Why I Don't Outsource Content Anymore

And that's, uh, that's what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about. Content. And I, you know, I I've been on this train a long time, you know, a couple years ago, maybe a year ago where I was like, why are we calling it content? It's like I make films. I make podcasts. I make graphics. I do. I write articles. But, you know, what's easier called content three honest. And that's fine. I've embraced it. Here we are. Um, So before we get into it, uh, I highly highly recommend.

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And, um, That's what this episode, that's that's two sponsoring. This episode, money lab is sponsoring money lab. Very meta. Shameless plug. Go download it. And, uh, I got a bunch of emails when you, when you, when you do download it and you get it. If the enter your email address, you have to get it. And then I have, like, I spent months writing these like super awesome. Long form emails that are helping you to grow, build, grow, and scale. Your online business. So go check it out.

Okay. So speaking of content, Uh, I just, I want to talk about this. Um, Th what has happened, sort of the, the evolution of going from being like, you know, a solo content creator, solo, solo, preneur. If you will. And then getting into hiring people and outsourcing my content creation. And then kind of going through just the ebbs and flows of that, and then coming back and realizing, you know, what I think. I think I'm not, I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm not going to outsource.

I'm not going to grow. My business internally. I'm going to grow it externally. And I want to explain the decisions behind that, the story, how I got there. But also tell you right from the beginning. Y. Okay. Here's what I, you know, sort of like Terentino's saying this by saying, here's what I learned. And then here's how I got there. Okay. I am a stronger creator than a manager. And that is what I learned. That I am the best person for the job of content creator within my business.

That's how I started my business. And that's where I'm going to finish with my business is I'm the guy. Who does the content. And. I enjoy that process. More than any other hat that I wear in my business. And I, it took me so long. To realize that because in the beginning, I actually disliked. Creating content because the content that I was right doing was articles. And I told myself this story, Years and years and years that I am a terrible writer. And I, and then I hate it writing.

That's the story. I told myself probably up until like six months ago, maybe even three months ago, if I'm being honest. I've um, I'm going to stop telling myself that it's it's bullshit. Okay. When I first got started. Yes, I was a terrible writer. Yes. I hated writing. That's true. I was made fun of for how bad my writing was. I dropped out of college because of an English teacher who told me my writing was shit. I had friends who were English majors, who would make fun of me.

One friend in particular, his name is Connor. He knows who he is and he knows. What he's done. But. Those things. Didn't stop me from writing. They just made me want to do it more and prove those people wrong. But it took many years I had, and I think one of the things about my writing that has been. Uh, positive. Is that I never was good at it. I never liked English class. I failed every English class in high school, except for creative writing. And. Honestly.

That's the best thing that could happen to me because I never was formally trained. In writing. So the only way I knew how to write. Was just by stream of consciousness, whatever came into my brain. And the, the outcome of that was just what I wrote was my voice. 'cause I didn't know any better. I didn't know. Uh, grammar really. And. S, you know, fast forward, I started to learn grammar and I started to get better at writing. Because I didn't want to be made fun of anymore.

And there's a few things that happened to be honest. Aye. I had, um, I wrote a book. Book. It's just hard to be hard to call it a book. Let's be honest. It was 55 pages. It's called the hot tub handbook is the first product I ever made. Okay. This is a true story. And it was like a big wake up call for me. So I write this book, I'm selling it for like, I think at the time $29 or $24 or something like that. And I wasn't really making that much money from it. I wasn't really pushing it that hard.

I wasn't particularly proud of it, but I had designed it. So it was 55 pages of fully designed. Every page looked completely different. It wasn't just text. It was like filled with images and different color backgrounds and. Uh, so it was a decent handbook. Um, But I had gotten a sponsor. To on the, on the, on the blog. Right. The sponsor they wanted to sponsor me.

And we were kind of going back and forth and they were going to pay me, I think, like $10,000 to, you know, I think do some guest posts or, you know, like sponsored posts on the site. Uh, some graphics, maybe, maybe a video or two or something. And. So that was like in the works, it was happening. And they took it upon themselves to buy my handbook. Right. They called me back and said, listen, We don't want to sponsor you. Because. We downloaded your handbook. And it was so God awful.

