GrowMap

Map Your Path To Grow Your Business

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • G.A.S.P
  • Press
  • Portfolio
  • GrowMap Services
  • PostsComments

Richard Branson’s Method To Make More Money By Doing Less Work

January 31, 2016 By Tom Hunt 16 Comments

Yes, you read that headline correctly.

I know that the statement: “Make More Money By Doing Less Work” stands against conventional entrepreneurial advice:

“You need to be working 14 hours days, everyday”

“Holidays! What’s a holiday?”

“I got 3 hours of sleep last night, whilst I was listening to an audiobook”

And, don’t get me wrong, you definitely need to hustle to get any business up and running, but once it is…

I would argue that you could actually become more profitable and can make more money, by doing less.

I learnt from an early age the need to delegate responsibility out to other team members as there is just too much for one person to do themselves. What is the point of hiring talented team members if you don't give them the freedom to make the most of the chance you have given them? - Richard Branson

Let’s look at a quick quote from arguably the most well known and well loved entrepreneur of all time:

“As much as you need a strong personality to build a business from scratch, you also must understand the art of delegation. I have to be good at helping people run the individual businesses, and I have to be willing to step back. The company must be set up so it can continue without me.” ~ Richard Branson

Table of Contents

  • How to Make More Money by Delegating
      • 1. Identify & Document Task
      • 2. Hire Team Member
      • 3. Review Performance & Optimize Process
      • 4.Repeat
    • Buyers of your business.
    • Summarizing the Process
      • Tom Hunt
      • Latest posts by Tom Hunt (see all)

How to Make More Money by Delegating

In the rest of this post, I will outline the 4 key steps to the outsourcing and delegation process intertwined with a short case study showing how I acted upon Richard’s advice just yesterday to make myself more productive and to (in theory) enable me to make more money and create more value, by doing less work on our new Virtual Team Building Platform: Virtual Valley.

1. Identify & Document Task

There are certain tasks that should / shouldn’t be outsourced.

And it is your job to make this decision; here are some guidelines…

The most important concept to understand when considering the delegation of a task or role is cost, more precisely: Opportunity Cost.

First you must understand how much money it will take to outsource the task / process effectively.

You must then understand the Opportunity Cost associated with you completing that task / process.

E.g., if you can outsource a 5 hour task for $10 per hour and you know that when you spend your time on high dollar value tasks (e.g. selling), your time is worth $20 per hour, you are effectively “losing” money by completing that first task when you could be selling.

If that comparison is not conclusive, here are three other factors to consider:

  • Do you enjoy the task?
  • Are you good at the task?
  • Is the task location specific?

We have created a tool that will automatically define the “outsource-ability” of a task/process based on your input, click here to download.

You now must document the process in written or video format using screenshare software. We like to use written working procedures supplemented with screenshots and video where necessary. [Screencast-o-matic is a good free product for making walk-through videos of processes.]

This step is crucially important because in order for a system to work effectively and to be continually improved, it must be documented.

It will also ensure that crucial business knowledge is retained even as your staff come and go.

In our example, I was looking to launch a daily podcast that will track Virtual Valley’s journey from idea to $4m exit, as I believe this will provide useful information to other entrepreneurs on the same journey (which also happen to be potential customers).

However, I do not think that editing audio for 1 hour each day would be an effective use of my time.

Looking at the questions asked above:

  • Can the task be completed by a Team Member cost effectively? – Yes, around $3 per hour
  • Do you enjoy the task? – No
  • Are you good at the task? – No
  • Is the task location specific? – No, audio editing can be completed anywhere

This was an easy decision.

2. Hire Team Member

Having now identified the task / process that is to be outsourced, you now need to find an awesome Team Member to perform this task/process.

At Virtual Valley, we spent 4 months recruiting awesome Virtual Team Members for the “supply” side of our marketplace. (We are starting with JUST Filipino General Virtual Assistants (VAs) because they speak and write English very closely to American English, but will branch out to other roles and nationalities in the future.)

You can copy our approach which is outlined in this post; however, if you would like to skip this recruitment process, take advantage of our automatic payroll service and proprietary time tracking software, you can create an Entrepreneur account here.

Form to Create an Entrepreneur Account on VirtualValleyio

Once you’re logged in, you can fill in a form like the one below to post your role:

Form to Post a Role to hire VAs at VirtualValley.io

You can browse through our curated database of VAs here:

If you would like to clarify any points before hiring, you can message your potential new Team Member through the platform by clicking the “Message Team Member” button on their profile:

Click to Hire Team Member VirtualValley VAs

You can then “Hire Team Member” by using the orange button. You will then be prompted to agree with the Virtual Valley Terms Of Service and to validate your PayPal account. (Direct credit/debit card payments coming soon!)

