What to Know Before Hiring in Your Teacher Business with Janice Cook [Ep. 87]

 
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Here’s what to expect from this episode:

Do you ever feel like you have way too much going on in your teacher business and need more time to get it all done? It might be time to hire some help.

Whether it's time to hire for your podcast, your social media, emails, customer service, or something else, outsourcing tasks can save you a ton of time and, ultimately, money when you can put your time and energy into other income-generating activities. And to talk about this topic, I am joined by Janice Cook, online business manager for TPTers. 

Today, Janice and I are talking about the pros and cons of running your business solo versus with a team, how to know when it's time to outsource, what kind of hires you can make, and when it's time to hire. We also chat about what you can do now before you make you hire to make your life easier once the time comes. 

Janice is the absolute best. If you don't already know her, you're gonna love her. So let's go ahead and get to it!

Meet JANICE:

Janice Cook is a TPT seller turned online business manager who helps make systems tidy, so the workweek is peaceful and productive.

She's passionate about helping TPTers spend their time on the tasks they love because she believes that's a key factor in creating high-quality resources that impact teachers and students.

Topics Covered:

  • The pros and cons of being a solopreneur (and having a team)

  • The differences between hiring a contractor and an employee

  • How a general Virtual Assistant can help vs. a specialist

  • Signs to look for that could mean it's time to start outsourcing

  • Things you can do BEFORE you hire out to make life easier

  • What to include in your job description and simplifying SOPs

teacher-business

  • Sara Whittaker 0:00

    Hey there and welcome back to podcasting for educators. Today, we're going to be talking about something that's going to be helpful for those of you who just have way too much going on in your business and not enough time to get it all done, which I'm sure is probably all of us. We're talking about hiring, whether it's hiring for your podcast, your social media, emails, customer service, or something else. Outsourcing tasks can save you a ton of time and ultimately money when you're able to put your time and energy into other income generating activities. To talk about this topic, I am joined by Janice Cook, Janice is a TPT seller turn online business manager who helps make systems tidy so the workweek is peaceful and productive. She's passionate about helping TB tears spend their time on the tasks they love, because she believes that's a key factor in the creation of high quality resources that make an impact for teachers and students. Today, Janice and I are talking about the pros and cons of running your business solo versus running it with a team, how to know when it's time to outsource what kind of hires you can make, and how to know when it's time to hire first. And also what you can do now, before you make your hires to make your life easier. Once the time comes. Janice is the absolute best. And if you don't already know her, you're gonna love her. So let's go ahead and get to it. Your Podcast is a powerful tool that serves your audience and your business. But how do you manage it all bring in new listeners, and convert those listeners into customers. That's what this show is all about. Welcome to podcasting for educators. I'm Sara Whitaker, classroom teacher turn podcast manager, and I'm here to help you get the most out of your show, all while making an impact on other educators. Hey, Janice, how are you? Welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad you're here.

    Janice Cook 1:53

    Thanks for having me.

    Sara Whittaker 1:54

    Thank you for being here. We're going to be talking all about hiring in your business, how to know if it's the right time to hire, what kinds of hires, you can make the pros and cons, all kinds of good stuff. I know that for me, especially in the last year hiring has made a world of difference in my business. And I know that this is one of your many specialties. So I'm really excited to hear what you have to say today, especially with all of these podcasters listening because we've got kind of a mix, we've got some people who DIY their shows, and they're doing everything on their own. And I think that when somebody's in that position, it's a lot, it's a lot to to handle, especially if you're also you know you're running your business, you're a lot of us are in the classroom. And that's a lot to juggle. So hiring could really be a game changer for a lot of people listening.

    Janice Cook 2:49

    Yeah. And often we know that we're overwhelmed and need to take something off our plate. But it's really hard when you're already overwhelmed and things are already on fire, to figure out how to get something off your plate. It often like by the time we realized we should have hired out, it's almost too late to hire out because we don't have time to do that either. So it's definitely a tricky dance for all of us.

    Sara Whittaker 3:11

    Yes, it is. I know sometimes making that hire and actually onboarding somebody to your team, especially if you've never done it before, it feels even more overwhelming than just doing everything on your own. Which is not true. But that's what it feels like sometimes. I feel that's Yes, me too. Me too. So first, let's kind of, I'd love to go into like the pros and cons of running your business solo, because maybe some people are out there who are like, I've got this like, Yeah, I'm busy, but I'm doing okay. So what would you say are the pros and cons of being a solopreneur and kind of doing everything on your own?