The grammar was so bad. That we assume that you don't take this seriously and that your attention to detail is poor. And we don't want you to treat. Our content that you're going to create for us as a sponsorship, the same way. So because of my shit grammar, I lost a sponsor. Not only that the amount of emails I would get from people, and this is wasn't, it wasn't like I was half asking shit.

Right. It wasn't like, I was just like throwing up content or I had outsourced it to like a non native speaking person who had written content and I didn't edit it. No, this was just how I wrote. I was just bad at it. And I would get emails like, oh my God, the grammar, it's like impossible to read. So again, this is one of the reasons why I have this like deep stigma within myself that says I'm a bad writer. And I'm telling myself this story.

And so, you know, that was many, many, many years ago, actually it was 2015. Cause I was with staff in her. Apartment, I think when I got the call, so yeah, wasn't too long ago. 2015 ain't that long ago. But it is this pretty long ago and the internet world, I guess it's kind of a long time. Anyway, I worked really hard. I becoming a better writer.

And. I, I, um, I just thought, you know, in that, even though I was working to become a better writer, I just like hated doing it because I think I just got. Bullied. In a way. Uh, you know, so I was like, I need to fucking hire somebody to do the content I can. I can't write any more because I'm clearly not the best person to write content. Right. Cause I'm, I'm terrible. So. At the time though. I was like, I don't think there's anybody in the world.

Who knows how to write on a computer and also knows a lot about pools and hot tub care, right? Like. Like, there's not What's the Venn diagram of those people. And when I was with staff, she was, you know, she had done some freelance writing and had kind of informed me that it's not, you don't need to know about the subject. Good freelance writers do their research. And they, you know, and they make an article. Doesn't matter what the topic is.

Obviously, if you have a deeper understanding of the topic, I think the writing task for that person becomes easier. And the research becomes more fluid and if it has a better flow. But a good freelance writer. Does the research and crafts. Uh, narrative. Right. And so, so her telling me that I was like, okay, So if that's true, let me, I want to hire a writer. And I had enough money. I w you know, I wasn't making like a ton of money. I think I was, I was still.

You know, not even making a hundred thousand dollars in revenue for the business when I was like, all right, well, I got to pull the trigger on this on hiring somebody because this is the lifeblood. Of my business and clearly I'm the worst person for the job. Right. I can build a website. I can do graphics. I can make videos, but the articles, not for me. Okay. So. I had known people in the personal finance space and I've known people who had, you know, connections with freelance writers.

And I'd asked my friend, Carrie, if she would introduce me to somebody who could help me. And she put me in touch with a writer. And I basically just said, I emailed him and I said, here's the title of what I want to create. Show me what you got. And I think I paid. Like a hundred bucks. And I was like, look, I, this I'll pay you more, but I'm, I'm just feeling out the waters to see if this is even possible.

And once, you know, I had a few articles that I w I would read and say, like, this is good. This is accurate. I'm comfortable with paying this person, you know, not full time, but to write an article every week for me or whatever. And that's exactly what happened. The first article I sent, I don't remember the title. Uh, I remember that's exactly when I started using a Sonic cause that was the way we communicate it. And he, at the first article, I was like, this is amazing.

Like, I couldn't have done this. I honestly, I thought it was like better than anything I'd ever written in my life. You know, in the pool space. And I was like, oh my God, you're hired. Absolutely. You know, name, your price. At the time, I was just like, I'm so glad to get this off my to-do list. And so I worked with him for many years. It was like two years or something. And, you know, I, over time. You know, I continue to get better at writing and, and I just, I was really hands-off.

I didn't really want to read. Articles about pool care. And I didn't want to be like the main editor. So I basically just said, Oh, look. Here. I'm just going to give you a list of article titles. Just make them happen, put them on WordPress, hit, publish, and that's it. So I really was like hands-off and I think in hindsight that hands off fitness. Uh, led to. Poor and poor quality articles. Over time. Because I just wasn't there to play.