Once validated, the hiring request is sent to your new Team Member. Once this is approved, you will receive a notification email and will now be able to view the contact details of your Team Member on their profile.

You are now free to hand over the Working Procedures you created in Step 1 to your new Team Member and to coach them where necessary.

All time spent by your new Team Member will be tracked by our proprietary time tracking software which will feed the data back to the “My Team” dashboard of your Entrepreneur account:

How Time Tracking Works on Virtual Valley VAs

Each day, you will be able to log in and see the total time worked by your Team Member and an estimate for their total Active Time, as measured by keyboard and mouse activity.

You will also be able to review six screen shots taken per hour from their machine at random intervals.

At the end of the month, you will be able to review your Team Members total time spent and total payroll spend by clicking on the “Time Tracking Report” button on your profile:

How to access VirtualValley.io Time Tracking Report

This amount will then be taken automatically from your PayPal account, minimizing your time investment in the outsourcing process (to give you more time for those high dollar value tasks.)

In my example, I spoke to a couple of the Virtual Team Members in the Virtual Valley database to determine who had specific experience with audio editing and then hired them as shown in the images above.

3. Review Performance & Optimize Process

Ok, you now have an awesome Team Member operating your task/process that you have outsourced.

You will now find yourself with more time on your hands…

Which is EXACTLY what you want.

You want to be able to spend time thinking about and working ON your business and not IN your business (Check out The E-Myth by Michael Gerber for a more comprehensive explanation of this topic.)

This extra time should be invested in those higher dollar value activities we discussed in Step 1 or working on improving the efficiency of the processes you have already outsourced.

However, there is still some work to do on the process outsourced in Step 2 before you can move onto these higher value tasks.

You will need to monitor the progress of your new Team Member closely for a couple of days, just to ensure they are comfortable with the process.

You can then arrange a short call with your Team Member to review their performance and the process. Any improvements that are made MUST be documented in the Working Procedure.

We made significant improvements to our podcast creation process after I was able to step out of the process and look at the system from an external viewpoint. Here are a couple of examples:

  • Instead of emailing, each day I upload .mp3 files to a folder in Google Drive
  • After editing, instead of emailing our Team Member uploads final podcast .mp3 file
  • This automatically sends an email (Using IFTTT) to another Team Member who is responsible for uploading the final podcast file to our audio host

These improvements manage to save me and both of the Team Members involved significant amounts of time that can be invested into other areas in the business.

4.Repeat

As you repeat Steps 1-3, your business will morph into a number of interconnected and autonomous systems powered by Virtual Team Members and software that operate independently of your input. Allowing you to focus ON the overall system, ensuring its productivity and efficiency.

Now, you may be thinking:

Why are we doing this?

Aside from ensuring that your clients experience a consistent and reliable service from your business, it will also become significantly more attractive to buyers.

Not buyers of your service…

Buyers of your business.

That’s right, by taking on the systems mindset we have been discussing throughout this post, you have actually started to build your business as a product itself.

If you had the choice of purchasing a business:

  • that relied heavily on it’s founder
  • whose delivery was inconsistent
  • that had no documentation

Would you chose to purchase it over a well oiled system – fully documented – that ran autonomously?

In our case of the podcast process, this is the third process we have chosen to outsource and will be continuing this until the whole Virtual Valley process is one autonomous network of efficient tasks/processes. You can follow our process through our podcast which will be distributed through our blog 🙂

Summarizing the Process

In summary we have:

  • Step 1: Taken 1 task/process
  • Step 2: Have “outsourced it” with an awesome new Team Member
  • Step 3: Have reviewed their performance and optimized performance
  • Step 4: Have repeated this with all processes within your business

Now it’s your turn…

Are you going to listen to Richard?

Richard Branson quote on Delegating: "If you really want to grow as an entrepreneur, you've got to learn to delegate." ~ Sir Richard Branson

(Image Credit: Noobpreneur)

Or are going to go back to your inbox to deal with menial admin tasks that are not directly correlated to you creating more value for your customers (leading to more money)?

If you would like to take advantage of the recruitment and payment process we have built at Virtual Valley so you can make more money by delegating, click here to create your Entrepreneur account.

Before you head over to Virtual Valley to get started with delegation or click onto the next awesome GrowMap blog post, I need a favour from you…

Do you have a friend or contact that always says that they are “sooooooooooo busy”?