    Janice Cook 3:50

    Yeah, I have worked with some really large teams. But I also have my own teachers pay teacher's store. And I would say I'm an almost solopreneur in that I don't have anyone on my team full time on payroll. But I am not afraid to hire out certain tasks. So I often will bring people into blitz through a task list a punch list for me, and then go back to being a solopreneur because there are a lot of things I like about running a business solo. So if 2020 taught us anything, I love having flexibility, the flexibility to make a shiny January vision board and say I'm gonna make X $1,000 in my store this year, and then to have life happen and say, Actually, I will be grateful for whatever the passive income machine sends me I need to go somewhere else right now. I love having that flexibility without having to answer to a team and check with people that are on payroll and figure out how can my business make this much money so that I can pay the people I've already agreed to pay. So flexibility is a huge Pro for solopreneur life. Privacy is another one. Not everybody wants to talk about the ups and downs of their business vulnerably with someone else, that's not for that's not for the faint of heart. That's not for everyone. And then having total control for some partnering with someone to have a sounding board and share your thoughts is a pro. And other people don't really like the pushback from others that makes them squirm and consider things in a different way. And it's not even to say that we're always that same person all the time. I think we go through seasons, where we're open to working with others on a group project and other seasons where we would just rather do this ourselves for a little bit.

    Sara Whittaker 5:36

    Yes, I definitely feel that there are certain parts of my business like social media, I just haven't been able to give up yet. That's something that I am just, I know that I'm like picky about certain things. And I just kind of have my own way of doing things. And maybe one day that will change. But I totally agree with you about the flexibility of it all, there's so many ways that you can run your business on your own. And there's so many ways that you can hire help as well. And doing something like a one off project, like hiring somebody to help you write a welcome sequence or do your sales page or something like that is a great way to kind of get your feet wet. With hiring, can you kind of give us a little bit of insight into the difference between hiring a contractor versus an actual employee.

    Janice Cook 6:26

    Yeah, so I could have someone on going on my team who is going to work on a project for me for 10 hours a month, or they're going to do two or three of these a month, we have some like agreed upon hours or deliverables, where they are expecting that income, and they're expecting a certain amount of work on their desk, and I'm expecting things back from them by a certain day, that can be a really wonderful relationship for both sides. That's mutually beneficial. But sometimes we get in these types of retainers with photographers. Like we send them three products every month, and they photograph them and give them back. But then what happens when I don't need any more pictures anymore, right? It gets really tricky. But if I have a product line, and I know that it has 12 products, maybe I can find someone and I get hired out as a project. And it's just like, whenever you get around to it, whatever it fits in your schedule, can you send me back photos of these 12 things? And then can we be done? Like, can I get off this bus? I like I know how much this will cost? Let's get these pictures off my list. And then I don't want to be in an ongoing relationship because that can be really stressful.

    Sara Whittaker 7:39

    Yeah, it's like a very big commitment to bring somebody on full time that you have a very like solid contract with ongoing, it's got right. And sometimes we

    Janice Cook 7:49

    find like we have to find something for a team member to do. That's usually a red flag that this is no longer benefiting both sides. And it doesn't mean that either side did anything wrong. It just means that it's not a fit for this season of business. It's not a fit for both sides.

    Sara Whittaker 8:06

    Yeah, totally. Now, you covered as you were kind of talking about some some pros of running your business solo, you kind of touched on what that would look like in terms of pros and cons for having a team. But are there any, are there any other additional things that you consider to be pros and cons if you do decide to hire a team?

    Janice Cook 8:28

    Yeah, so if you're writing your business solo, if those were the pros, and the cons could be that it's exhausting. Trying to do everything, we probably have like for good solid focused hours that we can work all day, some days, it's six, I have like a two to three hour block of time in the morning that my brain can do amazing things. And then after lunch, I have like another solid two to three hours. And then that's it. So if I spend or waste, that time doing things that could have been done by other people, then I'm exhausted before I even got to the things that I wanted to do. And I think often we find ourselves on that hamster wheel as solopreneurs where there's literally never enough time. And it's not because we're doing anything wrong. It's just that we have more things on our plate than one human being could possibly do and do well. We also run into decision fatigue when we're running our business by ourselves, where I would be happy to do any of these things that people in the Facebook group say will grow my business. But which one do I need to do first, I wish someone would just stop by and tell me what to do. And that can be really paralyzing for business owners. So even if they have time on paper, if they can't figure out what to prioritize because they have way too much on their plate, and they can't show up and really move the needle in their business. So then it's no longer a win to be running your business by yourself. I get caught in a constant PD season where I start doing a task and then my email marketing season has a webinar because their software just had an update. And then Pinterest goes through an algorithm thing. And now Google Analytics have to be done. And I could be spending my whole day consuming courses and PD, and never actually doing anything. So sometimes as a solopreneur, we find ourselves unable to, like PD could become our constant full time job. And then you start to notice, I really wish I could just make products, I really wish I could just make x. That's my zone of genius. I really wish I could get on calls with people. That's what I want to be doing. And then you start to identify this list of things that are not your superpower. And you start to wonder, where could I send those tasks? And I think that's the story of most people growing into a team is those things start to be not one off, I'm really tired days. But oh, my goodness, this no longer feels fun. Like this is starting to feel like a job. I don't.

