How to Manage Outsourcing for Your Online Business?
Outsourcing is an important strategy for successful businesses. As an Internet business, you can ignore outsourcing at your own peril.
If you think outsourcing is only for the corporates, you are wrong. Outsourcing is the fact of life. You outsource many jobs every day. Think of receptionists, housekeepers, liftman, plumbers, painters, locskmiths, etc.
Why to Outsource Work?
Outsourcing is a strategy used for two reasons.
- Lack of expertise
- Better use of your own time
If you do not have the skill to get something done, you let someone do it for you. (Think web design, locksmith such as Chicago Locksmith, etc.)
When you can use your time in a more productive manner, you hire someone to take care the jobs that are less productive. Think of househelps, drivers, gardeners, nannies, etc.
Outsourcing allows you to manage your work in a more productive manner, and yield the best results for you.
With some planning, even beginner Internet businesses like you can start outsourcing work in an affordable manner.
Endeavoring to play out every particular assignment for your business neutralizes your efficiency for some reasons. Here are three of those reasons:
- Performing easy assignments gives you less time to accomplish increasingly critical business building exercises like arranging and showcasing your business.
- Carrying out the responsibility of a few people (administrator associate, clerk, bookkeeper, advertising chief and the sky is the limit from there) implies it’s hard to do any one thing admirably.
- You are working more enthusiastically than you have to and you penance your well being and prosperity by working to such an extent.
Outsourcing Makes Sense
Numerous entrepreneurs think they can’t manage the cost of outsourcing. However, you essentially can’t bear the cost of NOT outsourcing less productive work. Interestingly, the more you utilize outsourcing, the more you can use your very own opportunity to gain more cash.
So not exclusively is outsourcing a help, it’s a cash producer as well.
Here’s an illustration of how outsourcing web development tasks actually save you money while bringing better efficiency.
Do Everything Yourself: Let’s say spend $ 150 on web hosting, and domain. You have little or no technical experience of creating websites & graphics, website management, etc. Let’s assume that you will spend a total of $500 for the software and/or cost of time spent learning these tasks before you can get your website ready. You still manage to create an amateur website with poor optimizations & design.
Outsource the Job: In another example, you outsource the web design and development, and graphic design to a professional. You hire a web developer via outsourcing websites such as Fiverr, Freelancer, etc, who does all the work and gets your website ready for $250.
In the above two scenarios, you find that you spent less and managed to get better results when you outsourced the web development job to a professional web designer.
To choose what you ought to outsource, think about a couple of things:
What keeps you away from sourcing new business?
For instance, performing client support & customer email handling can be easily outsourced as it does not require the level of skills you have.
What tasks are you unable to do for your business?
In the event that you don’t have a clue how to make websites, design graphics & other tasks necessary for your business, hire professionals rather than trying to learn it from scratch. You can use the time saved to generate more business, and eventually have more money even after paying outsourced workers.
If you consider your hourly worth, which tasks could you hire someone to do more cheaply?
A large number of tasks such as social media promotions, building backlinks, and finding prospective customers, can be easily handed over to someone at a fraction of your hourly price. If you deserve $100 per hour, why not let someone from developing countries such as India do it for, say, just $10 per hour. Does this not translate into saving?
How to Outsource Wisely?
Outsourcing need not be difficult. Here’s a checklist to hire the right freelancers and professionals for your online business.
- Make a list of tasks that need to be outsourced
- Explore websites such as Fiverr & Freelancer to find outsourcing partners and freelancers
- Start small with the people you find to be good
- Experiment with different providers & individuals
- Use your experience to develop relations with dependable freelancers to build a team of virtual employees & coworkers, and retain them for future tasks
Working on websites has taken a toll on me. Maybe, I will try outsourcing some of my work. Hope this improves my productivity.