79: Magical Outsourcing Scaling Systems with Ari Meisels (Part 1)

You take all your complicated and messy internal processes and systems that are not working, taking up a ton of time, and costing you a pretty penny, and you throw them at some outsourcing company based in the Philippines. Then you’re surprised when they can’t figure out what on earth you want them to do?!

In this episode, Ari Meisels, explains his Optimize, Automate, Outsource methodology that will take your business from frazzled to focused and leave you with more time on your hands so you can do what you love to do and not what you have to do. Plus, Ari has a ton of useful tools, software and tech hacks for you to help maximize your efficiency and performance.

Ari Meisels is the founder of Less Doing where he helps entrepreneurs who have opportunity in excess of what their infrastructure can support, so that they can find focus, flexibility and freedom in their business methodology.

Ari enables founders to become replaceable, so they can scale their business. He has built out nine guiding principles described in detail in the latest book, The Replaceable Founder. He has a comprehensive attack on overwhelm, that offers guidance in three fundamental areas: Communicating Effectively, Inbox Zero and Asynchronous Communication, plus the six levels of delegation to manage projects.

Ari is also a graduate of the Wharton School of Business, and a devoted husband to Anna and father to four children.

Episode Highlights:

[05:51]:  And after three years, I was 23 years old. I was $3 million in personal debt and I had got diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. Crohn’s, for those who don’t know, is a chronic inflammatory condition, it affects the digestive tract, it’s very, very painful and it’s considered incurable. And so I got really, really sick, and long story short, I went through a process of self-experimentation and self-tracking and was able to overcome the illness and ended up doing a TEDx talk on it.

[11:58]:  I was teaching cardio classes, and a friend of mine came to a class and he brought somebody who had just completed Iron Man. We talked afterward and he’s like, “Did you ever think about doing Iron Man?” I was like, “No way, no interest at all, whatsoever”. And I literally, I said goodbye to everybody, I walked into my office and there was an email from my friend Jonathan, and he’s like, “Iron Man. France. Next June. Are you in?” and I was like “Oh my god”.

[15:13]: My whole methodology is called Optimize, Automate, Outsource. So outsourcing is the last step. I do an enormous amount of outsourcing, I am a power user of outsourcing, but it is the last step. If we outsource something that is completely inefficient, then we’re not really doing ourselves any favors.

[16:05]: We don’t outsource things that are messy. We don’t just look for people to save us like, “Oh no, I can’t do this, someone else should.”

[23:42]: I met somebody, actually it was an eight-figure business with just two employees, including himself. And I just looked at him and I was like, “Do you ever get to go on vacation?” He’s like, “Well, I can’t, it’s, you know, it’s just the two of us.”

[30:39]: Estie: At this point, I answer it, but I answer it through the VA. Either she knows everything that needs to happen, or something comes up and she asks me a question. Why are you laughing? Are you laughing? Am I supposed to do my own email?
Ari: Yeah, I don’t agree with people outsourcing their email to somebody else.

[44:21]: I built a sales dashboard in Trello and Google Sheets, and basically anytime there’s a new lead, it’s going to automatically email the lead, it’s going to automatically track the lead and convert the data.

[46:25]: So I’m really trying to remove myself from the operation of the business as much as possible so that I can take on this paramedic training that I want to be doing. And my goal is to get down to like two hours a month or less, and I’m not, honestly. So it’s a struggle, but I’m working through it right now.

Quote:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. – Robert Heinlein

Resources & Links:

For Part 2 of this episode, where you can learn how to optimize, automate and outsource your internal processes, go to estierand.com/79-2. 

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