    Sara Whittaker 10:58

    Yes. And isn't that why we all started our own business so that it doesn't feel like work that we have to do? It's it should feel fun.

    Janice Cook 11:06

    Yeah. And one of my favorite clients that I've ever worked with said that really early on in our relationship, she said, I, I'm glad we're both enjoying this, if this ever start to feel like a J. OB, I want you to tell me right away. And it was years ago come she's a wonderful boss. But I think about that statement a lot.

    Sara Whittaker 11:23

    Yes, no, it's so it's so smart to think about. And I think especially as your business grows, like in the beginning, when you're first starting out, there's a lot of things that you can do on your own. And you can do them well, maybe because you're starting out small, but I feel like we all kind of get to this point, when we're like, okay, I want to go all in like I really want to scale this thing, whether that means you starting to do your business full time, or you just you're already full time, but you really want to take it to the next level. And in order to do that, especially with your marketing, you know, you've got emails and podcasts and social media, like it's so much that there really, I think comes a time when it's really necessary to bring in some specialists so that you don't have to learn how to do everything. Yeah, and

    Janice Cook 12:12

    I think that's a really good point. So there's two, you know, buckets of people that we can search for to hire. And they're both good for different reasons. But you can bring on a general virtual assistant, where you're teaching them how to do the task, you're bringing your own strategy, and you're taking your workflow and how you do things, and teaching them how to do it on your behalf, that can be a great option. Or you can skip that step of having to package up the how we're going to do this. And you could bring in a specialist and say, Can you do Pinterest for me and bring me a Pinterest strategy? Because I need them both. And then that person is staying up to date on the PD and you don't have to. And now you're partnering with them to make decisions, but leaning on their expertise. And that certainly can be a great direction to go in for other areas of business.

    Sara Whittaker 13:01

    Yes, absolutely. And I cannot tell you how glad I am to hear you describe what a like general VA is because I see this a lot in this TPT space as I look at job postings and things like that, and Facebook groups that I think some people and a lot of times, I think it's because you just don't know. But a general VA is not a Pinterest strategist or a podcast strategist or an email marketing strategist. There's definitely a difference there. And I think it's just important to keep in mind that we need to manage our expectations and not expect to bring on a general VA to to run our entire business because I do see that a lot.

    Janice Cook 13:45

    And that alignment actually can go in the other direction too. There are people who hire a strategist and then want to bring their own strategy is a Why don't want to do it that way. And that can turn out to not be a good fit either, right? Oh, well, you're not actually looking for a strategist, you're actually looking for a virtual assistant, and they don't know. And that's okay. But the sooner you can get what they want, and the right person aligned. Again, we're looking for win wins on both sides in this conversation. And I know when I had my website redone the last time my designer said that she said, Are you sure you're a virtual assistant? This doesn't seem like a virtual assistant situation. And I said, well, the people I work with, are looking for virtual assistants. So let's help them find me and know they're in the right place. And then we'll chat and we'll get them what they actually need because I love to play matchmakers with other teacher business owners because it's totally okay to not know what you need, but find someone who probably knows what you need and let them play matchmaker for you. If I'm not the person to help someone in their business, I celebrate that but I probably know someone who is and I'd love to get them all set up and in a win win direction.

    Sara Whittaker 14:56

    Yes, I love that about you. You I just feel like you are so good at forming relationships with people yourself, but also, you know, with clients and service providers and I'm I am the same way I think relationships are one of the most important things that we have in our business. And even if we're not a good fit for somebody, we probably know somebody who is. So now let's think about if somebody is listening, and maybe they are considering making that first hire, or maybe you have done some hiring before, maybe you even have some pretty consistent contractors, but you want to grow your team a little bit more. How would somebody know that it is finally the time to start outsourcing. Right.

    Janice Cook 15:41

    So you're outsourcing when you're missing opportunities. So if things are starting to fall through the cracks, then you can't do it alone anymore. You wanted to jump on that collaboration, but there's no way you could have gotten the stuff in time, you saw an opportunity for what your audience needed, and you wanted to create a product for it. But there was no way because you were already in the weeds on so many things. So when you start to really feel like you need to clone yourself, and you're missing out on opportunities. For me, also, I watched for times that people are backtracking and wasting time. So I tried to do this myself, I took my own pictures, I bought the stuff, I cleared the space, I spent the week and then I edited the pictures, and they're all yellow, and they have shadows, and I'm never going to use them. And I'll never get that week of my business life back or any of the money for this equipment that I'll never use again. So when you start to notice yourself taking one step forward, and three steps back, this is not a good use of anyone's time and money. And we have to pause and reflect on that and figure out what's another way I can get to this desired result because this isn't the way I love. I saw some content yesterday on that Eisenhower matrix where you start to prioritize and decide on what's really important and what's really urgent and what not. And I know I've been in seasons of my business where I make a list and everything on this list actually does seem imperative. Everything on this list actually does seem super important that it has to get done. This happens to me as a mom a lot. Yeah, all of these things happen have to happen. I 100% have no more options, I cannot do all of them. It's not going to happen. I've delegated to other people, I can delegate to what else we got, right? Someone has to take one of these we've run out of hours in the day. And so I say the mom example because I think we can all relate. But it's like there is literally never going to be a day where I can mow the lawn, who am I going to find to mow my lawn like I am literally never going to get to the store who is going to bring me my groceries like what can be done by someone who isn't me. And those same questions for myself as a mom are the same questions that I asked in my business. And so we look for anything that literally doesn't have to be done by us. Things that can be templated things that can be turned into a system and communicated to others. Those are the first ones to go. And it's hard because sometimes we say but I like doing that task, or that task is fun for me. Sure. But it's also fun to not be crying in your Cheerios, because you have too much to do. So if it is something that someone else can do, sometimes we do have to be brave and give it up to make room for something that truly only we can do.

