6: AUTOMATION

The agent’s lifestyle

Travel and work from anywhere in the world

To enjoy life, you don't need fancy nonsense, but you do need to control your time and realize that most things just aren't as serious as you make them out to be.

— Timothy Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek

The news had just broken. Hurricane Sandy was predicted to arrive within the week. The publicity summit had finished the day before the news alert. I was exhausted. Thankfully my friend Alex had just arrived in New York from Melbourne, and I made the decision to relocate and stay with him in Greenwich Village. For a break, we made our way to 46th Street to visit Schmackary's for some ‘lip-schmackin' good' cookies. Biting into a Sch'mores (honey graham base, semisweet chocolate, toasted marshmallow) was better than sex. The melted marshmallow on top gave me respite from the week that was. For ten minutes I ate my emotions, savouring every second.

On top of the impending storm that was making its way towards Manhattan, another one was brewing back home. I had the impression my business partner had completely checked out and none of the marketing was getting done, other than that email I'd sent at 2 in the morning. I was now controlling it all from NYC. My gut told me that the partnership was about to hit the skids. I'd had enough. It was time to put in place measures to stabilise the business, while Alex and I focused on our own safety and our rapidly changing travel arrangements … because New York was about to shut down!

Mayor Bloomberg announced that the power could be out for over a week and communications could also be affected. The picture of the Statue of Liberty hiding behind her concrete base going viral didn't ease my concerns.

I contacted my virtual assistant and outlined to him what needed to happen for when I went off the grid indefinitely. I summarised customer service steps and provided all the information he needed to successfully answer queries without my assistance.

Then I took myself out of the picture. With my business partner out of the picture, I was forced to maximise my productivity and let go of control. Outsourcing was the key and the only option. It established systems and processes that I still use today, greatly increasing my freedom to do what I want, knowing that things will be taken care of if I fall sick, am in transit, need time off or get stuck in another hurricane! The moral?

Like everything I share with you in this book, you implement it once and leverage it forever. Welcome to the world of automated economics and outsourcing. Off to India we go.

Automated economics: the art of going off the grid

Mae West once said, ‘You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough'. In 2005 my father, Steele Angel, was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He passed away four short and traumatic weeks later, at the age of 52. He lived more than most in his short time on Earth. His death inspired me to reassess everything — how I spent my time, who I spent it with, and why. There's so much in life to experience, see and do — I just had to find a way to do it.

With all the online tools and systems and information in the world at our fingertips, there is no need to live a life devoid of life. We get one shot. Take it, with pure focus and prudent planning. Automated economics (AE) is the process by which we streamline, leverage and automate as many moving parts in a business as possible, with the objective of generating revenue without our constant input. We can then take ourselves off the grid and still make money and continue to grow our businesses.

In our journey together, we have removed the clutter around your goals, knowledge and expertise so we can market the essence of what you do and how you do it. It's now time to strip back the business model to its core functions so others can run it without having to reinvent the wheel each time a new customer query hits your inbox.

You won't have to experience the frustration and overwhelm many entrepreneurs face, because I'm going to show you my secrets for magnifying, mastering and multiplying your results using the power of outsourcing and automated economics. You'll quickly learn how to achieve more in less time, rid your business of time-consuming and repetitive tasks, and build your profile and profits.

It's time we looked at the anatomy of AE so you can gain more time for living your life. We'll begin by taking a look at the automated economics blueprint (see figure 6.1).

Figure 6.1: the automated economics blueprint

Following on from the product launch formula and evergreen marketing system, the automated economics blueprint has five distinct phases. Of the five phases, three are fully automated using online tools, while two require management and need to be outsourced. These two processes, lead- and traffic-generation and customer support, can provide the greatest headaches if not handled well. Outsourcing these successfully can free up your time and generate more income, allowing you to live the Flee 9 to 5 lifestyle.

The six steps to automated economics

These six steps will help free your time, your mindset and your life. Becoming the architect of your own domain is about self-mastery in full flight, and here you finally get your wings.

