Introduction: Why Outsource as a Blogger/ Entrepreneur?
Blogging is more competitive than ever before. There are literally tens of millions of blogs, and you may have several blogs and websites competing for your audience. Internet entrepreneurs that don’t blog also have competitors to worry about. The bottom line is, if you plan on becoming the next millionaire kitchen table entrepreneur or blogger, you need to be as efficient as possible in your business.
Outsourcing offers efficiency, productivity and a lot of other benefits. Yes, it can be scary at first. Most web entrepreneurs and bloggers do their own thing, taking on multiple jobs. This means it could be a little overwhelming to handoff parts of your business to someone you don’t know very well. However, that is how the largest and most successful businesses in the world create the wealth and freedom their owners enjoy.
If you are considering outsourcing as a way to improve your productivity and reduce your personal time investment in your business, you should be commended. Outsourcing is one of the most cost-efficient ways to grow your business exponentially. Let’s take a look at a few reasons why any blogger or online entrepreneur should be outsourcing.
Money Efficiency
One of the beauties of outsourcing is that you can spend the time on those projects which generate the greatest return on your time and financial investment. Other tasks, such as email inbox management, content creation and social media management, don’t need to be eating up your valuable time.
You have heard it before, and it rings true in any business… time is money.
The cost advantages of hiring outsourcers that live in cities and countries where the cost of living is lower than where you live are plentiful. You can enjoy cost savings of anywhere from 40% to 75% when you outsource certain tasks. This means your personal time investment in your business goes down, your cost for hiring employees and team members also decreases, and you can still find incredibly talented individuals to work for you.
Better Efficiency, Quality and Productivity
Through a smart outsourcing management process, you get access to people that have a lot more time and experience invested in performing certain activities. This means you automatically become more productive and efficient.
They have more understanding and knowledge in certain areas, so it only makes sense to pay them to do the work. Outsourcing allows you to access some of the best and brightest freelancers and virtual assistants at an attractively affordable rate, streamlining your business and making it more productive. Handled properly, this also improves the quality of your blog or online business.
Fewer Headaches
Efficiency, productivity and financial savings all mean one thing in your business… fewer headaches! When you have fewer things to concern yourself with, there is less stress in your life, and that is a beautiful thing.
You Expand Your Business Reach
You may only have the time, mental energy and writing ability to crank out 1 or 2 really good blog posts every month. When you hire a talented writer, the amount of content representing your business on the web is restricted only by the amount of money you want to spend. Don’t worry, this does not mean you’re going to have to pay a 6-figure-a-year copywriters thousands of dollars to create content.
You can start by hiring cheaper writers in a number of ways. College students, for example, can have a great command of the written word but are willing to write for low rates as they get started. The Philippines is also a source of incredibly high-quality writers, many of whom have English as their first language. These writers can live a very good a lifestyle earning just $50 to $100 a day. You can often find writers like this who produce incredibly good content, who understand how to write for the web, who specialize in exactly your niche or marketplace, and are happy to earn $5 to $10 for a blog post or article.
The more content you have online, the wider your business reach. Instead of 1 or 2 blog posts produced by you, which requires investments of mental energy and time, as well as writing ability, you can inexpensively add 5 or 10 or 20 posts or articles, press releases or social media updates to the web each and every month.
More Free, Targeted Traffic Because of Improved Search Engine Optimization
SEO is the way search engines find out what your blog or website is about, and it is also how they know which web surfers to send to your business. Until you become adept at search engine optimization, it might be a good idea to hand this part of your business off to an experienced freelancer.
There are plenty of big and small businesses online that will guarantee you placement on page 1 of Google for certain keywords. Run as fast as you can away from these types of offers. There is absolutely no way you or anyone else can guarantee that a certain piece of content will wind up on page 1 of Google, or any other search engines. What you are looking for here is a talented SEO freelancer that works on his own, and we will show you exactly where to find these types of people later in this report.
You Create Free Time in Your Life
Aside from the financial benefits, the number one reason bloggers and web entrepreneurs outsource certain activities is because there are only so many hours in the day. Outsourcing and employing freelancers to do work for you, tasks you would normally have to handle yourself, creates time freedom. With this extra time, you can decide whether to use it in your personal life to step away from your business, or whether you want to focus this extra time on core business jobs and activities.