Quality control to play project manager to play managing editor. I wasn't, I didn't care. And it's like, well, dude, that's your whole fucking business, man. It's like, if you were putting out shit content, You're not going to be getting traffic to your website and you're not gonna be able to sell the things that you have for sale. You're not gonna able to get people to click affiliate links. So like you really need to be on top of the top of funnel. Right? But it took me.

I just was like, I don't want to do it. And. I learned a lesson in that. And so the next person that I went, I sought to hire was somebody who I wanted to work. I had enough money at this point where I could pay like almost a full-time employee. And I wanted somebody who would just kind of. You know, just do everything. Be the editor be the writer, just be the content manager and, you know, editor in chief is what I was looking for.

And so I found somebody that was really good and, and worked with her for three years. And that was great. It was a great relationship. It was great content that was put out. I was still doing, I think I wasn't even doing videos at the time. But like, I think I was off doing like money lab and other things. And like that grew, we started hiring writers under her and it got really big. And unfortunately, I. Kind of spent too much money, went into debt. Um, and.

Like the traffic and the products and all of the money-making aspects of the business. That really, I was in charge of weren't growing as fast as I was putting out money. And so I went through this entire period this whole year. Where I was trying to scale my business by outsourcing everything by hiring as many people as I could to replace myself out of my business. I wrote an article about this on money lab, about it was like how I demoted myself so that my business could grow.

And by removing myself. It like, and not paying attention to like more of the, like, I, you know, I would argue early. I wasn't even a good businessman. Business person. I got better at that over time. Right. And. Now I feel like, oh, all right. Yeah. Um, Um, I know what I know what I'm doing. But I was still learning and you're in, you're always learning. And so I, as I was getting better at that, I was spending too much money and long story short. I was like, shit, we had to fire everybody.

Kind of scale back the business. Not everybody. I kept my editor. I kept my assistant. Uh, am I scaled everything back and then just kinda stayed there for a little bit until I was able to catch up. That's when I sold roasty my website to kind of pay off that debt. Learned a big lesson there too. Okay. So all of these stories. Sort of like got me to where I am now. So my editor who's been on the show, Michelle, um, she left to pursue her own career. And. I had a decision to make.

I was like, you know, do I hire a replacement or. Do I stay lean? And that's when I sort of wrote. The lean business model, which is what I practice today. I think I wrote that two years ago. And that's kind of where the story ends and that's kind of where we are now. Um, So. I don't really outsource content anymore. And there's a big fat caveat to that. Okay. I've pretty much outsourced and I don't even know. I don't even want to call it outsourcing, but basically what happened was.

Michelle decided. That she wanted to pursue other things. I had a decision to make, whether I was going to stay. Go back to being almost like a solopreneur. And that's when staff. My partner in life who lives with me and we lived together and, uh, we decided to. Do the business together. And so we are both employees equal employees of the business. And she basically started. By doing the swim university YouTube channel, where she would create one video every single week.

Okay. And I was still in charge or I was back to being in charge of the blog again. And we also had brew cabin and we also have money lab and I was also doing lasso at the time. Um, I was doing listen to money matters podcast too. So there was, I had a lot, I personally had a lot of things on our plate, but Steph had this like one job of publishing a video every week. Now doing everything by the way, like soup to nuts. Besides the voiceover.

Cause that's what I would do, but everything else, that's what she would do. Slowly, but surely, uh, she started to take on more of the content responsibility within swim university. And so now. It's sort of like we have this little hybrid. Like tag team. You know, thing on, on some university where she's basically controlling the blog. And. The YouTube channel. And what she does is assign me specific tasks that I am actually good at.

So again, when I say this, I am a stronger creator than a manager. I don't like managing people. I despise that actually. Uh, I'd. I am what I do. What you're listening to right now is me sitting down and creating something. When you look at my brew cabin videos, I do everything. The only thing I outsourced there is singers for some of the songs because I can't sing. But for the most part, I enjoy every part of that.

And now I've slowly started to started to enjoy writing, especially at money lab, especially at brew cabin, especially like sending out emails. I, I, I'm starting to enjoy the process. Because I'm seeing the fruits of my labor and I'm. And it's just working. And so I that's where I belong. So with SUNY university. I'm helping with individual pieces of the video creation process. Also the graphics on the website. Cause that's where I'm really strong. You know, and I'm also kind of like acting as.

