Extreme Outsourcing - How Dare You! (It’s All Your Fault)

You hire overseas talent to help out with a part of your life or business - ie, “Scheduling Meetings” or “Level 1 Customer” service.

Awesome. 

They can definitely help.

They start scheduling meetings, and they make a mistake. 

You hop on zoom or maybe even make a screen share video.

They make another mistake.

You hop on another zoom or maybe make ANOTHER screen share video.

This repeats ad nauseum until you give up OR you make your overseas talent so nervous about making mistakes that they ask you 487 questions before doing one thing. 

Totally worthless. 

I’ve seen this happen over and over. 

Maybe even you hire someone new! 

That doesn’t work - the cycle will just repeat. 

It frustrates the overseas talent, frustrates the client, and wastes time and money.

So what can you do about it?

First, recognize you are responsible. 

Repeat after me.

“Hi, my name is Jon, and I’m bad at outsourcing.” 

Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery.

Whether you like it or not, everything that your overseas talent does or doesn’t do is your responsibility. 

• Maybe you didn’t design the role well.

• Maybe you didn’t run a tight enough interview process.

• Maybe you didn’t onboard them effectively.

Whatever!

Just recognize that you are responsible for their failure.  

Now, to the solution. 

The answer is simple - but not easy.

Write down the “STANDARD.” 

 What is the “STANDARD”? 

The correct way things are to be done.

You can’t blame someone for making a mistake unless you’ve written down a clear, unambiguous STANDARD. 

I’ll say it again because it is so important. 

You can’t blame someone for making a mistake unless you’ve written down a clear, unambiguous STANDARD. 

Your overseas talent are not mind readers. 

They don’t know jack about you. 

They don’t know your preferences, constraints, challenges, or moods. 

They only know what you’ve told them - and telling someone something once on a zoom call isn’t good enough!

Here’s an example of a scheduling assistant’s STANDARD that lives in a Notion document. 

Now, I can pretend that my friend Codie (an EO subscriber!) is just this organized - or I can tell you the truth… I helped her.

Here are a few of my favorite parts about writing down the “STANDARD” and enforcing it. 

• Your talent will thank you. Not knowing what a “good job” is, sucks

• Your talent will thank you again. Knowing what a “good job is”, is empowering

• You’ll know if the overseas talent is good or not. How? They perform at the standard, or they don’t. It’s binary.

• You’ll also know you have an “all-star.” How? When they can self-initiate the creation of a new STANDARD, which you can then review! I have my folks do this all the time. 

• If you have turnover in the position, you get to reuse the standard! No repetitive training ever again. Give them access to the STANDARD, and BAM; they are ready to go.

What is some other guidance about setting the STANDARD?

• It’s a living document - and should be updated by both the overseas talent and the client routinely

• It should be easily accessible - I use Notion, but there is no wrong answer here

• Coach to the STANDARD. If a mistake is made after you’ve written it down, you do the following:

  • Hop on a zoom

  • Highlight “point 4” or wherever it says the STANDARD about where they messed up.

  • Ask, “Is point 4 clear to you? Do we need to add any language”? Sometimes you do. Sometimes you don’t

  • If you don’t have a STANDARD set, I don’t believe you can’t “enforce” a mistake! 

Last point here, for those paying close attention.

The STANDARD applies to supervising almost all entry-level personnel. The person that cleans your AirBNB. Stocks your office fridge. Orders office supplies. Doesn’t matter. 

Set and enforce the STANDARD.

———–

I have two favors to ask:

• If you are getting any value out of this, could you post the newsletter link to your socials or forward it to a friend? I really love writing about this, and having an audience to listen motivates me to keep going!

• Write me an email with questions! I want to know what challenges, questions, and comments you have about becoming an extreme outsourcer. Or, just introduce yourself. 

Jon