The Surprising ROI of Letting Go

So, today’s episode is one of those conversations that’s been brewing in my mind for a while. It’s about that moment, when you realize you’re standing in your own way. That tipping point where you’re juggling a million things, burning the candle at both ends, and suddenly it hits you: I can’t keep doing this alone!

But here’s the thing: outsourcing, delegating, bringing people in… it’s not as simple as it sounds. There’s this whole mental game you have to play with yourself. Like, how do you trust someone else to do what you’ve always done? How do you let go of control when you’re convinced no one else can do it as well as you? And honestly, how do you even know when it’s the right time to start handing things off?

I’ve been there. I’ve made the mistakes, learned the hard lessons, and, I’ve had my fair share of ‘what was I thinking?’ moments. So today, I’m breaking it all down—the good, the bad, and the downright messy. If you’ve ever like you’re working in your business instead of on it, this one’s for you. Let’s dive in.

01:08
I’m Igor Kheifets, and this is The ListBuilding Lifestyle. The podcast is for anyone who wants to build a wildly profitable email list working from home. If you’d like to make six figures, travel the world and help people improve their lives in the process, this podcast is for you. I also invite you to claim a free copy of my best selling book, the list building lifestyle Confessions of an email millionaire at www.igorsbook.com
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01:54
So the moment I realized that I needed to start outsourcing stuff was the moment when I realized that I was losing more money by not doing something. So, basically, I had a lot of options. Let’s put it this way. It was the moment when I needed to start choosing and being, you know, extremely selective about what I would do and what I wouldn’t do in my business.

It was the moment when I found myself absolutely having to stay late, absolutely having to wake up early because there was no one else who could cover for me, and it started happening literally on a daily basis, and I just found myself, you know, just really burnt out. It was like a balance, although balance is a word that never this you’d never used to describe me, as I tend to have addictive tendencies towards things, you know, like my espresso and lots of other things. I’m very easy to fall into different addictions, and I think one of those addictions is making money! I think the dopamine rush you get, as a result of, you know, payments hitting your account. It can be just nuts! Like, for example, yesterday I had a really good day where I pretty much just sat and watched my phone, you know, going, ding, ding, ding, like, for example, since about midnight yesterday, I had like a 197 a, 500 a, 397, a 1.2000, 536, 497, 1059, 420, 526, 425, 5099, $10, $46, $88, $88 and $9 just about 10 minutes before I got on this call! So it’s really addictive to see all this, right? And so, you want more of that.

04:01
And you know in certain stages of your business, when you’re starting to create these, you know, this income on purpose, you want more of that, and you realize that it won’t happen unless you do X, Y and Z in a certain sequence with certain timing.

And the moment I realized that I was, you know, not keeping up with executing all these different actions, because there were so many different ways that I could make money. That’s the moment when I started bringing people in and outsourcing my stuff.

But it was a real challenge for me, if I’m honest with you, because one of the things for an entrepreneur, for a new entrepreneur, I think one of the toughest things to learn is, is to be able to trust another human being to do as good of a job, or, I mean, at least 70% as good of a job, maybe even 50% as good of a job as I can do when I’ve learned how to do something, and because I felt my business was special and different, which, of course, it wasnt, you know, later I broke it down in a way that made me realize that it’s no different from, you know, other businesses. I just wasn’t looking at it from the right direction.

05:19

But back then, I thought it’s super special and super different, and that no one can do what I do! -Again, not true. Everyone can do what I do- So I really had trouble with bringing someone else in, and trusting them with certain parts of my business, even if the things that were needed to be done were really silly, very quick things, that anyone can do with a little bit of training, but you just had to do them at on a certain schedule.

I’ll give you a great example of one such thing, and that is switching or redirecting links. So one of the first things that I needed to do to outsource was to basically redirect my links to, you know, I would be sending traffic to a certain link and then at a certain hour on a certain day. Or if a condition was met on a link, I would then have to change it. So the link was originally cloaked. And let’s say the link was, you know, abc.com/link1, and I was sending the traffic to like a landing page of some kind.

And then once I would hit a certain number of clicks, let’s say 300 clicks, I wanted to redirect it to a different offer, that was similar to the one I was running, but it was different. So because I needed to test which one would sell better! The only way you can do that is by running a split test and splitting the traffic like that, right?

Now, back then, I didn’t have access to the software that could do it automatically, where I could set a condition and say, once you know, as soon as this link hits 100 you switch it to something else. Later on, I got that software, and so I would have to do it by hand. I would have to document the amount of traffic I sent, and then I would have to take out the old link and put in the new link.

So, it’s not very difficult. You just have to know the link to put in. And oftentimes you just have to, you know, watch the Click Counter, and once it hits that number, whatever, you switch it up, right? That was like a big thing that was creating a bottleneck for me, because I had to watch it. I had to always have all this stuff open on my computer and really watch the numbers. It’s like, oh, it’s 250 clicks of 300 Okay, so I’m just sitting there, refreshing page 253, refreshing page 255, refreshing page 262 and you know, I would have to sit there and wait.