    Sara Whittaker 18:29

    Yes, that is fantastic advice. When you have completely run out of hours in the day it is it is time and we none of us want to be crying in our Cheerios, because that is a terrible feeling. Do you if if somebody's never made a hire before? Do you have suggestions on like, what a good first hire would be? Or do you feel like it really is kind of dependent on each individual business?

    Janice Cook 18:53

    I do think it's really individual. So I tend to take people through like a series of coaching questions to identify what that is. But one of those is the big clue we just talked about are looking for repeatable processes often are things that can be templatized. So sometimes the reason you like doing a task is because it's easy. And the reason it's easy is because you have a template, or the reason it's easy is because it already has a system or a workflow. And that feels really good for you. So it's hard. Those aren't the tasks you want to give to someone else because they're the easy ones. But if you got all the easy tasks off your desk, then you'd actually have the brain capacity to do the big things. And usually those are the big, hairy, scary things that actually bring us the revenue.

    Sara Whittaker 19:39

    Yes, yes. Can you give us some examples of like what you've seen as kind of those easy tasks that have ended up being a really good decision for people to hire out?

    Janice Cook 19:50

    Sure. So if you have a Facebook group, Facebook community management, huge time suck for business owners and they delay it and they don't do it and the health of the community It suffers. So scheduling posts engaging, making sure that when people chat in your group, you chat back with them, admitting new members in a timely fashion, actually monitoring to make sure there's nothing shady going on in your group. Because that stuff gets out of control really quickly. There's so many people you could teach to manage your Facebook group. And there's so many people who already have that skill and would need very little training and could jump in and do it on your behalf. And you could move on to other things. In a TPT store. If you identify a Preview Template that's really converting well in your store, and you want it to go across a whole product line, or across the next best selling product line. That is something someone else can do. It doesn't always feel like it, we like to have creative liberty over those things. But if you have a pile of photos, and a template in Canva, or PowerPoint that you already need an example of one that's going well, they can get it pretty close. And so if you can empower someone else to take on that task for you and run with your template, maybe they don't get it all the way to the finish line. But gosh, what if they could get it 90% to the finish line, and you were just finishing and tweaking at the end, you would save so much of your time and your CEO brain strength to do things that only you can do?

    Sara Whittaker 21:17

    Yes, I think that's a really good point, like just because you're passing something off to somebody, it doesn't mean that you're never going to have your eyes on it, and that you can't make sure that it's how you want it, you can still check everything over and make those final tweaks at the end. But it does in the long run, save you so much time. And I'm I also wanted to point out, obviously most of you listening are podcasters. And we talk a lot about what a podcast manager is what a podcast strategist is. And usually when I've talked about that, on that show, on this show, I'm talking about all the services that a podcast Manager brings to the table. But if you're somebody who doesn't have a big budget right now, and you really just want to start small, it could be a total game changer for you to hire a VA to just start with scheduling your episodes, or putting your episodes on your website, putting your episodes onto your host, you can start small and and when you're ready, financially and just kind of mentally ready to hand. Everything else over. You can kind of build upon that as you go, would you agree?

    Janice Cook 22:24

    Yeah. And you find someone that you know, like and trust, and you get in a little bit of a workflow. And maybe all you're doing in your own podcast is recording the episode and making it live. Maybe your episode description is minimal. Maybe there are no show notes, there are no fancy social media posts, maybe we're just getting the episodes Live, which I celebrate. And that's fantastic. Maybe then someone can follow you and get it just that far. And then maybe they can flesh out your episode description a little bit. And then maybe, maybe they could turn that into official show notes for you, then maybe they could take a template that you agreed on. And maybe they could get you one post to go out on social media. And that relationship can grow over time. All of these things don't have to be all or nothing. And it doesn't have to be everything from the beginning. And that goes for the person you're hiring out or yourself. I'd rather your episode be live and your message get out to the world, then not putting it out live because you didn't also have three social media posts and a full SEO optimized blog post.

