2013 May 04 Archive - EXEIdeas – Let's Your Mind Rock

Outsourcing is about as close to a magic bullet as it can get in real life. Soon enough, you are going to be having more business than you can handle – and at that point you can either turn down the extra work, or accept it. If you turn down clients to keep your schedule sane and deliver optimally to everyone you are committed to – that is sensible, except that you are leaving money on the table! Of course, you don’t want to take on clients that you don’t have room for.Benefits Of Outsourcing:The answer in this situation is to simply get help. Find a partner who you can work with, or work with designers, writers, and other freelancers like you, transfer some of the work to them. The art of outsourcing involves being able to find reliable people to work with, who deliver both on the standards of quality and timeline that you set for your clients, but at the same time, are less expensive than you are, so you are running a profitable business.There are exceptions to this general scheme, for instance, you might want to pay a premium to be able to accommodate an important client, who might in turn lead to more referrals and more business. There isn’t really a universal law, and you would want to evaluate your specific situation before a take a call on anything.It’s often a difficult challenge for entrepreneurs to outsource simply because they feel as though they are losing control of their business. In reality, once you decide to take that leap of faith and begin to delegate some of the responsibilities to reliable freelancers, you will find yourself with far more available time that you can use to further your business and brand awareness.This is true even beyond freelancing – the outsourcing strategy helps folks who work with nearly any business model. While there are thousands of freelancers vying to claim open projects and bid on your work, you need to take a proactive approach in verifying each potential freelancer.You should have a fairly good idea by now, because you are simply looking at the same situation from the other side of the fence. You are ready when you have more business than you can handle and are making enough profits to be able to invest back in your business.These are profits that are left over after your more basic needs and bills are paid for! I do not recommend spending your last dollar on outsourcing – it should be a comfortable expense that you make only when you are quite sure that you need it. Till you are in such a situation, just spend your own time fulfilling the tasks that come by – and I promise you that you will get to this point before you know it!Principles Of Outsourcing:The best principles with outsourcing are really the best freelancing principles flipped over. Fundamentally, do not treat anyone like you wouldn’t like to be treated yourself (when you are in freelancer shoes). Specifically:Organize yourself so as to ensure that you are able to give your team/freelancers a reasonable time frame. Projects that need to be done yesterday often attract tense and bitter situations.Always have a gap between the deadline you set to your freelancers and deadlines you set to your own clients. If it is a personal project of yours that you can afford to suffer small delays with, then you can be relaxed about the timeline, however, when you reputation is on the line, you need to be careful! Like Tim Castleman said in his interview, when you outsource, understand that the responsibility remains with you. It’s not your clients’ problem that your hired freelancer fell sick, or whatever. So have a grace period for yourself to account for unprecedented interruptions, so you can recover the situation if the need arises.Be very comprehensive and specific in your job description. The more you spell out clearly, the simpler it will be for both parties. For instance, if it is an article writing job, let them know about the tone you desire, any keywords that you are targeting, the number of words you need, and if you are specifically looking for a native speaker for the job. If the job is meant to include article directory submission, don’t forget to mention it!Make sure you evaluate your freelancers very carefully, so as to ensure that their quality matches your own – you don’t want to be passing up sub-par products, again, remember that it is your reputation that is on the line.Fiverr remains an all-time favorite location for playing the leverage game. You will often find people at fiverr who can get things done for $5, and you can be offering these services for between $20 and $50 in mainstream marketplaces. This typically works great for things like backlinking and article submission.Odesk and onlinejobs.ph are great places to find relatively inexpensive people who can help, too, but it can be some experimentation before you find the right people. #ath { background:#f8f8f8; margin:0 0 40px 0; padding:10px; border: 3px outset #e8e8e8; -moz-border-radius: 10px; border-radius: 10px; overflow:hidden; font-size: 14px; } .pro { background:#FFF; float:left; margin:0 10px 0 0; padding:4px; border: 2px inset #e8e8e8; } .social { float:right; } About the Author: Charles West is a professional content writer and blogger since last 2 years. I have writing expertise in technology and certification topics specially. I love to share that recently I passed my 640-878 exam from SAS institute and 117-201 exam from VMware. Thanks for reading.Find Me On GooglePlus