And so the opportunity cost of missing that deadline and redirecting the link once it was at 400 clicks or something, was like an actual proper cost. And then, you know, I finally caved in, and I brought someone from Lithuania to do it for me. Later, we got a software that was redirecting the links on its own, but then you had to constantly load new links into it. So that became like a thing. Later, at one point I had, like, many different email sending tools, many different autoresponders. So, I had like, you know, five web accounts, or six Get Response accounts. So that became a job to manage all those. And while I would be the one writing the emails someone else would have to load them. So once again, that same guy from Lithuania who worked for me, I asked him if he had a friend. He brought in a friend, then I bought in another friend of mine.

08:50
And so, I started outsourcing anything that I would consider to be grunt work, that had to be done on time. That was like, I think the first stage. I would still do everything else myself, any kind of research I needed to do, offer selection, I needed to do, copywriting that I needed to do, all that I kept doing myself, and I kept outsourcing everything else.

Eventually, once the business started growing even more and once I got into the the coaching space, and I started doing a little bit of coaching as well and teaching people, which, to be frank with you, that’s really my passion. It’s to teach, it’s to see people develop. It’s to see people acquire skill sets and really improve their own lives. Because I feel that by doing so, when I see someone empowered and go from incapable to super capable, to me, watching that transformation is just incredible! And that’s why I believe I became a father so early, because you can see that with kids all the time. You know every day you can experience that feeling, and it’s really rewarding and even addicting to a certain extent!

10:03
In fact, I’ve been telling you about this kid, the 18 year old kid, I am kind of mentoring, and I’ve been having, like, a lot of struggle to get motivated to read books and stuff. So yesterday, actually, he had a big breakthrough in one of the areas of his life. And, you know, I couldn’t stop smiling, like the whole day, I was just walking around, and I was just grinning. And, you know, Anastasia looked at me, and she said, “Wow, you really happy for him to succeed”. And I was like, Yeah, I don’t know why, but it’s not even my kid, right? He’s someone else’s kid, but he’s just a kid!

And I look at him, and, you know, he grew up without a father. No one taught him the right from wrong, and no one taught him discipline. He can, you know, stay in bed until 1pm. Sometimes he drops out of school. But I see the potential in this kid. And, you know, seeing him, you know, do something like that, is really empowering!

10:53
So, once I got into the coaching space, more things got added to the plate. For example, at some point, I started a private coaching practice, where I needed to spend a lot of time on the phone with people, right? Something I no longer do, because otherwise I would be doing that full time, just being on the phone all day long, and it’s just not enjoyable for me!

So, you know, I was doing the phone stuff, and I was doing the writing of the emails, and I was doing something else. And so all of a sudden, before I knew it, my plate was so full, I had no time for Erica, my daughter! I had no time, I was making no time for my wife, Anastasia! And I was like, wow, I’m really, I’m really sacrificing spending time with my family for the sake of my business, even though the message that I’m preaching is, spend more time with your loved ones and make the kind of income you want to make, right?

So all of a sudden I felt like a complete hypocrite! I felt like a total scumbag. You know, here I am selling this message, It’s like, oh yeah, make more money, spend more time with family, travel more blah, blah, blah. And we were traveling a lot, even with Erica. And, you know, back then I was still in Israel, so my parents were around. My wife’s mother was around, so we could leave Erica sometimes with them and go travel on our own -which is something I really miss. We actually don’t get to do that anymore, since we moved to Toronto- So anyway, we were traveling a lot. We were going to England, to Europe, to the Czech Republic, different beautiful, gorgeous European spots. And at the time, we still hadn’t traveled to the US. But we were traveling a lot.

But every time it would go and travel, I would work, right? So I would wake up in the morning. First off, I was really pre just occupied with all the things that I needed to do, and I needed to do them fast. So I would, you know, in a hotel, I would go downstairs to have breakfast with my laptop, you know, I would have my eggs and my salmon, and I would be on my laptop, like, you know, seeing my schedule or maybe doing a call or this or that. So I just couldn’t keep up!

13:32
So anytime that I felt like that, ever since, I pretty much started, you know, to try and fire myself from the different roles that I was doing. And that’s the philosophy! Anytime that I feel my plate is too full, I try to bring someone who can do the job.

Now the difference is, however, is back in the day, I would bring someone who didn’t have any experience, and I would teach them my way. And that worked for me at the time, because of my hiring pool in the place where I would be looking for people all around me. Meaning, you know, I lived in Israel, and I was hired in Israel, Where I would like to hire nearby, or maybe I would be friends of friends, and usually they wouldn’t have the experience.

Now, however, I don’t do that. Here’s why. First off, I have more money now, or at least, should I say, I have a higher tolerance for what I’m willing to pay for a job well done. So back in the day, as I’m just starting out, and I’m still fresh from my life in poverty, I’m just, you know, I was penny pinching like crazy, and I wouldn’t, you know, pay $1 over what I thought something’s worth, or someone’s time is worth. And it was, you know, I was looking for the cheapest help I could find. Oftentimes, this resulted in bringing people who just weren’t very good, either they weren’t very committed, or they weren’t very smart, or both, sometimes, which is the worst, or, you know, they would just be lying, you know, lying their asses off. And you know, I would catch them very fast.