    Sara Whittaker 23:27

    Yes, yes, absolutely. Yeah, get it out there. And that's the great thing about podcasting is you can always go back and update things, even your audio, you can go back and update your audio if you want to add something to it later. And you can totally build upon your show notes a year from now two years from now, whenever you're actually able to put the time in. Now, if somebody is ready to get on board with hiring, and they're excited to do it, and maybe their goal is to hire somebody a month or two from now. Are there some things that they could do now to kind of make that process easier when it's time for them to hire?

    Janice Cook 24:05

    Yes, as you start to talk to people who have had bad experiences hiring out? Usually it's because hiring out happened too fast, and it exposed a lot of holes they had in their business. So sometimes when you hire someone on they start asking icky sticky questions that you weren't ready for like short. Can I have all the passwords for ABC and D? Oh, my goodness, I have no idea where those are or what they do usually what time do you usually questions that start with that can feel really iffy. If your systems maybe aren't really tight in the back end and your workflows are a little bit all over the place. And now you're like why did I hire out why did I invite this other person in now I don't feel good about this and I have so much more work to do. So it can can get harder before it gets easier. If we went out of order if our own systems are messy, then at first bringing someone else in isn't easy. And so I think it usually goes the most smoothly if we pause first. And instead of saying, I have to get this off my plate by March, saying, I'm going to hire a podcast manager soon, okay, I need to start getting all my podcast stuff together, what are the steps? I usually do? What are the things I usually touch? What do I like doing about this task? And I don't want to go off my plate. And what would I be totally okay with passing off to someone else? Like, do I need to be steps one, two? And three? Do I need to also be the last two steps? Which steps are for me? Which steps Am I keeping? And as you start to grab all the links and the passwords and the Canva documents and your outlines and your Google Drive folders? Sometimes people find out, they don't actually need to hire out yet at all. Now that they've made that system for someone else, they're like, well, now this is an easier, more pleasant task for me. Maybe I'm okay, maybe I could do this on my own a little bit longer. So if we go through those systems and those workflows, sometimes we make ourselves our own VA, and we didn't spend any money at all. So the process of not rushing through the hiring process and organizing the back end can feel so good, because it brings clarity, I personally love when someone drops a job description into the VA finder group. That's really well thought out. Because they really thought about this is this is what I want to do. This is what I want someone else to do. These are the platforms that I know are involved. This is how long I think this task will take. That tells me that that someone who's ready to hire out.

    Sara Whittaker 26:37

    Yeah, I was actually that was I wanted to ask you that next as I was listening to you talk was, is there anything specific that people should make sure that they have in a in a job description, because like you mentioned before hiring is it's a two way thing, you want to be a great client and you want to find somebody that's a great match for you as a service provider. And I think I mean, one of those first impressions is that job description. And we I'm sure I know, I haven't, I'm sure you have seen many varieties of different kinds of job descriptions. So like, what would you say are some important things to include, other than the ones that you just mentioned,

    Janice Cook 27:19

    I love seeing a business owner have the clarity to share exactly what they know. Like, I'm looking for someone to do this part of this process. And here's the goal and outcome that we're trying to achieve, right? Is it that you want someone to post for you three times a week on Instagram? Or is it that you're trying to increase your sales by getting more click throughs to your store using Instagram, that's such a different job posting, depending on what the result is someone's going for. And neither of those goals are wrong. But I love seeing a job description that is that specific. And not saying I'm looking for some help in my podcast. But saying, I'm looking for someone who has experience with Zen caster and captivate and Google Drive and like being able to list out your tech stack. This is what I use when I do this task. Gosh, you're gonna have so much of a better chance of finding someone who also can say, Oh, wow, I think I've done that exact task for someone else in that same tech stack. And you're both gonna get to the desired location much faster. And that's very different from Hey, I've always wanted to learn how to do that. I bet you could teach me how to do it. And I could probably help you, because you'll get both kinds of people applying for the job.

    Sara Whittaker 28:38

    Yes, yes, absolutely. Do you recommend having like formal SOPs written out before hiring?

    Janice Cook 28:46

    Yeah, I think SOPs can be a really scary word because people don't know if their standard operating procedures are fancy enough or robust enough or complete enough. But the very fact that you've tried to make one even if it's one loom video, one loom video is very, very helpful as a new service provider, having someone think out loud as they do the task, and getting to see their thought process and where they click, I got to watch a live video once with a client making a cover for her store. And I learned so much as I saw, like what little tweaks and alignment things drove her nuts, and what other things didn't seem that important to her. So even if it feels like a really messy, bumpy, not good loom video, the right service provider for your team will learn so much from a loom video just watching. So being brave to make an SOP and not wondering if it's final and complete and good enough. I think when people say they have a team, there's obvious often this misnomer that it's a big fancy corporate look behind the scenes. And really it just might be a couple of checklists and a couple of loom videos. that showed the right things so that there's no wasted time. Because when we can be clear with the system and the things that are important to us, both sides can stop wasting time back and forth asking questions, Hey, can I have a candling? Hey, I need a password for this, Hey, how long do you like these to be? Can you take a listen to this and see if it's what you wanted. That's not what anybody wants when they're in the middle of doing the task. Or if you tried to get this task off your desk, you don't want to hear from this person every step of the way with a question. So you have to kind of front load that information upfront and think when I'm doing this task, what do I need to know, and get them as much of that information as you can wrapped up in an SOP before you bring them on?