1. Outsource, outsource and outsource

The transition from paid employee to business owner can be more shocking than seeing Joan Rivers in HD. Companies have processes in place to transition employees successfully through their careers. While there is support for new start-ups, there isn't the support needed to make the mindset shift from wage to revenue.

Making money in the online arena works in three phases, each of which involves a shift in mindset and brings its own level of fear and discomfort. Phase 1 is breaking the $1000-per-month in sales mark, phase 2 the $10 000 per month mark, and phase 3 the $20 000 per month milestone. Once you recognise you can earn $10 000 a month from your online products, the momentum takes over; it's then simply a matter of scaling up.

It's critical, however, to keep your emotions in check through each phase. The more money you spend on advertising that has been tested and measured, the more you will earn. Those starting their own business for the first time, who have been used to receiving an average hourly wage of AU$16.37 (or US$7.25), don't necessarily appreciate the need to invest in a website, advertising and education to upskill and upscale, because their employer has covered these bases in the past. The shift from employee to investor/owner will take many a while to get used to. Failing to invest in the right areas, particularly outsourcing key activities, will inhibit progress. The reality is that you can't do it all yourself, but you can project manage it all and outsource cost-effectively, even if you are starting from scratch on a shoestring budget.

You can hire virtual assistant (VA) support staff from services such as Get Friday from as little as $7.50 per month on a monthly payment plan, or hire them as required from $15 an hour (at the time of writing). Your own time is better spent marketing and promoting your products than doing admin that others could be doing for less than it would cost you to do it.

With time you will become comfortable with the process and your newfound assistant(s).

2. Plan before hiring virtual assistants

It's important not to rush into outsourcing your work. Before hiring anyone, whether on commission or on a salary, you must know exactly what role you need them to play in your business. Remember that the people you employ will effectively become the face of your business, so decide whether you want them to stay behind the scenes handling the admin work or to deal directly with your clients. They could be:

• project managing marketing campaigns
• dealing with online customer service
• managing admin and bookkeeping.

Each role plays an integral part in maximising profits, customer service, and ongoing product and service sales. While you may have filled each of those roles since the inception of your business, by now you will realise that you can't do it all. Parts of your business are being neglected while you handle the routine work, and as a result your income is dropping. One key aspect to the Flee 9 to 5 lifestyle must be considered — how you're contactable.

A phoneless world

My business partner did end up exiting the business, at which point I decided to downsize everything and use only one virtual assistant. I also made the decision to take the phone number off the website altogether. I live in a phoneless world. I don't have a long list of people to call back. Why? It's no longer necessary. Customers can contact us via email, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and more. Adding telephone to the communication pool didn't speed up the process; it slowed it down.

Even using an answering service is counterproductive. Why get someone to field your calls, only to forward the messages on to you via email anyway? Better that the enquirer email customer support directly so their issue can be resolved then and there, instead of waiting for someone to call them back. Working in different time zones can have an impact too. Phones were a means of communication that I came to see as completely unnecessary for my business, when I could use automated tools and online FAQ pages to resolve issues before they escalated up the chain to me unnecessarily.

Another key element of the traditional business model can be removed in the new economy, saving you a great deal of time.

Welcome to the meetingless world

Meetings are a waste of time unless you are closing a deal. There are so many ways to communicate in real time or asynchronously that any meeting you actually sit for should have a duration and set outcome before you agree to go.

— Mark Cuban (owner of Dallas Mavericks and CEO of HDNet)

I average one or two face-to-face meetings a month. I used to meet with prospects all the time, until I realised how much time and money it was costing me. A one-hour meeting isn't a profitable way to spend your time. Throw in travel time and it can end up costing you three hours of productive time. In three hours you could write and send an email that brings in $5000 or more. If you do have to meet, however, here are my recommendations:

• Email. Could the individual's questions be better outlined within an email with clear action steps? In most cases a follow-up is sent after a meeting. The meeting becomes an unnecessary element in the equation that can automatically be bypassed.
• Skype. Can you conduct the meeting over Skype instead? This cuts out travel time and you still get to build rapport and save time. Even Oprah Winfrey used Skype to interview guests live on her show. Eliminating the need to send out camera crews or fly in guests, Skype could save tens of thousands of dollars. Take Oprah's lead and leverage the many online tools you have available to you.
• Qualify.Set your boundaries. As your profile begins to build, every man and his dog will want to swing off the coat-tails of your success. If someone requests a meeting, ask them what the objective is. This isn't rude — it's business. If they're not serious, in most cases they simply won't reply. You've just automatically disqualified them and saved yourself a few hours of unproductive time. If they want to do business with you but aren't clear on the details, request a proposal. In 99.9 per cent of cases, I've found, they never get back to you. Only the serious players follow through. Don't be swayed by ‘potential' opportunities if they can't outline clearly what they hope to achieve in the first instance.

A false sense of security

Busyness distracts us from what's really important and can create a false sense of security: I'm busy, therefore I'm productive. This is rarely the case and is often more of an avoidance tactic than a business strategy.

Prioritisation of time is key. Only spend your time on activities that will broaden your reach on a large scale, as Rhonda Byrne did in promoting The Secret, when she leveraged her time and reach within a defined period of time. Once you have managed these aspects, identify what you can outsource. By doing this you've just significantly increased your profit margin and bought back time.

3. Define expectations

Hiring VAs without setting expectations from the outset is a gamble at best. In selecting a person or a company to take over one or two of your business functions — in this case, primarily customer service and lead generation — you need to have a clear idea of what the job involves, what skills are required and whether the role is suitable for someone other than you to manage. In understanding the tasks yourself, you can lead by example.

Here are the questions to answer before you go on your hiring expedition:

• What experience must they have in this field?
• What specific skills will they need?
• Do they require natural sales ability, or customer service and order-taking experience?
• What hours/days will they be required to work?
• Can they write clearly and grammatically?
• Are they suited to administrative duties?

Make your expectations clear before selecting a VA. If they can't meet them, they're not the right person to begin with. Keep searching.

4. Identify policies and procedures for your lifestyle business

It's not reasonable to expect a new team member to walk in and take over your work without some instruction on what the job entails. For every job, particularly customer service or traffic generation, there are key activities and processes that need to be completed, but many of these are so routine that you do them without thinking.

List all your daily action tasks for one entire month — every single one of them, including processing payments, reporting and researching advertising options. Leave no stone unturned. Write down exactly what you do and the step-by-step process by which you do it. This will initially be time-consuming, but after one month you will have put together a complete procedures manual for your business that you can then hand over to a qualified team member. You will have freed yourself from routine tasks to focus on other income-producing activities. And as you can outsource the bulk of these tasks for around $10 per hour to virtual assistant providers such as www.getfriday.com/benangel, it hardly makes sense to do them yourself.

Driving traffic

All activities related to driving traffic to your product page can be automated or outsourced. They will need to be project managed by you, however. You are in control and must know and understand where everything is at any time — even if it's simply logging in to check your sales for the day.

These activities include:

• researching lead generation options
• providing recommendations, then implementing them
• reporting on weekly statistics, including sales conversions, advertising spend, what worked, what didn't, and recommend steps forward
• uploading and scheduling social media content
• uploading articles/videos to blog
• approaching other bloggers to secure a guest post
• creating Facebook ads
• keyword research
• tracking and testing adverts.

Customer service

Some 99.9 per cent of customer service enquiries can be responded to via ‘canned' and automated responses, which are pre-written to address frequently asked questions, issues and refunds. Document the processes for:

• processing and responding to refunds
• product questions
• customer complaints
• frequently asked questions (making sure you provide them with the knowledge to refer people to blog posts or specific products that answer their queries without intervention from you)
• partnership enquiries
• media enquiries
• troubleshooting customer issues (for example, they can't download product or it won't open in their browser; both issues should have the same solution, which can be posted to an FAQs page).

Empower your VAs with the right information and they'll reward you by giving you more time and helping you make more money in the long and short term.