15:23

So these days, however, what I try to do instead is I try to hire somebody with experience and not to say that I’m, you know, super generous when it comes to paying, I’m really not! I still very much, I’m very conscious of, you know, what something or someone’s time is worth to me, but today, I would probably pay more than back in the day. Let’s put it this way, and today, I would bring somebody with experience, and would justify to myself as to why this person should be paid more money. And oftentimes, if I can, I’ll try to get someone who did a similar type of work for someone else before, preferably for a bigger enterprise or business than mine, because then I don’t need to train them. They can actually train me! They can actually bring knowledge that is way more effective.

But when I was just starting out, I wouldn’t hire this way, and that’s because I just didn’t know any better. Hiring people and managing people comes with its own learning curve, and it’s not one that I’m particularly good at. I’ll be honest! I’m a terrible manager, when it comes to managing people, I micromanage, which is a mistake, I really annoy the hell out of people. I Really get, you know, in there, you know, S, H, I T, all the time, and I don’t enjoy it. I really don’t!

I have two kids, plenty of babysitting that I can do with them. I really don’t want to do it with people who are on my team, you know. But that’s my management style, And therefore, I can’t hire someone who isn’t committed. I can’t, you know, maintain a relationship with somebody who isn’t pushing harder than me, somebody who requires a lot of babysitting usually doesn’t stick around, and that’s why hiring an experienced person works best for me.

But circling back to the question, when do you know it’s the right time to hire someone? It is when you’re making money and you find you find yourself really stressed out and burnt out because of the amount of things you need to do, because there’s no one else to do those things for you, When that’s the case, that’s when you go out and make your first hire!

18:09
Now, one thing that I’ll tell you that’s true today, that wasn’t true back then, is that today you can hire a less capable person. When I say less capable, I don’t mean less intelligent. I mean less experienced and less skilled, but a person that still has, you know, a decent amount of intelligence, and you can hire them, and they can do a job, specifically in online businesses, they can do a job of three to five people from back in the day.

So back in the day, if I needed five people to manage, you know, some sort of a content production factory. Then these days, you only need ONE, maybe two, because of the capabilities that we have with software and artificial intelligence.

Back in the day, if you needed to create content, you were looking for someone really experienced, somebody who was a content producing machine, and you were paying a lot more money than you all you are today, today, if you’re in content business, you can probably get away with one executive assistant whose English is not even their native language, who can produce content, just as good or better than a professional writer from, you know, five years ago, And that’s where we are today, and that’s what the content game is, for instance.

Or, you know, somebody just told me that I was talking to them last week, and they said they charged $3,000 to build someone a webinar. And I said, “Oh, my God, that is cheap!” And they said, “Yeah, but AI does 90% of the work”. Okay, so there you go! These days, one intelligent person on your team goes way further than five people from back in the day.

20:24

So we are in a good place, in my opinion, when it comes to online businesses, as far as hiring people. But it’s also important to mention that the market, if you will, for freelancers or for outsourcers. It’s going to continue to evolve and continue to change, and it’s going to get, you know, really democratized. And I think whoever is a freelancer these days, they should be worried!

Because sooner rather than later, AI will replace most of them. We’re seeing this in every direction, by the way, like today, you don’t need to use Photoshop. You can just use your words to tell Photoshop how you’d like things edited, or you can do video editing using your words and not, you know, not learning the craft yourself.

Now, this doesn’t mean that all you know, designers and video editors will be out of business. No! The ones that can provide thought and ideas and creative thinking, you know, they will be around, for sure, but the grunt work of that industry will be carried out using AI, and therefore, the prices for that will, you know, just plummet. So, people who rely on that to make a living, they’re in trouble!

Like, for example, we have one person on our team, a super cable super intelligent person. She has, I believe, either an engineering or a law degree, actually, but she doesn’t work in engineering or law, but she self taught herself, using tools and AI, how to do design, how to do content, how to pretty much do everything that an online marketer needs to do!

And you know, she’s not a native English speaker, for instance, she does not live in the United States. She’s got like, three heads and 18 arms, you know? And it’s incredible, when you think about it, because she just was proactive enough to go and learn how to use the tools. So we now live in a world where we get a lot more done, We are more stressed out, I think still, for some reason, well, we are getting a lot more done with less effort. And so, if you just bring one intelligent person onto your team, they can do the work of five people these days. And this is true for sure! So if you’re thinking of hiring someone, just make sure you bring someone in who’s willing to learn, or already learned, to use AI tools, in which case, they’re going to be of tremendous help to you and will not cost you an arm and a leg.

23:36
Thank you for listening to The List Building Lifestyle, get access to the previous episodes, transcript of today’s show, as well as other exclusive content at www.listbuildinglifestyleshow.com. Also remember to claim your free copy of my best selling book at www.igorsbook.com. It explains how I made millions with list buildings starting from scratch, plus I’ll give you $3,000 worth of free bonuses, including my best landing page templates, email swipe files and traffic blueprints. Go to www.igorsbook.com, now to claim your free package!