Well I think you could be do them a massive favor by using the social icons below to send this article over to them. Richard (and I) would be grateful 😉

And finally, please put your questions and comments re: delegation and outsourcing in the comments below. I will be responding to each and every one!

DISCLOSURE [from Gail Gardner, founder of GrowMap]: I requested Tom write this post to explain how his outsourcing process works because I and many of my collaborators are at the point where we have so much to do that we really need to hire others to assist us.  His solution provides more accountability which can reassure users that their money is being well spent than any others I’ve examined.

The following two tabs change content below.
  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
My Twitter profile

Tom Hunt

Tom is the Founder of Virtual Valley, a platform that connects Entrepreneurs and Rockstar Virtual Assistants with the mission of giving Entrepreneurs back 1 million hours of their time by 2018. Tom spends MOST of his time helping people like you grow their virtual business on the Virtual Valley Blog and sends an AWESOME weekly bootstrapped marketing tip to the legends that sign up sign up here.
My Twitter profile

Latest posts by Tom Hunt (see all)

  • Richard Branson’s Method To Make More Money By Doing Less Work - January 31, 2016
Tweet58
Share15
Share23
Pin4
Share
Share
Pocket
Flip
100 Shares
Tweet58
Share15
Share23
Pin4
Share
Share
Pocket
Flip
100 Shares
« The Evolution of Enterprise Mobility [Infographic]
Increase Sales with New Tech for Easy Digital Signs »

Filed Under: Careers, Edu, Gov't, Legal, Freelancing, Outsourcing, Work From Home, Small Business Advice Tagged With: hiring virtual assistants, outsourcing

Comments

  1. Sherwood says

    February 14, 2017 at 1:02 am

    Hey,
    Amazing blog! Thanks a lot for taking the time to post. I think Mr. Branson is one of the most intelligent people in the world. All the of Branson are inspiring and totally unique that help us from difference side. I have the books of Branson. See you again.

    Reply
  2. shubham bahukhandi says

    January 30, 2017 at 11:24 am

    Richard Bransons and his working style is very inspiring and unique for the youth and teenagers. I personally wanted to thank you for this informative article…. thank you!! Valentines week List

    Reply
  3. cha says

    March 21, 2016 at 1:10 pm

    hiring a new team member is easier said than done… you said it took you four months to hire a VA, I guess that sounds about right. Normally people want to hire someone in less than two weeks, but in my experience, if you rush it, you’ll pay the price in the end
    cha would love you to read ..5 Cool Ideas for Small and Medium Businesses Located in a Small TownMy Profile

    Reply
  4. Mahagura says

    March 20, 2016 at 4:06 pm

    Wow! When come to topic about making money, it motivate me to read. Thank you for the good info. I like it 😉 (Y)

    Reply
  5. Achin Verma says

    February 9, 2016 at 2:40 pm

    This guy is simply an example how anyone can make millions if they are serious about it. Great to read this post. really a deep learning experience
    Achin Verma would love you to read ..How to add sitelinks searchbox using yoast SEO pluginMy Profile

    Reply
  6. Shaoor says

    February 5, 2016 at 9:03 am

    I truly appreciate your work, Richard. Unless you are mentally present over your work, you wouldn’t get the best out of it. Thanks for sharing this effective post.

    Reply
  7. raj rao says

    February 3, 2016 at 7:04 pm

    Thanks for this valuable article and please keep going on like these. I was looking for these type of article and believe me this is really cool and nice article you have posted. thanks again.
    raj rao would love you to read ..Web Development Sioux Falls(Mitchell) SDMy Profile

    Reply
  8. Madruga says

    February 3, 2016 at 6:51 pm

    Thanks for share with us this kind of content. I think Mr. Branson is one of the most interesting and
    inspiring CEOs in the world. I basically have the same idea he has. Great ideas in the hands of poor people, are nothing, but if you have great people around you and let them work, great ideas will be born.

    Reply
  9. Nicole Pary says

    February 3, 2016 at 9:58 am

    Hi Tom,
    An impressive and informative information of make more money by doing less work, thanks for shared tips and getting more knowledgable information from it and furthered used this kind of technique. 🙂
    Nicole Pary would love you to read ..15 Best Movies to Watch in 2016My Profile

    Reply
  10. Apu says

    February 2, 2016 at 6:33 pm

    Thanks Tom Hunt for share this with us. “Make More Money By Doing Less Work” is actually my dream (hahaha)… I will remember words of this post and will be reflected by those!

    Reply
  11. Tom says

    February 2, 2016 at 2:12 pm

    Thanks Amit!

