why outsourcing is important

How To Outsource Any Project In 4 Easy Steps

You’ve heard that outsourcing is a great way to grow your business (that’s true).

Because, let’s face it; you can’t do everything yourself.

While it may seem like common sense, it’s not always so easy for new entrepreneurs to acknowledge. They tell themselves that they’ll save money if they just do it all themselves.

Perhaps it’s the control freak in us who wants to stay in charge of every aspect of our business, or the frugal shopper who wants to save money by just working on projects ourselves.

Regardless of how hard we may try to convince ourselves not to outsource, the bottom line is that delegating important tasks to qualified professionals is simply the fastest way to grow your business and skyrocket your income.

There’s another reason why outsourcing is important: when you try to do it all, you’re taking 2 big risks.

The first is that some tasks and projects won’t be done as well as they well as they could be if you had more time, or the necessary training. This could lead to distributing inferior products or low-quality content that won’t help move the needle.

The second risk, and it’s a big one, is that you’ll simply burn out and not be able to stay on top of your market.

No matter how many skills are in your arsenal, or how many years of experience you have, there are always tasks that can (and should) be done by seasoned professionals. As the old saying goes, just because you can do it yourself doesn’t mean you should.

With an outsourced team, you can get the help you need to grow your business faster than ever before, and without worrying about human resources and employment taxes.

Better yet, if you stick with hiring professionals who are experts in their field, you won’t even have to train anyone to complete the tasks you assign to them because they’ll already be experienced and ready to take on all that you have to offer.

Outsourcing is the smart way of doing business, building an established presence in your industry quickly and developing a life-long brand that stands out and apart in your niche.

Connecting to seasoned professionals gives you the leg up, allowing you to compete, head on, with some of the biggest names in your niche.

In other words, it levels out the playing field.

And while you’d like to get started right away, maybe it all seems a little overwhelming.

You’re not sure where to start or what steps to take to get the process rolling.

Good news: You can get started with outsourcing in just four easy steps. Read on…

Step 1: Determine Your Needs

Your first step is to figure out what to outsource. Ask yourself these questions:

What jobs do you need done? Here you need to evaluate all areas of your business, including: Writing, copywriting, graphics, design, programming and other technical jobs, marketing and customer service. Then draw up a list of jobs you have in each of these areas.

Is it cost-effective to outsource? First attach a dollar figure to your time (such as $50, $75, $100 or whatever your time is worth).

Then figure out how long it would take you to do a particular task. Next, multiply the hours it takes you to a complete a task by your per-hour worth.

Example: Let’s say your time is worth $75 an hour and it would take you two hours to create a graphic – that’s $150 of your time. If you can find someone to do it for less, then it is indeed cost effective to outsource the task.

Step 2: Advertise Your Job

Once you’ve figured out what tasks you need to outsource, your next step is to advertise the job in order to attract as many qualified prospective freelancers as possible.

While there are a variety of ways to do this – and you should utilize as many of these methods as possible.

One great way to do it is to post your project on a freelancing board like Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer or Craigslist. You’re bound to attract plenty of qualified candidates!

Step 3: Choose A Vendor

At this point you’ll get to choose from among a lot of vendors. But don’t make your choice based on price alone.

Instead, you need to do your due diligence to find the most reliable freelancer who’ll get the best results for you. That means checking the freelancer’s feedback rating, testimonials, business history and portfolio.

This step takes a bit of time upfront, but it will save you a lot of time, frustration and money in the long run.

Once you’ve researched all the candidates, select the best one and hire him or her. Then move on to the next step…

Step 4: Manage The Project

Whether you get mediocre or great results is largely going to depend on what you do at this step. That’s because you need to do the following.

Provide a clear brief and instructions. Your freelancer may have some amazing talents, but mind reading probably isn’t one of them. And that’s why you need to provide a clear and accurate “no guesswork required” brief for your freelancer.

Offer protocol checklists to help your freelancer produce the best results. Secondly, you need to continue to communicate your wishes and help your freelancer do great work for you. And one way to do this is by offering a protocol checklist for each project.

At this point you’re probably thinking at the whole four-step process sounds simple enough. And you’d be right. But you may also be looking to fill in the gaps.

Example: Where can you get sample briefs and protocol checklists? How, exactly, do you do your due diligence? And what are some of the other reliable ways to find freelancers?

Well, there is a lot more to be learnt about outsourcing; far more than can be covered in this short post, but if you’d like to know more about this, then click on the featured resource below where you can pick up a free report that covers this topic in more detail. Download it, read it and take action 🙂

Why Outsourcing Is Important: 7 Tips To Get The Best Bang For Your Buck

Outsourcing is the smart marketers most potent weapon and something that you need to seriously consider as early in your business career as possible.

Is it a scary prospect to pay someone to work for you? Yes, but if done right, this should be seen as an investment rather than an expense and the return on investment in your new team member can explode your business growth.