Sort of like a pass through. So whenever, uh, Steph is updating an article or writing a new article for the site, you know, there's a frictionless publishing schedule, which means she's just able to pub hit, publish and whatever, but it runs, but then I get to go and check it, make sure, you know, Um, the information's accurate, do some further research, maybe some like slight formatting, like more design things.

But without like running it through her or having it sent back to her, it's just sort of like we're we have both of our hands are in the content and we both are on the same page, kind of behind the scenes. On what it is that our content. Like what makes our content great. So we spent many days talking with each other. And deciding, okay. What makes. What makes a swim university article? What makes a swim university post? Who are we? Who are we not?

And then once we were on the same page with that, it's very obvious. You know how the content should be created. So we're kind of like, again, this sort of tag team in, in the content and some university now, when it comes to. Uh, money lab and brew cabin. That's 100% all me, baby. I, uh, I am, I've gone back to obviously producing a podcast every week. I am doing this myself soup to nuts. Steph helped me.

Sort of plan out the editorial calendar for both the YouTube channel and the podcast for the first quarter. And she will help with that going forward. But I'm doing all the work. I'm recording this in the script or descript. I am going to export it, put it up into transistor. I'm going to, everything's been transcribed because of descript. I am. You know, I'm doing show notes. I'm right. I'm writing out and scripting half scripting. Each podcast episode.

And same with the video side, I'm doing all of that myself soup to nuts, thumbnail titling. You know, scripting filming all that. Same with brew cabin. So that's, you know, me having that free up of not having to like put all of my energy into some university. Has allowed me to put my creative energy into money lab and brew cabin. And on top of that being sort of like the business. Person right behind the scenes. You know, we have new products to sell.

We have to put up this email automation to sell this thing. We're going to run. Facebook ads here. We're running Google ads. They're running YouTube ads. You know, sort of that, you know, overall CEO mode. Um, plus the creator mode. So that's, that's where we are. Okay. Um, So. Yeah. My goal going forward. Okay. Uh, in 2022 and beyond. So my goal, my goal is no longer to hire people to help me create the content. It's to hire people to free up my time so that I can create more better content.

Because that's my special sauce. That's the thing I figured out. Many years later. When you look at, um, and you know, could I bring on people to do this and that? Sure. The thing that I have an issue with is it kind of stifles my personal creativity. Where if I get some wild hair up my ass on some idea that I want to do in a video. I have the skills and ability to make that become a reality. Could somebody do it better than me? Absolutely. But then I'd have to wait and pay that person.

And I, it would just stifle the whole, you know, process when what I can create. Would be equally or. Or you're now little less than good. Right. So. For me, it's more important to put out that content. Now I've looked at creators. Uh, both in like the YouTube space and the blogging space. And the ones who are. I mean, like, you look at James clear, you know, as an example, the guy still writes the frigging content. You know what I mean?

He's he's, he's probably got other people doing stuff for him. He's probably got editors or what have you, but like he's still the one creating. I looked at mark has Brownlee. Like that guy is. Creating the ideas, filming it himself, scripting it himself. Editing editing everything himself and publishing it himself. He's got a whole bunch of other shit going on, which he's got a team for, but for the most part, he's doing like 90% of that content creation. And I think creators like this.

No. And I think it's taken me a long time to realize is, and again, it's the type of person that I am. So I'm not sitting here saying that everybody out there. Is a stronger creator than they are a manager. You actually might be a better manager than being a creator. But to be honest, like the businesses that I've started have all started with personal interest of mine. Okay. We have some university. Which I would grow up in the pool industry. So, you know, that's, that's my jam.

Okay. We have entrepreneurship, which is money lab and home brewing. Cause I'm a home brewer. I'm I'm into this shit. Right. So like, and I'm into like the whole filmmaking process writing just all, all around creative, creative stuff. Of course on the best person for the job. And that's kind of the whole reason I even have a business is because I'm the one who wrote those articles. I'm the one who started making videos and, and put together these like templates and.