However you decide to spend it, extra free time is a primary benefit of outsourcing.
Identifying Tasks You Can Outsource
Okay, so now you are sold on outsourcing. All the benefits we just talked about to the beginning or veteran blogger or entrepreneur are pretty attractive, aren’t they? You will find that the more things you outsource, the more free time and productivity you enjoy. However, there are certain things you probably should not outsource, and you need to handle on your own. The following two lists show you jobs and activities you should be outsourcing, as well as those you should personally take on.
10 Jobs Perfect for an Outsourcer or Freelancer
1 – SEO Content Creation
One of the premier benefits of outsourcing discussed earlier is free traffic. This traffic is targeted and focused when your search engine optimization is performed properly. Outsourcing your SEO content creation is a good idea, especially if this is something you struggle to understand or take advantage of.
2 – Social Media Management Activities
Content marketing means alerting the web whenever you publish a new blog post or article. A virtual assistant adept at social media management can notify your Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and LinkedIn followers every time you create new content. This is the perfect job for a freelancer because it keeps you from getting stuck on your favorite social media sites for longer than you had planned, which as you know, can unfortunately happen very easily.
3 – Article and Blog Post Formatting and Publishing
There are efficient freelancers who can format and publish your blog posts and articles in a fraction of the time it would take you. This means that not only do you save valuable time, but you pay a minimum amount of money to that freelancer, since the task is completed in a very short time.
4 – Web and Graphic Design
You may know how to build a rudimentary blog or website on WordPress. That doesn’t mean you should be spending your time doing that. The number of graphic designers and web developers that can quickly create amazing looking web properties for a small amount of money is virtually limitless.
5 – Keyword Research
You may think you know all the keywords and phrases relative to your business. That may be true, but how many of those groups of words matter to web surfers? Smart keyword researchers know how to uncover the exact words and phrases your target audience is typing into Google and other search engines.
6 – Mobile App Development
Way back in 2015, mobile search passed traditional search for the first time ever. This means people are much more likely to look for what you have to offer on mobile phones and tablets, rather than laptops and desktops. Because of this, you should consider developing a mobile application. App development is custom-made for the outsourcing blogger or web entrepreneur that doesn’t have the skills necessary to take advantage of the move to mobile web search.
7 – Autoresponder Sequences
There are many freelancers that specialize in certain niches. For a nominal fee, lower than you might think, you can get 5 or 21 or any number of autoresponder emails created. These autoresponder sequences can be used to promote an upcoming product launch or simply to engage your customers and email list members.
8 – Copywriting Content
Professional copywriters know how to write in a particular way that is engaging and attractive to web surfers. Did you know the average web surfer reads on just a 6th to 8th grade level? Did you know people online prefer short sentences to long ones? They also don’t mind incomplete sentences. Like this one. All of these facts are well known to a successful copywriter.
When you allow someone to write for you, a person who understands how web surfers think and what they expect from their content, your business benefits. There are a lot of really smart bloggers and Internet entrepreneurs out there who shouldn’t be writing their own copy. Are you one of them?
9 – Proofreading, Editing, Spellchecking
If you create your own content, you may be handling these jobs yourself. You figure they don’t take a lot of time, so why outsource them? You would be amazed at the amount of extra time you can create in your life when you outsource these inexpensive but time-saving tasks to someone else.
10 – Menial Tasks Specific to Your Industry
In every business, there are going to be small, seemingly insignificant, menial tasks and jobs which are absolutely crucial. They must be performed, but they are incredibly simple to accomplish, while taking time out of your life. Each industry or niche has specific jobs that would be perfect for an outsourcer or freelancer. You can probably think of such a task off the top of your head, and these tasks will vary from industry to industry.
4 Jobs and Activities You Should Be Handling Yourself
1 – Content Verification
You should be the final step to approving any content you have created. This means you verify whether or not videos, blog posts, press releases and other content developed by freelancers is worthy of your name and reputation. You absolutely must be sure of any piece of content which is going to represent your business, which means you should be the one to give final approval before any content is published online.
