Don't get in your own way
Charlotte Booth • 26 May 2021
Break down the barriers to outsourcing
Your business is your baby. You run it in a very particular way with your own processes, and that's what makes it fundamentally yours.
But, by not outsourcing you could be harming your business and preventing growth in the areas you actually want them.
Let me explain.
When you started your business it was because you enjoyed doing one particular thing - for me it was writing. I love writing and wanted to get paid for writing all day.
When you started your business you did not do it because you wanted to learn to do accounts, sales, marketing, web design, content writing, invoicing, credit control recruitment and staff assessments. But most small businesses have to embrace all of these jobs until they are financially or mentally able to hand some of them over to someone better qualified.
For me, the first thing I handed over was my accounts. An accountant will know how to ensure I get all the tax allowances I am entitled to. I wouldn't even know where to start. Then I outsourced setting up my CRM. I realised for the time it would take me to learn how to do it, do it wrong then spend double the time fixing it, I may as well get it done properly first time around.
For some (well, most of my clients) content writing is the bane of their lives. They can write blog posts and social media posts but they may not have the time to prioritise this as a task, they may not be creative or may be uncertain of the accuracy of their English. So they outsource to me, meaning they no longer have to stress about it as they know that they will get it emailed to them on a specific date ready to upload.
Not all my clients have found it so easy to hand over the copywriting task - and that's OK. Some will analyse every word and ponder whether they would have written it that way, and one client insisted on running through every post on a call word by word. But that's fine.
The first step in letting go of the reigns, is to outsource, and if you are nervous at first hopefully I could alleviate your concerns and show you that I only have your business in mind. But once you do let go, you have freed up time to actually do something for your business that you enjoy doing without the cloud of 'blog posts' looming over you.
If you are ready to take the first step and have a chat book here, no obligation, just a chat to find out how I can help you. Or if you prefer to email then that's cool too!
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There is nothing more amusing than checking out mediaeval artistic renditions of lions and other heraldic creatures. These beasts, grimacing and gurning are a strange juxtaposition of human, animal and demon and as far from the cute image of Alex from the Madagascar franchise or in fact a real lion as you could possibly get. There are three main reasons mediaeval lions are so ‘bad’ and un-representational; The artists were following a very tight brief. Some of the artists may never have seen a lion, and were following the descriptions they were given. These lions were representing heraldic principals of bravery, nobility and authority; all very human characteristics. When viewed through this lens it becomes more understandable why they look the way they do, but they are still ‘not right’ and not a great tool for learning about lions. Generative AI is very similar to an uninformed but talented mediaeval artist. There is a element of intelligence but at the end of the day it is following a brief, with no actual ‘knowledge’ of the thing it is producing. As an example, if you prompt your generative AI (ChatGPT and the like) to produce a blog for your new product or service, aimed at your ideal customer avatar you will in all likelihood get a mediaeval lion out the other end. Sort of recognisable, and sort of not. This is because AI doesn’t know what a customer is (ideal or otherwise), has no idea what your product or service is and does, and has no true understanding of how this service or product will serve your ideal customer and their needs. Of course, AI is pulling all the information available from the internet to help with its answer but there is no understanding there. There is no determining fact from falsehoods or even which websites are trustworthy and which are not. So, it skims the internet and puts together content which suits the brief as it understands it. This is then when the actual work should start as this content shouldn’t be used in the raw. It should be edited and tweaked by a human who DOES understand the brief, has been a customer (ideal or otherwise) and can imagine what your ideal customer will feel when using your product or services. We are in a world now, where we have generative AI promoting products and services to humans, when it has no concept of what a human is and how it thinks, meaning the marketing department are in fact more important than ever for ensuring content and copy is aimed at humans and human emotions. You could argue that the world would be a more entertaining place if there were more mediaeval lions in it, but it wouldn’t be a great environment for learning, or for basing purchasing decisions on. If you want to maintain the human element in your content, then I would love to help . Explain the brief, your CTA and your ideal client and I will know what I need to ask to get a clear idea before writing. Then you can rest assured your content was written by a human for a human and we can leave the mediaeval lions to the museums.
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