And created these products and that there, that there that are selling. So it's like, That's everything. That's the whole lifeblood of my company. And I was trying to hand it over to other people. And I'm not saying that that's not the case. You can absolutely be all for that. And I'm, and I'm, there's people that it fits with for me, it does not. And that's just what I'm saying here is this is a personal story. Of who I am as a person. I like creating, I hate fucking managing people.

Sorry for the F word. That was a hard F I I'm sorry. But it's true. Okay. Now. All that said. I'm not against outsourcing. Okay. Uh, what's my 2022 plan. So I want to outsource. And I already do this. So I'll tell you what those are. I, I w I want to outsource repetitive tasks that do not require any type of creation. For example, answering emails. So the university gets a lot of emails. Okay. And. Especially during the summer. I just can't keep up with it personally.

It's not, it's not actually creation. It's sort of nurturing. And I have somebody that does that. I have an assistant that does that. Okay. There's some SEO maintenance tasks, like making sure links are working. Okay. Just like broken link checker stuff. Um, You know, make sure plug-ins are updated those sorts of things. Aye. There, those are things that I do now. That I outsourced now. And what do I plan on outsourcing in the future? So, One of the things that I've been like.

Really trying to get a hold on, but I'm feeling very doom and gloom about it right now. Uh, is affiliate marketing. One of the things I have a hard time keeping up with as a business owner. Is making sure that products are in stock. So. Uh, you know, Especially in 2021. Swimming university had an issue while the whole industry had an issue where there was a chlorine shortage that happened in this year or this past less last year.

And. I, I don't have the time nor does it really require my time to go in and replace products that are out of stock or that have broken links within lasso, within WordPress with all my, all my site. Um, So this year, I would like to get a process in place for my assistant to basically make sure that every affiliate link on my websites. Poor on all websites are always in stock and are always working.

Okay. It's a lot easier to do over at money lab because a lot of the things I recommend at money lab are not physical products that have stock, but are software products. But at some university and brew cabin, there are absolutely things that can be out of stock. And when something's out of stock, I want to be able to be, I want to quickly replace it with something that's, you know, an alternative or whatever.

Um, or, you know, have somebody sign up, you know, if they, if it's not in stock, maybe they sign up for an email list and I can tell them when it's back in stock, I don't know how to do that, but maybe that's something I can think about. And so that's, that's something that I like to hire for, and I have somebody that would do it. I just need to put that process in place.

The only thing is if I'm being honest, I just said this earlier, I'm kind of feeling a little doom and gloom about affiliate marketing right now. One of the main reasons is because I had an affiliate relationship with an e-commerce store in the pool space. And I was getting 10% commissions. I wasn't making a ton of money. Um, because you know, they don't have everything in stock all the time. And I was always favoring Amazon over there stuff. But, uh, they just closed their affiliate program.

Like as of. Like two days ago and they got, gave me an email with no fucking time. To update my links. They were like, oh, it's closed now. Oh, great. So. I'm like, all right, well, now I got to find a replacement or I just got to just delete their links because now I'm just sending them traffic and I'm not getting paid for it. So, no, sorry. Um, But the reason that, I mean, that like that email was just kinda like, oh, this is the reckoning, right? This is like, This is where this is.

I know it's just like one small e-commerce company. Maybe they're not doing well as a company. And I don't know that. And I'm pretty sure it's probably true in a way. Um, although why would you. At the pool industry blew up in the last two years. They hadn't been crushing. So who knows? Maybe they're just like, We don't have to pay these idiots. I just worry that Amazon's going to do that just any fucking day now. Any day.

It's just going to be like, and I'm looking at April, uh, 2022 for them to just pull the plug on the whole affiliate program. That's what I'm looking. I mean, I'm just assuming that, so. Uh, I mean, thankfully I've been sort of transitioning away from affiliate marketing and, but, you know, and that's the thing it's like, do I want to, I could double down on it. You know, I could double down on it. And I think it's sort of like, well, it's already a part of my business already there.

