't been the case at all. So I think that's the other rookie mistake people do when they're trying to hire themselves.

Right? Cool. Yeah, you probably don't want to hire yourself. You want to hire someone that is much more organized and yourself.

When you're, when you're doing the hiring yourself, directly managing and hiring and interviewing the VAs versus having an agency like me, who does all the hiring, training. And you know, we do the project managing kind of for you. You're still involved. That's the other thing people you know, realize that you gotta meet weekly with your team, you don't know them, how can they help you?

Right. And that's so huge, I just say but you guys, the service you guys offer is a huge piece of some of the headaches I've seen a personal experience and some people have other people I've seen had experience with too is that the managing the hiring, the the training, and all that and then managing of the team too is a bit of a it's bit of a tricky one, especially if you've never done it before. And as you were saying backing up everything. You know, I learned a lesson a few years ago, where 13 and a half years of Facebook memories and business groups and clients and content on there disappeared, along with my Instagram account in a flash of a moment. And there was no possible way of getting back into it. And what I realized in that moment was I can start a new Facebook account and start over again. But I didn't have access to any of those groups to get into them. I didn't have any of that content anywhere else. And it was just gone like that. So yeah, so I learned the hard way. And I don't recommend that anyone go that route. So backup everything. But Cambo. That was what I never thought about. Thank you for that tip, because we have tons of stuff in Canva. And I never thought about backing up Canva Oh,

yeah, well, and when you go in the backup of Canva, it's very important that you also set a reminder on your calendar, because Canva tells you it's words, not mine. When you're back there and you're clicking the Request to download, it may take them up to a week to get to you and get that information. And often with these backups if you don't back it up and download it right away when they send it if you miss it, and then you try to do it a week later. And you see in your email. It's no longer any good. It's like you pressing it like the decrypts or whatever. And then they also tell you and hey, by the way, if you haven't heard from us in a week, reach out to us at support. So set a reminder for yourself to a watch for this in a week. And then remind them in a week because that they have seem to have a bit of a challenge with the backup piece on their platform and they're very hackable. I have heard horror stories of people going into their Canva and everything is just gone deleted because someone decided to be not a nice human activity and then it was windy and yikes and yucky but back up your stuff.

Yeah this scary especially for like agencies like mine where we manage a lot of other people's content in there too. Like holy smokes. Yes, get get it get the back of going. It's going that's the first thing Michelle's gonna do. We're gonna back up because Can we read now? This has been fantastic and thank you so much for sharing all your knowledge with us. And I know this is a pain point for so many entrepreneurs who try to go out there. And do we all read the E Myth by Michael Gerber. And, you know, you go out there being the technician and then all of a sudden, you're the technician that were 17 hats that you kind of do, you know, you won't you do you do your job because you love what you do. And then you not realize that oh, shoot, that job comes with, like, all these other tasks that I'm not skilled at. And then I'm not an expert at that. Now, all of a sudden, I'm responsible for doing my business. And I know, that is something that drives a hole in a lot of people's buckets that it just leaks out. And then you have to get in and start over again, or, you know, finding another finding another thing to start a business around, because it's just, it was too much. So that's amazing. The support that you guys offer. Any last words for our listeners today.

Um, let's see, you know, I want to say, really dream big, and don't worry about how much work it's going to be or how much money it'll costs. Just really dream big. And know that if you have a team that any dream is possible, and you don't have to sacrifice kayaking, or painting or sewing or family time or vacation time on the beach, just to have that dream running itself. It can run on its own independently with the right systems, automation, and the right team outsourced to support you. So you can have both don't don't take last on settle. Take those.

Awesome, thank you. So Cisco for being here. You guys. Make sure you connect with Jessica, because we do have a website or somewhere you want people to connect with you on.

Yeah, absolutely. We have Jessica L Koch consulting so Jessica the letter L like Lynn, which is my middle name. And our last name is Koch K O C H.com.

Awesome. Thanks, Jessica. Have a great day amplify you family. Make sure you go check out just because work and go subscribe to her podcast to have a listen and join us up Potter pose next time. Well, you could be interviewed by Jessica, August 9 coming up, and we'll see you then. Take care everyone.

Bye, everybody. Thank you.