It took me a long time to get to this point where I stopped complaining that I couldn’t clone myself, and missing deadlines to letting technology work for me by being able to outsource my life! Think of all the little (sometimes big) mundane task that absolutely need to get done but constantly pull you from working on big vision, big money calls, meeting and deals.
So I am sharing with you some life/business hacks that have worked for me over the years
Phone/Answering Service: Ultimate life saver! First off I refuse to walk around with more then one phone, so Google Voice was perfect for me in the beginning, having a separate number when business calls come in that was also free Winning!!! As our team ramped up we moved to Grasshopper.com so that we could have multiple mailboxes and a professional greetings, but if you are constantly on the go and can’t always get to the phone, you can easily upset your clients when every time they call they get voicemail. Starting at around $239 a month you can use Ruby Receptionist which provides you a live receptionist to answer your calls, take messages, forward calls to your cell and make phone calls on your behalf all while monitoring everything from their app. There are some cheaper alternatives out there but I have used Ruby Receptionist for over a year and their high level of customer services is worth every penny.
Virtual Assistants: Need an excel spreadsheet put together or research done before a big client meeting or what about flowers orders for your significant others birthday, or scheduling. I have used virtual assistance for years, some for one off projects others for long term day to day work. Elance.com, Fiverr.com and FancyHands are 3 services I can vouch for, Odesk comes highly recommend by a ton of people, but I personally was not a fan. Task start as low as $5.00 an hour
Cloud Storage: Seems like no matter what you do you can never have enough storage for all your amazing client pictures and videos, or the deck, that is ridiculously too big but you don’t want to resize it because you need your client to see just how badass every pixel of your talent really is. Fret not my friend, while Google has Google Drive that gives you a ton of space for free, Dropbox is still at the top of my list for it’s ease of use and relatively cheap monthly plans.
Cleaning: While this is not necessary for you business it does free up your time so that you can focus on your business. I used and love Molly Maids but it was often hard to work around their schedule, Handy has a nice little handy app that allows you to schedule within 8 hours, add extras like laundry, windows, stove and dry cleaning and best of all you can pay directly within the app. Your time is money and if it takes you 3 hours on the weekends to clean up that’s 3 hours you could be putting towards catapulting your company.
Legal: Legal Zoom is cool and you see and hear their commercials all over the place but for the most part you are paying for information and templates and still have to do a lot of the leg work. I’m a fan of CourtBuddy, which is an app that allows you to hire attorneys based on your budget and your needs. No more sweating bullets thinking that contract review is going to cost you a small fortune.
Office/Meeting Space: It’s time my friends to graduate from Starbucks as your meeting location. Sure the coffee smells great but no amount of side eye is going to stop the bariesta from blending that frapachino while you are on a conference call. I love working out of WeWork and they are practically everywhere, which is great because once you are a member in one location you have access to them all globally. But if you are on an extreme Ramen Noodle Budget then check out liquidspaces, starting at around $15 an hour. On their site you can find conference rooms and meeting spaces all around the US, if you really have time to dig you can even find free spaces.