    Sara Whittaker 30:45

    Yeah, that was a great explanation. And one of the things that really stood out to me, because I am with you a video is amazing to have because especially doing it as you're actually in the moment walking through the process of creating that graphic, one big thing I've learned is as the client that is going to save you so much time in the future, because we all have our little tiny tweaks with things like graphics, like we only like a certain amount of words to be on the top line, or whatever it is that somebody's looking at the graphic, maybe they're not going to realize that and it's not going to be exactly how you want it. And then you're going to have to go back to the service provider, even though they have no idea to them. The graphic looks good. And it seems like they've followed direction. But if you haven't expressed those little tweaks, then you're just going to end up wasting time.

    Janice Cook 31:38

    Yeah, so if I hate writing blog posts in my business, as soon as I noticed that this is something I hate, I start making an SOP. And maybe that sounds backwards. But I'm making SOPs for things when they're driving me nuts. So I think what part of writing a blog post Do I like I love keyword research. I love finding like knowing my product catalog, and knowing what my audience needs, and identifying a gap that they need a blog post about. And I love researching other things and gathering those headers, and dumping all of the things that I would want to talk about in a Google Doc. And that's all that I like about it. And then that Google doc needs to go off to a unicorn who likes writing blog posts, that isn't me. So maybe I write one blog post. And I say this is the last blog posts I've ever writing in my life. But I'm going to turn on loom and I'm going to write it with a loom video. And then they say like, this is where I put my alt text. And this is where I size my images. And and this is the tool I use for that. And now all of a sudden I have an SOP. And now I can make a posting and I can look for a block writer.

    Sara Whittaker 32:43

    Yes, yeah. So we all have our strengths and the things that we don't love so much. And I think a really just huge takeaway from this conversation is that, just like so many things in our business and our personal life, like we really have to kind of slow down in order to speed up and to reach new levels. And it is so true with hiring, you just have to even though we I know I know the feeling you feel super overwhelmed. You just want to get somebody hired and get somebody in here ASAP. But if you can just take a weekend, take a day, and really slow down and figure out exactly what you need. It's going to pay off big time in the long run,

    Janice Cook 33:24

    right? Because we don't want you to hire someone get brave, and then it doesn't work out. Right? They send you the first draft. This is taking me longer, they have so many questions, why did I even hire out I'm never hiring out again. And that usually just means we went too fast. And it's so painful as a business owner to slow down to speed up. But we've learned the lesson time and time again. It's kind of like working out like I wish I didn't feel better after I did cardio. But I do feel like I don't want to slow down and make an SOP nobody wrote make an SOP on their to do list today and was pumped about it. But I know that if I don't do it, that next person I hire is not going to have any chance of reading my mind and getting to the target that we both hope to get to. So an SOP is kind of like going to the gym, which you don't want to do.

    Sara Whittaker 34:13

    Yes, absolutely. And I mean, so true. People cannot read your mind as much as sometimes we forget that it's like I'm sure a lot of people can relate to it's when we get resentful because our husband didn't put his dishes away again, but we've never expressed that bothers us like, we just have to have that communication from the beginning. Yes.

    Janice Cook 34:35

    And it's frustrating and you wish you didn't have to do it. Yeah. And I think we all we all can smile and agree that there's things in our business that we have to do, and doing things in the right order. really does matter because running a business is a long game. Yes.

    Sara Whittaker 34:51

    Such a long game. All right, well, is there anything I have a couple questions I want to ask you here in just a sec. But is there anything that we haven't covered that you wanted to add before we start wrapping things up.

    Janice Cook 35:04

    Um, the only other thing I think about in our conversation about a virtual assistant versus a specialist is that in my personal business, my comfort level is that I like to do PD first, to fully understand the best practices of something before I hire it out. But I don't want that to stop someone from hiring out. So for me to hire a blog writer, as an example, and know whether they're doing a good job or not, I want to have taken a little bit of PD, on what best practice is in blog writing and SEO life. And it's not to say that you have to, but it's really hard when a virtual assistant or a team member sends back work to you to know like, I don't know, is this good or not. So if you're hiring out a strategist, a specialist, maybe you don't have to take the course, maybe you can bypass that, and you did your research on them and their results, and it's okay. But if you're bringing in a virtual assistant at that lower tier level, where you really are bringing the strategy, then I do think you have a little bit more of the professional development burden, where if you're gonna hire out, I don't know, if you were gonna hire an audio editing, you might have to first learn how to edit audio yourself, so that you can really carefully mentioned to them, This is what's important to me. And this is the equipment and software I'm really expecting you to use. So I think some people love doing that PD before they hire out and some people don't. And that might just be another reflection question on that hiring journey.