2 – Video Creation (as Far as Your Face Is Concerned)
Your face is literally the face of your business. If you decide to use videos in your business, it is crucial that people get to know the face of the person they’re doing business with. You may be able to run your blog or website for years without anyone knowing what you look like. This would be a mistake.
Whether you believe you are gorgeous or unattractive, you are probably somewhere in the middle of those extremes. Regardless of how you look, there are people online who will immediately connect with you when they see your smiling face. Steer clear of hiring an actor to serve as the face of your business. Your prospects like and know people exactly like themselves, average people just like you.
3 – Customer Complaints, Customer Service, Refunds
To some extent, some of these tasks can be handled effectively by an outsourcer. However, you may want to consider handling all of these issues yourself, unless you have a massively large business that requires help. When people realize they are dealing with the owner of a business, and that owner is truly concerned about a sales experience that went wrong, you improve your reputation while also impressing to your customers that they really do matter.
4 – Staff and Team Development
If you hire someone else to manage and grow your team, that person may or may not have your same values. Employee development should be a job you handle yourself, instead of outsourcing.
Important note: The jobs to outsource and those you should avoid handing out will vary from industry to industry. You will get a feel of the tasks you should be handing off, as well as those which require your personal attention, the more comfortable you get with the outsourcing part of your business.
Starting Small & Working Your Way Up
All this talk of outsourcing several daily and menial jobs and activities might have your head spinning. You may not be able to imagine so many different aspects of your business being handled by strangers. Consider your business. Your blog or website did not reach its current state overnight. You built slowly, taking small steps that have led up to the blog or web business you now run.
You want to adopt the same approach when outsourcing. You need to get a feel for the relationships you are going to build with freelancers, virtual assistants and other outsourcers. In many cases, you are going to have to kiss a lot of toads before you meet that prince of a virtual talent that makes your life easier in a number of ways. This means it only makes sense to take small steps when getting started with outsourcing.
Choose one relatively easy job you know you shouldn’t be wasting your time on. Maybe you can start with answering customer emails. Perhaps that is something that you feel you should do, so maybe you would feel more comfortable subbing out SEO content duties at first. Remember to start slow and small, until you and your outsourcer are comfortable with the process.
This means you are going to need to know where to go to find reliable contractors. We will show you the top freelancing and outsourcing websites in the very next section of this report. You also need to develop a proven system for managing the team members you bring on board. Right after you read the next section on where to find talented and affordable freelancers, we will show you exactly the steps you need to take to effectively run your outsourcing team.
Pick a Task That Is Easy to Accomplish
For the time being, choose a small and quickly completed task from those mentioned earlier, activities which are custom-made for outsourcing. Write down exactly what you expect to be accomplished, the deadlines you need, and then factor in a 5 to 7-day bumper into your timeline. If you expect a particular task to be accomplished by October 21, give an expected deadline of October 14 to 16 to your freelancer.
This ensures that even if the work is delivered late, you have it in plenty of time to keep it from creating problems in your business. This may seem like a small outsourcing tip, but it can save a lot of headaches down the road. Considering baby steps, you should also start small concerning the amount of money you are going to spend on outsourcing. Before you get a handle on the process, you simply don’t know if you have chosen the right outsourcer, as well as the right activity for outsourcing.
This is why you should spend a minimal amount of money on your first outsourcing project.
Make sure this is a sum of money which requires very little to no emotional investment. In other words, if everything goes absolutely wrong, and you lose all of your money on this first outsourcing project, it shouldn’t bother you. Don’t worry, we are going to keep this from happening by showing you exactly how to qualify and hire the perfect outsourcer. Still, a minimal investment at first is the smart and slow way to become accustomed to this time-saving and productivity-enhancing part of your business.
Where to Find Contractors
Now that you know the rudimentary steps of outsourcing, let’s get started hiring talent! In 2017, the following websites are where you want to turn to find cost-effective and talented freelancers for your outsourcing needs.
- Fiverr – You can get just about anything under the sun done for $6 at Fiverr.
- Toptal – Toptal is a great source of code writers, web developers, web designers and other technology-minded freelancers.
