Outsourcing is something that’s on the rise and becoming more and more popular with small businesses.
There are components of your business that you just don’t know how to do, and that is to be expected. I don’t know one person that is an expert in every area of business. This is where outsourcing comes in handy.
It is a inexpensive way to bring in help in certain areas of your business that you’re not an expert in, or you don’t have the cash to pay someone $40 bucks an hour to do.
The number one advantage to outsourcing is that you only pay for the time that you need.
That’s how outsourcing works. You pay for work by the hour, or by the job.
This way you don’t have to hire a full time employee, and pay them for sitting around when you don’t have anything for them to do.
So you can scale your costs up and down very quickly, without having to lay people off and get involved in hiring, firing, and all the paperwork involved with it.
You are also saving a fortune on operating expenses. There’s no computers you have to purchase and maintain, no work stations, no office space, nothing. You pretty much have zero overhead to worry about.
Four Reasons People Don’t Outsource
Here are the four main reasons people won’t outsource.
Number one,
They think it cost too much.
The only time this is true is when you are not doing your homework about what you should be paying for outsourcing, especially when outsourcing to several different countries. You have to keep your eyes on what things should be costing, and you should know how long tasks should take, so you don’t get ripped off.
Number two,
People don’t outsource because they don’t want to manage other people.
So, what you want to do is hire someone to manage everyone for you. There are plenty of people out there that have experience in running teams. This will cut down your communication to one person. That person can be in charge of everyone else. They can hire, fire, supervise, and manage all the other virtual employees.
Number three,
They think its hard to find good help.
Which is totally true. It can be really hard to find good help, but it is not that hard. You have to follow some rules when you are hiring people, and there are plenty of sites that qualify people before you even hire them. There is a wide range of companies to choose from, that specialize in finding the exact match that you need.
Number four,
They don’t know how to prioritize,
You’re not going to outsource your entire business from the beginning.
You have to hire outsourcers according to your priorities.
Priority number one
Outsource the things that you’re not good at.
These are the things you outsource first. The things that you just cannot do yourself: graphic designing, video editing, IT, etc. You outsource things you’re bad at, does that make sense?
The second priority
Outsource things you hate to do.
You know what these things are. They are probably things that you know how to do, but you are in agony every time you think about doing them, those are the things you need to outsource.
The third priority
Outsource things people could do better than you, or faster than you
This could be graphic design, copywriting, accounting, anything that helps keep your business moving forward can be outsourced.
Your First Hire
The first person you hire should depend on a couple different factors. The first is, what is keeping your business from moving forward. DO you need to have a website done, do you need a good sales letter, do you need customer support. In other words, what needs to be done right now.
The second question you should ask is, what is going to make me money now. If you have something that you can have someone implement that will make money right now. Hire someone and tell them to get to work on it.
