Since I have been learning all this new Internet stuff over the past few years, I have been starting to think differently. One of the new ways of thinking is to automate everything I can and make an online system.

SAVING TIME USING CUSTOMERS AS OUTSOURCERS

One of the primary sources of income for me is public speaking. I travel around the world three or more times a month in my busy seasons and mkake thousands of dollars per day giving seminars and keynote talks.

Because that is not my only work (I also write books and run my business mostly all by myself - with a little support from virtual assistants), that means I am busy a fair amount of the time, especially when I am traveling and during the spring and fall seasons when there is lots of demand for my speaking - since many organizations hold their conferences during one of those times. It used to be that sponsors would have to track me down and bug me to get my bio statement, photo, brochure content, continuing education questions and objectives, my W-9 tax form which they would need to report my income to the IRS at the end of the year, and so on. I was not always timely in getting back to them when I was busy, frustrating them, delaying their marketing efforts and making me look bad.

Finally, when I learned how easy it is to create a website and began thinking this way, I thought: why not outsource this activity to my sponsors? I set up a website that gives them control and access to all the information they need to hire me and organize my talks and seminars. (You can view part of the information-the public stuff-at http://www.possibill.com/sponsors. The rest is private and I provide passwords to my sponsors so they can access those bits.)

This has saved me an estimated 12 hours a month. And the people who are considering hiring me or who have hired me love it! It saves them time and hassle. It gives them several choices as to topics. They can give the link to their graphics/brochure design people and get themselves out of the middle. In short, I have outsourced this activity to my sponsors, much like the bank outsources a teller’s activity to you when you visit an ATM. You like it because it it faster and gives you more control. But the bank saves money and time when you use their ATM for transactions.

I have said before that my goal is to create a worklife that does not require my time or presence. This outsourcing to customers is part of that strategy. Now how can it apply to you and your business life?

Think about it: which parts of your work activity could you outsource to your customers to save you time, give your customers control, increase customer service and satisfaction and systematize something that was chaotic or messy?