One of the things I regularly outsource to my OFS is writing.

It’s not that I can’t write.
It’s that I hate it.
And it’s super time consuming.

When I started my online business, one of the things I did was regularly write articles and submit them to article directories. I wrote blog posts, landing pages, sales pages, and squeeze pages.

It wore me out mentally and physically (so weird that typing can wear you out physically…)

So naturally, it was one of the first things I outsourced.

Immediately I was so relieved.
I didn’t have to force myself to write anymore. It gave me time to go into detail on topics I wanted to cover, but which I didn’t have time or mental energy for (an example of this is the long blog post I wrote about mindless work).  Removing the pressure to write made writing more enjoyable and less of a chore.

Because I’m not bound to it anymore, I can step back to look at our marketing overall and not just the content creation side of things. Win Win.

Even if you’re the type of person who enjoys creating content for your business, you can still benefit from having an OFS for content creation. Having a creative person on your team gives you another person to bounce ideas with. Somebody to help you flesh out ideas if you’re stuck. They can work on topics that you don’t have the time for or you’re not interested in. They can contribute their ideas to a certain topic. They can contribute new ideas.

The next step for me was to make sure the content we create is really good, and I have to admit, it took a while for us to get there.

One of the things I often had to work on with my OFS is getting them to write like me. Filipinos tend to be more formal, and I’m more conversational. I made them read a lot of the stuff I wrote. I also send a lot of feedback videos. This email that you’re reading right now went through several feedback videos just to get it right. (hint: I didn’t write this).

Another issue we encounter at times is when Filipino mannerisms and idioms get into their writing. I’ve had them eliminate phrases from their writing like “to avail” or “if ever”…phrases which make sense, but which don’t sound natural to me.  If I don’t understand it, I have them rewrite everything. It usually comes back better when I point out that I didn’t understand it.

When I saw myself doing a lot of proofreading and editing, I delegated that to someone else. I got them a Grammarly account to help with the proofreading. I implemented a system where two pairs of eyes have to go through the content before it gets to me. So when the content gets to me, all I need to do is approve it or give feedback.

That’s exactly how things work with my newsletter right now. Sometimes I write the emails. Or I give Jamie (my OFS) a few ideas and she’ll write the emails. Sometimes the ideas come from her.

All the email drafts go through editing and QA before she makes a draft on Mailchimp. Once they’re there, I go through them and schedule the ones I like. I email her if there are drafts that are lacking or don’t feel right. The fact that she’s doing most of the work for me is why we can send out emails four times a week.

Want to know how I find great writers?
Go to OneVAAway.com

John