    Sara Whittaker 36:33

    Yeah, no, that's, that's a great point. Now, okay, I have a couple fun kind of questions for you that I do ask my guests at the end of the interview. All right. Number one is if you could interview any favorite childhood star, who would it be?

    Janice Cook 36:49

    This is such a tough one. I don't know if I was a big like, pop culture, kid. But I went to college on a tuba scholarship. That was how I paid my way through school. And so a lot of the favorite childhood stars for me, as a high schooler were actually like professional musicians. And so if I think of the people that wouldn't be like household names to anyone else I went to high school with. But if I think about those people who I followed their businesses and read their books, and listen to their CDs and their concerts all the time, now that I'm an online business owner. Now I'm curious about such different things about them. Like I'd love to know, like, how they build their brands, and what made them blow up right before the internet, right? Because yeah, so old now. You know, when I was in high school, these people that were big name people on my radar did not blow up on Instagram. They did not get famous using a podcast. So I'm super curious about like, what things that they leveraged in their business is that like, what could we learn from that as business owners now?

    Sara Whittaker 37:50

    Yeah, I love that I know such a different time. It is wild to think about I don't like I don't know, how did people market themselves? Man?

    Janice Cook 37:57

    How did you get famous before Google? I have so many questions. Questions when I was in high school, but I have questions now.

    Sara Whittaker 38:03

    Oh, yeah, definitely your life experiences and where you are in your business. Now. It just totally like changes how you think about certain people and certain things. Okay, I have to ask, do you still play?

    Janice Cook 38:14

    I don't. That was a really, that was a really tough decision. My husband and I actually met in college for music. And that's just a decision we had to make whether we were going to be consumers of music in this season of life, or if we were going to keep our performance skills sharp.

    Sara Whittaker 38:32

    Yeah, if you were to like pick up a tuba today, could you like, play?

    Janice Cook 38:35

    I could? Do I want to

    Sara Whittaker 38:40

    know, you don't want to go get your two before us. And it's a lot like

    Janice Cook 38:43

    that, like athletic conversation where like you're either training and keeping yourself in shape, single day, or you're like, nevermind.

    Sara Whittaker 38:52

    Worry about that later. That's awesome. That's so cool that you got a scholarship. Yeah. Okay. And then the other quick question is tell us any of your favorite podcasts that you have right now could be for business or for fun. That's so

    Janice Cook 39:05

    wild. So I don't want to name off like the same like business podcasts that we all listened to. But if I'm working, I really like to listen to things that aren't about work. That doesn't mean I don't consume business podcasts because I totally do. But I love to listen to Maddies podcast, the living in sunshine podcast. It's just like, mindset and hype and productivity and not productivity and education necessarily to learn something but to have the right voices in your ear. To keep the main thing the main thing and keep your dreams start top of mind for the day. Before everyone else starts asking you to do things. I find that really helpful for me in the morning. And then I follow the car mom, I think the podcast the carpool podcast she does with her sister is just so fun, and it's real life and it's not business and they just taste snacks and drinks and talk about the news and I really enjoy that and I also like to No dobrowski has podcasts, social studies, where they have like a topic for the episode, and then they never ever talk about it. They hysterically funny and they spend an hour going off topic. And I don't know why. But that's really heartwarming to me. I see this juicy SEO, which episode title, and I'm totally hooked. And then an hour later, I'm pleased, but they never talk about the episode topic.

    Sara Whittaker 40:23

    That's amazing. And is that purposeful on their end? Oh, no.

    Janice Cook 40:27

    They're two comedians with a teaching background that don't talk about teaching. And then he alternates episodes where he watches TV with his mom. And they talk about, like shows they've watched, and if they would watch them again. And so it's like, if I zoned out during that, or I get distracted by something, or I don't finish it, or I fall asleep, like no harm, no foul, like, and if I learned about a new TV show, awesome, but I don't have to like stop and take notes or take action or like download a freebie and go through a funnel after I could just like, I could just listen.

    Sara Whittaker 41:02

    What a concept.

    Janice Cook 41:05

    I know that sounds that's doesn't say that I don't also enjoy educational podcasts that send me through a funnel. But sometimes if I'm working I'm like, but I can't also be taking notes and downloading a free week.

    Sara Whittaker 41:16

    I just totally not.

    Janice Cook 41:17

    I just need to go fold my laundry. No,

    Sara Whittaker 41:20

    I love that you recommended those because it's so true. We all need stuff that we can just kind of like be entertained by and get a good laugh or feel inspired and be able to multitask because I can't listen to like an educational podcast while I'm doing work either. I have to I always have music on in the background when I'm working. Right. So

    Janice Cook 41:37

    I need some good solid like joining me for the giant laundry mountain pot. Yeah. Whereas like if I don't finish this, and I don't come back to it for like seven weeks, everything's gonna be fine. If they're going through like the eight best types of Halloween candy. And I stop at number five, like I'm going to be able to sleep tonight.