    You have personal relationship with Richard? 😉

    Have you read any of his books?

    Thanks for taking the time to comment!
    Tom

    Reply
  12. Tom says

    February 2, 2016 at 2:08 pm

    YES!

    Thanks for reading Alice, what are you getting good at with full concentration and patience the moment?

    Also, thanks for taking the time to read my post, really appreciate it 🙂

    Tom

    Reply
  13. dnan says

    February 2, 2016 at 7:07 am

    It is not the more number of hours one works that makes a difference. If you work more without any passion you will be unable to give output. However if you inspire yourself and work you will be interested in your work and you will give more productivity in lesser time.

    We should thing of doing more productive work in lesser time.

    Reply
    • Tom says

      February 2, 2016 at 2:10 pm

      Totally agree dnan.

      The problem is that sometimes the work within our business that MUST be done to add value to our customers is NOT what we are passionate about.

      Which is why we must ensure that we build a team to deliver this work we are not passionate about, so we can be passionate and thus productive with the work that we love.

      This is the reason why I like outsourcing so much!

      Thanks for taking the time to read.

      Thanks
      Tom

      Reply
  14. Robin khokhar says

    February 1, 2016 at 10:40 am

    Richard Branson being one of the intelligent, i have heard about him through many sources and now from your blog. And obviously you have nailed the post.
    Thanks for sharing.
    Robin khokhar would love you to read ..10 Online Grammar Checker Tools To Avoid Grammatical ErrorsMy Profile

    Reply
    • Tom says

      February 2, 2016 at 2:11 pm

      Thanks Robin!

      Yes, I would recommend “Screw It, Let’s Do It” his autobiography, it is an eye opening look into the mind of a self made billionaire 🙂

      Thanks for reading and have an awesome day!
      Tom

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badgeShow more posts
You can add a link to follow you on twitter if you put your username in this box.
Only needs to be added once (unless you change your username). No http or @

Search

UPC CODES don't fall for fakes

Categories

Recent Posts

  • Getting Paid to Write – It’s More Than Just Writing
  • How a Small Business Can Compete with a Major Brand Selling Similar Products [Infographic]
  • Regular Live Online Small Business Events Tues and Wed
  • Small Business Websites: How to Make Yours More Compelling [Infographic + Video]
  • Minimizing Your Vulnerability to Online Security Risks [Infographic]
Don't Miss Your Path to Growth!
Enter your email to receive new
blog posts:

Did MOZ Drop Your Site’s DA?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv_cL50MpZA

Popular Posts

Small Business Websites: How to Make Yours More Compelling [Infographic + Video]Small Business Websites: How to Make Yours More Compelling [Infographic + Video]
Minimizing Your Vulnerability to Online Security Risks [Infographic]Minimizing Your Vulnerability to Online Security Risks [Infographic]
Career Choices: How to Find Work in the Remote Economy [Infographics]Career Choices: How to Find Work in the Remote Economy [Infographics]
Getting Paid to Write – It’s More Than Just WritingGetting Paid to Write – It’s More Than Just Writing
5 Best Inventory Control Techniques to Improve Your Bottom Line [Infographic]5 Best Inventory Control Techniques to Improve Your Bottom Line [Infographic]
How a Small Business Can Compete with a Major Brand Selling Similar Products [Infographic]How a Small Business Can Compete with a Major Brand Selling Similar Products [Infographic]
How to Use Local SEO to Boost Your Real ‎Estate BusinessHow to Use Local SEO to Boost Your Real ‎Estate Business
How to Use Martech to Ace Your Influencer Marketing CampaignsHow to Use Martech to Ace Your Influencer Marketing Campaigns
10 Motivational Podcasts for the Modern Salesperson10 Motivational Podcasts for the Modern Salesperson
Regular Live Online Small Business Events Tues and WedRegular Live Online Small Business Events Tues and Wed

Greatest eCommerce Competitive Risks to Small Businesses

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=bmlJmDYaax0

Serpstat: What it Does

https://youtu.be/rjIfKdIWk7M

GrowMap Policies

  • Disclosure Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • GrowMap Guest Blogging Guidelines

Connect With Growmap

growmap on twitter growmap on g plus growmap on linkedin growmap on pinterest growmap on facebook growmap on stumbleupon growmap on skype

Copyright © 2008-2021 Growmap · Centric Mobile Responsive Theme by StudioPress · Genesis Framework · Site maintaned By MarketingTilt

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings.

GrowMap
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

You can adjust all of your cookie settings by navigating the tabs on the left hand side. Read our complete privacy policy.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.