Not every blog needs to become a business. But many bloggers who are ready to make the transition to blogging for profit simply don’t know where to start. Kayla Sloan shares insight on how to grow profits by using systems and outsourcing.
Blogging for profit isn’t as easy as people make it out to seem. Blogging usually takes quite a bit of time, effort, and energy to become sustainable. But there is a way to turn your blog into a business more quickly and start earning income. How? By systematizing and outsourcing.
What are Systems?
Basically, a system is something that addresses a specific problem, automates it, and doesn’t require any time or thought on your part after it’s created.
For example, setting up an email funnel for freebie opt-ins is considered a system. After you put in the initial work to create the system, it runs in the background without you having to do anything. (Unless you decide to tweak or update it, of course!)
How to Grow Profits In Less Time With Systems
First, before you create any systems, you first need to know where you spend your time, and if those tasks are money generating or not. Typically, you want to systematize the tasks that aren’t bringing you any money, since they are the ones that could cost you significantly in terms of opportunity cost. If you continue to perform them and they aren’t making you money, they are taking you away from the things you should actually be spending your time on.
Once you’ve found what doesn’t bring you income but takes up your time, find a way to systematize it.
For example, you could load all of your blog posts into a social media scheduler and have it on autopilot. Or, you could build some email funnels. Whatever it is that you need to automate, you most likely can. There are dozens of tools you can use to automate almost anything.
And if you can’t automate certain tasks, that brings me to my next point.
How to Grow Profits in Less Time With Outsourcing
Outsourcing is not as expensive as you might think. To get started with a low budget, there are plenty of talented people for hire on sites like Fiverr, Upwork, and more. When you get a bigger budget, you can then look at hiring people directly, like VAs, freelance writers, etc. But, outsourcing just a few of the tasks that you can’t automate is a great start.
For some people, that might be outsourcing to a video or audio editor. Or maybe you just need some Pinterest graphics created to save you time. No matter what you need help with, there is someone out there who can fit into your budget.
Outsourcing needs to start after you create your systems. Why? Because you need to know the ins and outs of your business and how things come together first. If you don’t know your systems and business, you don’t know if outsourcing is giving you a good ROI.
Check out tips here from Rosemarie Groner for other ways to focus your efforts and up your ROI.
Test, Evaluate, Tweak
Of course, nothing is perfect 100% of the time. Make sure to keep an eye out for bugs, changes in algorithms that could affect your systems, contractors that aren’t fitting your business anymore, and items that may need to be updated over time.
While a system will make your business easier to run, sometimes it takes a little tweaking to get it just right. Always check your stats and ROI to make sure it’s still worth it to pay for tools and people.
This article originally appeared in FinConnection 2019, our event magazine provided to all attendees of #FinCon19.
Kayla Sloan is the go-to virtual assistant and outsourcing expert for the personal finance community.
Kayla is the founder of Six Figure Systems, the one-on-one consulting program that helps business owners scale to six-figure months with systems and outsourcing. She is also the founder of 10K VA, her flagship program where she teaches virtual assistants how to make a consistent $10,000 per month working online!