    Sara Whittaker 41:56

    Businesses still going to be running. Yeah.

    Janice Cook 41:59

    And I think sometimes you just need a lighter, fluffier podcast in your rotation for those moments.

    Sara Whittaker 42:04

    Absolutely. I've seen you share all of those on your Instagram. I checked out Maddies which I absolutely love. Maddie is her name right? Yeah. Maddie. Yeah, she's fat. I really liked that. That was great. So I'll make sure to put those in the show notes so that you guys can check them out. And then Janice, where can people find you online when they're ready to connect with you?

    Janice Cook 42:25

    Yeah, so I have a fancy website like we all do. But my favorite place to hang out online is Instagram, and I am teacher Janus V A on Instagram. And that's not because I live in Virginia. It's because my people are always searching for a teacher VA and so much of the name of the business, if that's what people are searching for. That's how people find me. And my DMs are always open on Instagram. There is never a morning that I don't pop into my office where someone isn't in my DMs like opening up their heart sharing what's going on in their business. And there's no better way for me to spend my coffee time in the morning is hearing like what's going well in your business, and what's feeling sticky. And if I'm the person to help, awesome, but a lot of my time I'm just playing matchmaker over coffee and it makes me so happy.

    Sara Whittaker 43:11

    Yes, I You are one of my very favorite people that I have connected with on Instagram. Honestly, you're just like I do have to say you are just such a genuinely amazing kind person. I love following you. And if you guys don't follow Janice yet you need to because you are you're just so genuine and you're always open for talking. And I just I just love you. So thank you. Thank you

    Janice Cook 43:35

    so much. You have been a kind generous heart around here too. You know that I'm a serial course hoarder and anything you put out, you're one of those people I buy from right away. So I super appreciate that.

    Sara Whittaker 43:46

    Oh, well thank you very much. And speaking of course, as you just recently launched a course can you tell us about it

    Janice Cook 43:51

    I did. Um, so I do Done For You Asana system setups for people to get them a project management tool and clean up the back end of their business. But that done for you VIP experience isn't for everyone for lots of reasons, whether it be budget, or if you're just not the drink from the firehouse pose get a lot done in a week type like we're not all here for that I put together a done for you done a do it yourself version of that same experience a DIY course. And so right now the beginner module of that is live and that's where I put together some of this hiring information. So like the for like many projects you have to have cleaned up in your business and why the reflection questions to ask yourself if you're going to hire out and how you put together that job description so that when you bring a team member on, they're not finding all the holes in your systems and making you cry in your Cheerios, right? So it was a place for me to put together that coaching session that I was doing for people over and over and over again in one place so that people could grab it when they needed to whether I was at Disneyworld, or I was sleeping Hang or I was at the beach. It's like I was running into that situation where there were more people to help than I had hours in the day. And it was really on my heart to put that wrapped up in a DIY container.

    Sara Whittaker 45:12

    Awesome. That's perfect. And it sounds like it would be a really great resource for people if you are considering starting to hire this year. And you want to make sure that you do it right. So thank you again so much for being here. This was super helpful conversation.

    Janice Cook 45:28

    Thank you for having me, Sara.

    Sara Whittaker 45:29

    Before we sign off, let's check out this week's shout out. Each week I'm sharing a voice message from a fellow podcaster and they could be your next podcast guest after listening. If you'd like to collaborate with them. You can reach out using the information in the show notes from today's episode. If you're interested in being featured head to podcasting for educators.com/voice Happy collaborating

    Risa Woods 45:57

    Hi, my name is Risa Woods and I'm an ELL teacher turned consultant. My expertise is providing teachers with strategies, tips and mindsets to make their classroom an equitable and empowering space for English learners. If you're looking for a podcast guests, I love to come on your show and talk all about meeting the needs of multilingual learners in the general education setting. You can reach me on Instagram at Risa Woods underscore ELL that's r i s a w o d s underscore e ll or you can grab my info and Sarah show notes. Looking forward to it.

    Sara Whittaker 46:35

    Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. To keep this conversation going connect with me on Instagram at podcasting for educators. I'm always looking for an excuse to talk about podcasting. If you're looking for support and launching, managing or growing your podcast, check out my online course the podcasting for educators prep school at podcasting for educators.com/prep school. I'll see you here next time.

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Podcasting for Educators is the podcast for TpT authors and other online educators. It's a show that will help you get your podcast in front of those who need it most - teachers, counselors, literacy specialists, SLPs, parents, and more! Each week, Sara Whittaker and her guests will share top tips and actionable strategies that you will need in order to launch, manage, and grow your podcast. You’ll learn how to leverage your show to build long-lasting relationships with your audience and promote your TpT resources, courses, and memberships, all while providing valuable and accessible content!

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