You don't know what you don't know

Four years ago one of my best friends moved to Liverpool. It was a crazy 8 months filled with lots of nights out, lots of deep conversations and lots of new experiences. I loved it and miss it now that she lives down South again. She taught me a lot, but one thing in particular stuck with me.

‘You don’t know what you don’t know’

Have you ever thought this before? For me, it was a revolutionary statement. 

When I have discovery calls with potential clients for the first time, they often find it hard to articulate what help they need. See, they know they are over worked, not giving their best to their family lives or clients, slacking on their own social media or not allowing themselves time to rest. But they are unsure as to how I can help.

I often listen to their problems and struggles and produce a list of potential ways I can help them. It is not unusual for me to suggest tasks such as blog/email writing, social media engagement, email management, Facebook group management, social media analysis and multi platform social media management. 

I can see their eyes light up as they imagine all the time this would save them. There are elements of their workload that I can help with, that they wouldn't have even considered. This happened recently, a current client wanted to increase her hours/workload with me (due to so much success with our working arrangement), and she came to me with some ideas. As we spoke it became evident that I would be able to help her and I was able to come up with more ideas, which was a great way of showing her that we were on the same wavelength...actually I may write another blog about this in the future. 

What I am getting at is, to me, this is my job. A lot of potential clients don’t know what I know because they’re not meant to! There are many things I don’t know about hundreds of topics because there isn’t anyone in the world who knows everything about everything! As my mum always reminded us, everyone has their own talents. We can’t all be good at everything. 

This is why outsourcing is so important. Using experts in their respective fields will ultimately make your company well rounded, and the best that it can be. I understand that outsourcing can be scary, and that is why it is vital to work with people who are on your wavelength, support your ideas and love your company as much as you do. 

Contemplating outsourcing but you're too scared? Send me a message and I will talk you through all the things you’ll need to consider when working with someone new. 

Thinking about getting into freelance work or becoming a VA? Send me a message and I will talk you through what that entails in the long and short term. 

Lockdown getting you down? Give me a call and we can put the world to rights over a virtual cup of coffee/tea (or wine if you prefer!) 

A x