Uh, why not just make it a little bit better, um, and, and work on that. So that's something I'm thinking about in 2022, and that would happen early 20, 22. The other one is scheduling interviews. So if I have to do interviews for this show, I'm doing interviews for like, uh, help a reporter out. So if we want to get like backlinks. Uh, and people need a pool expert, which they always do. They can call me, I get a link on a big site. Great. And it all did.

All they had to do was call me or send me a list of questions, whatever, but I need somebody to sort of manage that same with like homebrewing. If somebody has like home brewing questions, they want to speak to a, homebrewer talk about beer. I could be that person and they can link to brew cabin, same with money lab, all that stuff. So something I'm thinking about in 2022, just to. You know, Keep the marketing train.

Rolling. Um, I would also be very interested in hiring somebody to help me with advertising paid advertising with Google ads, Facebook, YouTube, although I've been learning how to do it. Putting those things in place they're working. So I, you know, I'm sure somebody could do. Like just keep it up a little bit and, and, and just stay on top of it. So I would be open to that as well, but that gives me free time to like, not worry about ads.

And then again, create the content that goes in that ads, which is what I much rather be working on rather than like setting up the ad itself. Right. So things like that, also planning on doing more videos for brew cabin this year. Uh, and I've had to hire singers on Fiverr because I can't sing because I put a song in every custom song and every video. And you need a singer to do that sometimes. That's been fun, but other than that, yeah, it's just, uh, me and staff kind of running the show.

It's been great. And then we have, um, my assistant answering emails. Uh, keeping things up. Maybe doing affiliate marketing. Soon enough. And that's it. So, um, look. That's that's why I'm not out that, you know, outsourcing. You're probably like you're outsourcing dude. What are you talking about? That was all you. Absolutely outsourcing, but what I wanted to really point out and maybe that's a little click baity of a headline.

Okay. But what I wanted to point out was that like I am in the content creation space. That's what I'm, I'm doing. I'm not trying to hire out writers and editors and filmmakers and all this stuff. I'm, I'm do I'm in the trenches. You know how they say, it's like, oh, you should really get out of your business because you don't want to work in your business. You want to work on your business, bro. Oh, bruh. I think that's fucking sucks. I'm being honest. That sucks. Working. On your business.

No. Dude. If I owned a brewery. Do you think. Alright. If I owned a brewery. Which I would love to one day. I mean like a real one where you make money and stuff. Not the one that I have in my house. But like, I would not want to hire somebody to make the beer. That's the best part. That's the fun part. You know what I mean? Oh, so then I can go in like, just manage the people that make the beer and manage the front. You know, the, the pub.

Oh, I want to make the beer and I want to also kind of manage the front and, and, you know, get done my brewing for the day and go out into the pub and frigging to have a pine or whatever. I mean, come on. I want to work in it. I like it. I like being in it. Anyway. Go to money. lab.co/cheat sheet. Sign up for that. Uh, it's totally free. Also, uh, leave a review because I don't know if that even helpful. I don't want to work.

I don't even know where the podcast world is anymore, but if you could just leave a review and if it's just like an emoji or something, Uh, or if you liked the show, just be it. Leave a nice note. We got to make this year better. So it was just make it, let's just all positive vibes from here on out. And email me mad@moneylab.co say, hello, got any questions. I'm happy to answer them. I answer those emails just so you know, I know people say, all right, Oh, I want to test you.

Yeah, test me, bro. Test me. Okay. I answer my own emails. It's always the bros that do that. It's always the bros. You don't answer your own emails. All right. Try me. Man at money, lab.co. And. Yeah. Plus, you know, I can't. What I love about doing YouTube videos is I get to see comments and read comments and get feedback on what I just taught her to talk about. And in the podcasting world. I complained about this every week. I know that.

I'm sorry, but look, I just want, I talked about outsourcing for an entire 30 minutes. And I want to know what you think. Or if I said something stupid or if I am wrong or if I like perspective, give me some perspective, but we can't do that. Cause there's no common sections on podcasts because people listen to podcasts on Spotify, on apple, on. Overcast on caster on. Dog pile. I don't know. Alta Vista. Number Dogpile anyway. That's it. Uh, have a great. Week, and I will see you in another one.