5. Learn: education = cash flow

Education is at the heart of bringing in six- to seven-figure revenues. The great news is that you don't have to know everything yourself — you just need to manage others who do. For example, say you want to learn about media buying and Facebook advertising. You could, as I have done, purchase online courses (visit www.benangel.com.au/flee9-5 for my recommendations) and get your VA to undertake the training themselves. Then all you need do is get them to summarise what they have learned and you can approve the recommendations they have made.

Furthermore, you can create your own in-house training resources in minutes by using screencast tools such as Screeny for Mac to record your online processes with a voiceover giving directions. Upload using a private YouTube link and give your assistants the link. You can record this at any time, and no matter where your VAs are in the world, they can access it without interrupting you as you work on the bigger ideas that truly make a difference to establishing yourself in the marketplace.

6. Take control: my top six favourite tech tools for agents on the go

According to eMarketer's 2013 estimate on media consumption among US adults, average time spent with digital media per day will soon surpass TV viewing for the first time. With an average of five hours spent online daily, it's easy to waste away a day, a week or even a year in the clutches of the internet. While technology on many levels has destroyed productivity, it can also increase it immensely when you take back control of the beast.

To make your life easier and help you to live the ultimate Flee 9 to 5 lifestyle, here are my top recommended platforms:

• Hootsuite. For managing all your social media accounts, Hootsuite.com is my top pick. It can also consolidate the individual messages you receive from all of your accounts, so you can easily reply to them in one hit via the dashboard. With solid reporting tools and access on the go, you'll know at a glance what's working and what isn't.
• Evernote. I've mentioned this application several times already in these pages. I can't even begin to express how easy this has made my life. My entire business plan is mapped out using Evernote, and is always accessible and updatable from my Android device on the run. (It's also available for Mac.)
• Infusionsoft. You'll need a website, auto-responders and an affiliate program, and ideally you'll manage it from just one location. Infusionsoft is my top recommendation for this. Avoid using too many different online tools for your website, as this can create unnecessary procedures. Consolidation is king.
• Google Drive. Losing data can be devastating. After a cup of tea spilt on my laptop and almost derailed my national tour last year, I know this from bitter experience. I back up word documents to the cloud using Google Docs. You can update and manage documents in real time, allowing key players in your projects access as you deem fit.
• Gmail. All my customer service queries arrive in our Gmail account, which my VAs can access at any time of the day, including weekends. You can manage your inbox into folders and assign emails to particular individuals for processing, and you can see at a glance who needs replying to and who has already been taken care of.
• Skype. The world's most popular internet phone service can be downloaded to your iPhone or Android. It's a fantastic way to keep call costs low when travelling; this is great for the agent on the go.

Draw up your Flee 9 to 5 timeline

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

— Henry David Thoreau

At this stage in the book you have passed the point of no return. You understand how to buy back your time and your life. It's now time to start working on your timeline, setting out when you're going to take serious action, if you haven't already. Get a yearly wall planner and map out when you are going to create your first product and when you'll launch it.

See beyond 9 to 5 and ask yourself the following questions:

• How much money do I need to live on each month?
• How much money do I need as a backup (say, three months' reserve)? (Every business has a ‘burn rate': in the early stages it requires greater investment. Prepare for this and avoid taking unnecessary risks.)
• How much will I outsource in the early stages and what will I do myself?
• At what specific point will I flee 9 to 5? (For example, it could be when you begin to make x in monthly sales consistently for a minimum of six months.)

Do the maths, calculate your budget, create your product map and draw up your timeline. It's time to take the leap.

Tips and resources

Through automated economics you can streamline, leverage and automate many moving parts of your business, allowing you to go off-grid while still growing the business.

Outsourcing the two main processes that still require management — lead- and traffic-generation and customer support — frees up your time, allowing you to live the Flee 9 to 5 lifestyle.

Create your own in-house training resources for your virtual assistants. You don't have to know everything yourself — you just need to manage others who do.

Visit www.benangel.com.au/flee9-5 for my recommendations on online courses on media buying and Facebook advertising.

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