101 Tasks You Can Outsource to Virtual Staff to Grow Your Gym

One of the biggest challenges CrossFit Affiliate owners face today is a lack of time. Out of the hundred-odd CrossFit affiliates we’ve worked with, most of the owners are incredibly generous, hard working individuals who are committed to improving the lives of their members. When they started their gyms they did so to make a difference in people’s lives, to support their families, to get out of a boring day job and to do the things that they really love. Unfortunately, after only a matter of months most of them find themselves working harder than ever, getting paid less, training less and spending less time with their family and friends. Trapped in the cycle of trying to keep up with a seemingly insurmountable stack of admin and box promotion, while leaving barely enough time to program WODs and connect with members. Like clinging desperately to the back of a runaway horse, it can seem like this ride will never end! If this is you, something has to change. The reality is – it starts with YOU! As business owners, it’s easy to pat ourselves on the back because we work hard but working hard is only good if we are working smart. Just as you teach your members that inefficiency and poor technique is the ultimate enemy, so this also applies to business. The truth is most box owners spend way too much time on tasks that they simply shouldn’t be doing. I’ve found there are three main reasons they do this:

1. Think they are the only ones that can do the task well (this is rubbish)
2. They have all the information locked up in their heads instead of in actionable systems and therefore can’t delegate tasks to staff members or contractors efficiently
3. They haven’t been shown how to delegate and hire staff

In this article I am going to show you how you can staff out the majority of your boxes administrative tasks for under $4/hour. This is NOT a theory. This is how we personally run the administrative backend to our business and it is what has helped us to build an international brand in such a short amount of time.

The first step to outsourcing your staff is working out which tasks you do regularly that you could delegate to a staff member. I find that the best way to do this is to create a mind map of your business and list all the tasks that are required for your business to operate. To do this I use FreeMind Free Mind Mapping Software. To get started I find it’s best to just get everything out of your head into 5 main business areas: marketing (activities you do to promote your business), sales (managing and converting enquiries into customers), finance (book keeping, bank reconcilation, payroll etc.), delivery (delivering the products you sell) and administration (any support tasks that don’t fit into the above. So to get you started it will just look something like this:

Don’t worry too much where you put everything to begin with. Just get it out of your brain into FreeMind. Then you can use the software to move things around and order them logically. Once you have done that it’s time to break down these tasks into roles. From here it should be fairly clear what kind of person you need to hire first. It’s important to acknowledge and appreciate that no one person can handle all of these different tasks that are required to effectively run a CrossFit affiliate. Just like athletes have different strengths and weaknesses so do staff members. It’s about understanding exactly what tasks you need to systemise and delegate first and then add someone to your arsenal that can take on these responsibilities. One of the biggest misconceptions of working with virtual staff is that one employee can do everything for you. Virtual staffing expert Chris Drucker calls this the ‘Super VA Myth’ and he comprehensively busts this idea in his article Debunking The Super VA Myth. So to help you to hire the right staff for your business I have put together a list of the common tasks that affiliate owners could be outsourcing for under $4/hour. I have arranged them into roles to help you to see how these could be broken down into hiring staff. These roles are:

1. General Virtual Assistant (GVA)
2. Video Editor
3. Content Writer
4. SEO / Web Marketer
5. Graphic Designer
6. Web Developer

First off, let’s begin by looking at the one person EVERY serious CrossFit Affiliate Owner should be hiring right away. This is that one person that you can lean on to help you, day to day, more so than any other employee. Your GVA will be your biggest time saver, and therefore as a CrossFit Gym owner, they’re your lifesavers too! Here’s what they can help with:

Outsourcing your blog or website content is certainly not something I suggest you do for all your content. Especially due to the nature of CrossFit and your own expertise in fitness. However, if you’re aiming to write a lot of content and do a lot of online marketing (which I certainly recommend) then you will most likely need some help. With this in mind it pays to save time on creating all of your own written content by teaming up with a good selection of virtual writers. A good content writer can be used to proofread or rewrite your articles, take your messy ideas and dot points and construct them into a killer article or even take recorded audio notes and messages and turn them into the new web content that you need. They are also great for respinning (repurposing) articles other people have written for your blog.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has changed drastically over the last couple of years. What worked yesterday doesn’t work anymore and what works today might not work tomorrow. Once you have created great content a solid Web Marketing team member can help you to make sure that your content gets noticed by the right people in the right places.

Ever wasted a few hours tinkering on photoshop for that new timetable you wanted to give out to your members only to have it turn out like crap? We’ve all been there. We all love the idea that no one does it as well as we do but it’s complete BS. When you can get designers for anywhere between $4-20/hr to work on your design there is no excuse for us to spend our time working on it. C’mon – pay the people that know what they are doing and can get it done right the first time. Firstly, it will look better and secondly, it will give you time back to work on your business and focus on your strengths as a business owner.

Too Many Box Owners Waste THOUSANDS of Dollars and STRESS over Website Issues! If you are spending too much time fighting with your website, dealing with security breaches, hosting issues or a web developer that just won’t get back to you then you need to get in contact with us. We can eliminate the stress of dealing with your website PLUS save you a ton of money and time. If you are honest with yourself, how much time are you wasting updating your website each week. 4hrs? 6hrs? More? If you added all this time up for the month (Let’s say 20hrs/month) and compared it to the cost of engaging us ($99/month) to look after everything for you then you are left with a service you are only paying $5/hour for. If your time is worth more than $5/hour it seems like a no brainer to me. Here’s what we can help look after you:

As you can see, the list of tasks that virtual workers can do for you is as variable (and functional) as CrossFit itself. The fact is, you shouldn’t be wasting your valuable time on menial tasks that someone else could do for a fraction of the cost (in time and money). Outsourcing to VA’s is more than just filtering email and managing your social media (although that’s part of it). It’s about business growth. It’s about waking up and understanding that, as business owners, we shouldn’t be doing half the stuff that we are doing on a day to day basis! It’s about realising that you don’t have to do it on your own – in fact, if you want to make the most of your time, energy and resources then you SHOULDN’T be doing it on your own. Effective outsourcing enables you to spend your time and resources where they’re most effective, efficient and enjoyable – on your members, your programming and spending extra quality time with friends and family – after all, isn’t that why you opened a box in the first place? I hope this list serves as a bit of a spring board for some of you yet to take the VA plunge, and perhaps a ‘go to’ source of additional potential, for those of you that are already utilizing the power of virtual staff in your business. Was this list helpful? Would you like to see more posts like this? Got some tasks not listed here you’d like to share? Please comment below!

1. Download The Step By Step Guide To Hiring Your First Virtual Staff Member and get moving on hiring a General Virtual Assistant.
2. Get the biggest role sorted right away. Contact Us and we will help you save a ton of money and time looking after your website for you.