The 2 most important things an online business owner can do is to focus on building a customer list and outsourcing certain tasks as soon as possible.

I certainly wish I’d started earlier, but fear kept me back; would I waste a lot of money etc.?

So, to help you feel more confident, let’s show you 7 ways you can outsource and get the maximum bang for you buck.

Let’s be candid – You can discover these outsourcing secrets the easy way or the hard way, but you’re going to find this out sooner or later.

The hard way is the way most marketers do it. They make mistakes when outsourcing, lose time and / or money, and then learn from their mistakes.

I propose we cut out all that nonsense and I’ll just tell you what you need to know here and now.

Ready?

1: Outsource customer service as soon as humanly possible.

Reason why: If you don’t, you’ll waste half of each day doing things like answering support tickets, changing email addresses for members who changed their email address (yes, that is a thing) issuing refunds, answering questions and so forth.

That is time you could spend doing something else like… let’s see… wait, I know – MAKING MONEY.

Your focus should be on building your business, not answering support tickets (“When I log in, I see a funny thing at the top that says I’m logged in… is that what it’s supposed to say?”) I’m not kidding, that is a real support ticket I once received.

Another reason why: Your virtual assistant who is handling your support can shield you from the negative ninnies.

What’s a “negative ninny,” you ask? It’s that person who buys your product and then rants on for 6 pages on how awful your product is, how awful you are and so forth.

You don’t need to hear that stuff. Just tell your V.A. to handle it for you without ever telling you about it. (In this case, refunding the person and removing them from every list is all that’s required.)

And by the way, if you’re thinking that your products will be so great, everyone will love them, well then, I know you haven’t created any products yet.

I don’t care if you invent the method for turning pixels into gold, someone will hate it. And that’s okay, as long as you don’t have to hear about it.

2: Outsource the things that bring you profit FIRST.

So, let’s say you want to outsource website building, content creation, product creation, sales writing, software creation and so forth.

Ask yourself this question: What’s going to bring me the fastest return on my money?

That’s the project to outsource first.

Maybe you pay someone to create a product for you, and then you turn around and sell that product to hundreds of buyers. BOOM! You’ve just made your money back and much more.

But what if you don’t have any customers yet? And no list? Then maybe you need to outsource the building of your squeeze page so you can start list building so you can start selling stuff to your list.

Whatever will put you in profit first is the thing you need to outsource first. This way you’re not coming out of pocket by thousands and thousands of dollars without seeing a return.

3: Pay outsourcers based on the JOB, not by an hourly rate.

You want to know going in what it’s going to cost you to get a specific job done. And a true professional will be able to tell you exactly what it will cost.

A lot of marketers make the mistake of paying by the hour to get a job done.

So not only don’t they know exactly what the job will cost – they also don’t know if the outsourcer is dragging the job out longer to make it pay more. Yes, it’s been known to happen.

The exception to the non-hourly rule?

Your virtual assistant or customer service person. Because of the nature of their work, in most cases paying them by the hour is the way to go.

4: Outsource work you’re putting off.

Did you create a new product, but you haven’t edited yet? Or maybe you haven’t built the website or made the sales letter.

All the time you invested in creating that product is going to waste.

Procrastination is a silent killer for the entrepreneur and needs to be nipped in the bud as soon as possible. Stop putting things off as it is crippling your growth!

Outsource someone to do what you haven’t done, so you can get it online and start making sales as fast as possible.

5: Outsource what you’re not good at, and what you don’t like doing.

Sure, you love building websites, but let’s face it: You haven’t updated your website skills since 2007. Or you know how to write sales copy, but you HATE doing it.

Those are things you should be outsourcing.

Stop trying to be a solopreneur and start thinking like a business person; nobody can be an expert at everything.

By focusing on your strengths as well as strategically planning your business, and letting other experts handle the rest of the work, you’ll make more money faster than if you try to do everything yourself.

6: Outsource the instrument playing while you conduct the orchestra.

There may come a time very soon when you have a system in place for making money. It could be as simple as create a product in your niche, write several pieces of content preparing people for the product, record several videos leading up to the launch, and then launching.

Yet all of that is a lot of work. You’ve got sales copy to write, JV’s to contact, swipe emails to write, etc.

If you can afford it, outsource everything you can so that you can focus on working ON your business instead of IN your business.

People who focus on working on their business while outsourcing a lion’s share of the work tend to make 5 to 10 times as much money as those who work in their business.

Sort of a no-brainer, don’t you think?

7: If you haven’t yet outsourced something – what are you waiting for?

If you already have an online business, or you’re in the process of building one and you haven’t yet outsourced something, then odds are it’s simply because fear is holding you back.

Go to somewhere like Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer or Craigslist and outsource a small job, just to see how it works.

I promise, you’ll be hooked, and your business will grow twice as fast.

There is not a seven-figure internet marketer out there who doesn’t outsource. So, isn’t it about time you did, too?