Smart Outsourcing – For Profit & Sanity

Why do I love outsourcing so much?

Easy – outsourcing gives me the opportunity to use other people’s time to my advantage – outsourcing gives me Leverage.

Leverage is everything in your business if you want to be able to scale up and down at your convenience. Outsourcing is a powerful strategy if you’re serious about taking back control of your time and giving yourself more energy to focus on other areas of your life and your business.

Although there’s a plethora of outsourcing options available to you, this sea of choice can overwhelm beginners. Interestingly, when I started outsourcing, I started looking for help locally offline. I began approaching learning institutions like Universities which can be a great place to find affordable skilled help. You will often find that Universities and other places have on-line forums advertising the availability of hired help.

The reason I was keen on the local approach early on was simply because I was fascinated by people and I wanted to make sure that I had direct communication with those who would ultimately be working for me. Although things have changed, when I was new to outsourcing, having the ability to actually meet my hired helpers in person was important. 

The other outsourcing option available to you, and by far the most popular, is finding hired help on-line. Sites like Elance, Odesk and so on are very common. And due to the range of options online, you can easily find highly skilled help at extremely competitive rates.

Thanks to the internet we have the ability to communicate with people all over the world at the click of a button. Nowadays we can readily access people with the right skills in minutes. This level of immediate access to skills you need in your business is truly a powerful resource to have at your disposal.

Given my experience with outsourcing, I believe it would be a mistake not to at least look at how outsourcing could assist you and your business. If the focus is purely on cost control, you will find that your hired help will often-times go above and beyond what you ask and deliver exceptional quality content time and again. You may even find what I call ‘keepers’ i.e. those hired helpers that you continue working with long term.

Although not the time to go into details, how much you pay your hired help will often be much lower than you could legally pay someone locally. Paying your team members above base rates will build an even stronger bond between yourself and your team. And before long you’ll find that you have a dedicated team of workers for as long as you need them.

For me, the value proposition around outsourcing comes from this question:

Why would you bother spending your valuable time doing a task you’re not really keen to do, or able to do well, when you can hire someone else to do it for you for less and in half the time?

Tasks that you could be outsourcing may include programming, website maintenance, affiliate management, ghost writing, product creation, business administration and so on.

It’s a beautiful thing to know that when you ask your hired help to complete a task, the next day when you wake up [depending on where your hired helper is located], you find an email reporting back that the task is complete and they are awaiting your next instruction. That’s the power of outsourcing.

To get your creative juices flowing, here’s just a few benefits of outsourcing…

1. I get to do more whilst working less myself
2. I rapidly scale my business up or down as I need
3. I can focus on managing different projects simultaneously
4. I actually save lots of money when compared to my hourly rate
5. I forge long term working relationships with skilled people etc…

I remember when I first outsourced, I found the process of finding and hiring people a little hit and miss. Over time I became better at defining and asking for what I actually wanted. This is when I realized that it’s vitally important to be very specific about the type of person you’re looking for and the skills they must have to deliver your desired outcomes. This insight alone will save you months of heartache, a good stack of cash and your sanity.

So the golden rule to outsourcing is to use reputable sites and make sure not to rush. Clearly define your desired outcomes, and be sure to ask as many questions as you need during the hiring process. Always ask to see examples of their work. If they’re not able to provide evidence, depending on the importance of the task at hand, you may consider looking at other applicants to ensure you get a good fit for the task. 

What experiences have you had outsourcing?

Are you looking for someone who can help you find good quality help?

Yes! then feel free to leave a comment below OR send me a private message by CLICKING HERE.