Outsourcing with Confidence with Claire Saxton

In this interview, I talk to Claire Saxton who is a social media expert and marketing consultant at Saxton Marketing. I’ve known Claire for about 8 years, she outsourced the development of her website to me and she outsources other areas of her business.

What were the biggest challenges for you in your business before you decided to start outsourcing?

One of the biggest challenges for me and the drive towards it was just taking too much on my own shoulders. Starting from nothing to working my way up gradually you take on everything because you can’t afford to outsource, you take on all that responsibility and then it soon becomes too much and a lot of it for me was the expertise side. I didn’t really know what I was doing on my website. For example, I had a very basic WordPress site and I didn’t know what I was doing with it. I needed that expertise and was aware there were a lot of regulations coming in the background that were too much, it was taking over my thought process that could have been going into other areas of the business.

How have you found the process of finding the support you needed and working with freelancers?

Working with freelancers is a dream for me. There have been a couple of times when it’s been difficult. Not everybody has contracts in place so that can make it difficult to know what to take on board. Is it the right business to work with and sometimes it’s difficult knowing that until you really delve into that in-depth conversation with them.

I’ve worked with you and I’ve got another couple of ladies I work with. It’s really helped me knowing what their processes are up front and how they work and it’s important to understand that because I might work one way and they might work in a completely different way. I’m open to working in different ways but I know some people want to work certain hours and it was having that agreement in place. I’ve always been upfront and honest from the start.

What have been the benefits both to you both personally and in your business from outsourcing?

From a personal perspective, it’s really been that self-care and taking that weight off my shoulders. Being able to sleep at night without panicking about something. I still have things that keep me up sometimes but knowing that certain things I outsource it for a reason, like with my website. When things like GDPR came along and I was concerned about how that affected me. You were very good at advising on that. I don’t understand it. I need an expert who can say to me this is what it means and this is how we’re going to deal with it.

I also outsource my accountancy side of things because I know it’s not my thing. I’m not very good at dealing with numbers. When it comes to spreadsheets the accountant that I work with is able to say, this is what we need and we’ve agreed a process that works for me that is easy to

I have to do accounts every year. They’ve got to go off, be sorted and again that’s something that is taken away and they do the tax. I outsourced it because it took that stress away. I’ve had people support me with copyright and other areas.

You feel like you’re in a team and you don’t feel quite so alone. When you work by yourself you take everything on your shoulders and it’s that side of it, it’s also helped me to grow my business because it’s meant that my head is in the right place I’ve been able to give people the support they need from a marketing and social media perspective without me in the background worrying about other elements that would have taken me away from that.

It’s also helped me with my model in terms of offering other services to clients. It has benefited me from that side of it as well. I’m more productive on the work front but I’m also a lot healthier because I’m not as stressed.

Watch the Interview

Claire’s Bio