Like most of you, I have numerous email accounts that I use for different purposes. Actually, I probably have more email accounts than most people since I own three different companies.
A few years back when I started getting really busy, I outsourced the management of a few of these email accounts to virtual assistants. They would check the email, take care of the email messages that they could, and forward me emails that they could not handle.
Since I practice what I preach, all of my businesses have operations manuals that list out step-by-step instructions on how to do common tasks in my businesses. All of my staff use these manuals and update them as needed. That way, if I need to fire someone or hire someone, the new person can hit the ground running very fast with minimal training.
Outsourcing my email was no different. We made a list of the common types of email I receive on these particular accounts and how to handle them. They simply referred to that whenever they received email. Over time, we added to this list which further reduced the amount of email they sent to me.
I don’t want to respond to email. 95% of email responding is SW (Standard Work) as I describe here, and SW doesn’t increase my income. I need to focus on IW (Improvement Work) instead. That means I need to work on as little email as humanly possible.
I kept one or two of my “main” email accounts for me to continue to check. Yet, over time, as my businesses continued to grow, I knew that I had to outsource those email accounts as well. In other words, I had to outsource all of my email.
Yikes!
Emotionally, I didn’t want to do this. We all dislike giving up control over certain things, even us Alpha Male 2.0s.
Finally, about two months ago, I did it. I outsourced all of my remaining email accounts to other people. It is now impossible for you to email me directly. Here’s how I did it.
First, I set up a new encrypted email account at ProtonMail. The only people who know who this email account is are a few people on my staff and Pink Firefly. That’s it. No one else knows what this account is and never will.
Then, I had my staff check all of my email accounts, all of them mind you, even my “main” ones, about twice a day. We continued to expand the operations manual on how to handle certain email messages so they could handle them instead of me.
On those few emails that have to go to me because they were impossible to outsource for whatever reason, my staff forwards those to my secret encrypted email account, and I check that about once every other day.
You might wonder what “impossible to outsource” means. Examples of this would be emails having to do with my investments, communication with my attorneys and bookkeepers, working with guys who are working on brand new projects with me, and things of that nature; stuff I must personally be involved with. But that’s only a small percentage of the overall email I receive. All the rest of that stuff is now handled by my staff.
How has it gone?
Well, getting started was rocky. My staff had a shitload of questions at first. “What do I do with this email?” “What about emails from this source?” And so on.
But today, it’s pretty nice. If I wasn’t outsourcing any email, I’d be spending a good 60-90 minutes a day on this crap. Today I spend about 25 minutes per day on average on total email management, and my goal is to get this down to 15 minutes or less.
The less time I can spend screwing around with email, the more time I can put into IW, because that’s where the money is. Not email.
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Investor
Posted at 06:26 am, 16th January 2019In the future, as AI gets better this can probably be handled entirely by AI. In fact, I can easily imagine this since when you are setting up manual for how to handle certain emails this is exactly what you could programme into the AI. What a business opportunity for someone who can make this work, that person is gonna be very rich.
Vagabond
Posted at 06:54 am, 16th January 2019Does that include SMIC email coaching day as well? If it does I wonder how can one outsource such type of work? After all subscribers/clients can and will have different set of questions and different needs. One can automatically presume some questions but not all of them.
Drusibert
Posted at 07:59 am, 16th January 2019How about e-mails from friends?
Joe
Posted at 09:33 am, 16th January 2019How do you deal with your VAs screwing you over because they know of all of this personal info that comes in your email. Like basic identity theft for example
Magnum
Posted at 01:31 pm, 16th January 2019Do you also outsource messaging on online dating apps?
Axld
Posted at 02:25 pm, 16th January 2019Very interesting.
How did you find your employees for this kind of work?
Caleb Jones
Posted at 08:27 pm, 16th January 2019No. That’s only one day a month, and since it’s a limited and scheduled event, I consider that coaching, not “email.”
You can outsource coaching and consulting, as long as you’re telling your clients you are doing so.
Yep. That too. And family. 100% of all email.
Plus, friends usually use social media, not email.
1. These are all people and companies I’ve been working with for a while.
2. They don’t have access to things like financial data, banking data, financial passwords, etc. Just my email.
No and I have never done this, but I know other guys who have. It can work but the problem is you’ll be paying them to message a lot of women you don’t find attractive and would never date.
Not employees. Alpha 2.0s can’t have employees. They are all subcontractors and virtual assistants. You can find them at places like Fiverr.com (cheap), Upwork.com (mid-range), and full VA companies like Brickwork India (expensive but worth it if you have enough business to give them).
Investor
Posted at 11:48 am, 17th January 2019What about the kind of stuff where you put the bank / facebook / whatever uses your email for passward recovery. Someone having access to such emails could be problematic, especially if you actually do request password reset. Is this the kind of stuff you have in that super secret account you actually do check?
Caleb Jones
Posted at 05:56 pm, 17th January 2019You’re just making excuses. Your bank doesn’t use emails to reset passwords. If you need to password reset your social media, either use a separate account if you’re that paranoid, or just initiate the reset then quickly use that email and then delete it.
2% Rule folks. Some of you guys are way too paranoid.