Lesson 2 of 4
What to Outsource
Which tasks to hand over first and which to keep, with a spreadsheet to work it through.
Before hiring anybody you need to know what you are hiring them for. This lesson gives a method for deciding, rather than guessing or handing over whatever happens to be annoying that week.
The typical task list
Most Amazon sellers do some version of these:
- Finding inventory, online and in shops
- Buying it
- Receiving, checking, prepping and labelling stock
- Creating shipments and sending them to Amazon
- Listing and pricing
- Managing the account: messages, feedback, account health
- Chasing returns and reimbursements
- Finding and contacting wholesalers
- Bookkeeping
- Learning: keeping up with what is changing on Amazon
Every one of those has to be done by someone. The question is only whether that someone is you.
Do it all yourself first
The instruction is explicit and it is worth taking seriously: do everything yourself at the start.
Not because it is character-building, but because you cannot give direction on work you have never done. You will not be able to write usable instructions, judge output, or tell the difference between an assistant who is being thorough and one who is not.
The two-column method
Here is the exercise. It takes twenty minutes and it produces a definite answer.
- List every activity you do for the business. Everything, including the small things. Paper is fine.
- Mark the tasks you hate.
- Mark the tasks that could be done by someone else.
- The tasks with both marks are what you outsource first.
Why "hate" is a sensible criterion
It sounds like an indulgence and it is not. A task you dislike does not just take the hour it takes. You postpone it, you approach it with less energy, and it occupies attention while you are not doing it. The real cost is considerably higher than the time on the clock, which makes those tasks the ones where handing them over buys back the most.
It is also the honest reason most delegation succeeds or fails. A task you secretly enjoy will get taken back within a month, however sensible the delegation was.
What not to outsource
Two examples are given, and the principle behind them extends further.
- Learning and strategy. Researching new methods, deciding which direction the business takes. Outsourcing this means outsourcing your own judgement, and you will not be able to evaluate what comes back.
- Staying current. Following what is changing on Amazon, in seller communities and in the rules. This is how you notice a policy change or an opportunity, and it only works if the person doing it is the person who makes decisions.
The wider principle: keep the tasks where judgement is the product, and delegate the tasks where output is the product. Deciding what your buying criteria should be is judgement. Applying those criteria to two hundred products is output.
Add to the keep list anything with real financial or account risk attached: final buying decisions at first, and account access, until you know the person well.
Start the list now
Even if you cannot afford to hire anyone yet, begin the list today. Two reasons.
First, it grows. You will not remember everything you do in one sitting; you add to it over weeks as tasks come up.
Second, and more useful: writing down a task is most of the work of documenting it. When you can eventually hire, the difference between a fast start and a painful one is whether written instructions exist. A list that has been accumulating for months is halfway to being that document.
A spreadsheet works well because it gives you the two columns naturally. The next lesson covers where to find the person to hand them to.