- Upwork – This is the new name of the company which was created when oDesk and Elance joined teams. A wide variety of freelancers are offered here, one of the top destinations for outsourcing talent.
- Guru – With more than 1 million completed jobs and 3.4 million separate freelancing services, this site may just have the outsourcing guru you are looking for.
- Zirtual – This is where you find talented virtual assistants. Imagine having your own personal assistant, efficient at several tasks, and also gifted at overall project management. You can find that individual at Zirtual.
- 99Designs – As you may have gathered by the name, this is where you want to look for graphic designers.
- Freelancer – Appropriately named, Freelancer is home to more than 17 million registered users. The website has been around for over 15 years, and offers a little something for everyone as far as outsourcing is concerned.
- PeoplePerHour – The freelancers here have been tested, in order to deliver and guarantee reliability and quality.
You may also consider iFreelance, Project4Hire, Damongo, Gigster and SmashingJobs for discovering outsourcing talent.
How to Manage Your Team Members
Communicating the specific goal you want achieved is the first step to effective outsourcing management. Here are a few more tips and best practices for managing the freelancers and virtual assistants you add to your outsourcing team.
Make Workflow Simple
Whether you use Asana, BaseCamp or some other online project management tool, make interacting with your outsourced team easy. The flow of communication and work needs to be efficient and simple to understand, as well as accessible 24/7 from any time zone in the world.
Hire Quality Freelancers
Stick to the list of freelancing and outsourcing websites mentioned in the previous chapter of this report, and you will have no problems here.
Don’t Try to Get Orange Juice from Apples
Steer clear of online freelancers who boast that they can handle any and every task. You want to focus on people who have shown an ability to specialize in a certain area, creating high quality results. You would never expect to get apple juice from an orange, so why would you think a copywriting specialist would necessarily be good at web design?
Get an Editorial Calendar
Editorial calendars can help you strategize, plan and implement the many stages of your business development and growth. Trello, the aforementioned BaseCamp and ToDoist are effective editorial calendars for bloggers and web entrepreneurs. You may alternately use a traditional physical calendar, or any of the many calendar apps available online.
Review Work Early and Often
Either you or someone on your team should be reviewing the work that is turned in by your freelancers. This should happen early in the content creation or task accomplishment process. It is easy to reroute misdirected efforts if you catch them early.
Give Praise When It Is Needed, and Be Firm When That Is Needed
It is amazing how a couple of kind words to a hard-working employee can lead to a positive lifelong relationship. Alternately, there are times when you are going to have to be firm with how you communicate with a freelancer. Don’t be shy to give praise where praise is due, or to deliver a virtual spanking when that is needed.
Treat Each Freelancer or Virtual Assistant As an Individual
Everyone is different. People learn differently. They communicate differently. You will find those virtual assistants who feel a need to talk to you about their personal lives and want to communicate frequently. You will also discover talented individuals who seemingly never need to communicate with you. Treat each freelancer you hire as you would want to be treated, on an individual and personal basis.
Include a “Test” When Hiring Freelancers
Include a specific requirement when you hire outsourcing talent. This may be as simple as asking each applicant for a specific job to include the phrase “Green Bananas” in the subject line. If someone can’t follow this simple direction, you should take a pass.
Bringing on a Project Manager to Make Things Easier
Where can you find a talented and productive project manager to handle your outsourcing team? Hire a project management specialist at the websites mentioned earlier. You may not need this type of specialist at first. If you are starting out small in your business, and your blog or website has not generated a lot of traffic and money, you might be able to handle most of your business-related tasks yourself.
The key to knowing exactly when the right time is to bring on a project manager has to do with frustration, stress and lack of efficiency. When you find there are not enough hours in the day to work your business, and your blog or website is suffering because of this, a project manager might be the solution.
Head over to Upwork, Freelancer or Zirtual. Type “project manager” into the search field. Take some time to go through the results, filtering for experience and the specific tasks you need handled. A recent search for “project manager” on UpWork returned 3,351 results. Alternately, you can type “project management freelancers” or “project manager specialist” into the Google search bar.
You can hire project managers that work for anywhere from 5 hours to 40 hours per week. When you stick to the trusted freelance and outsourcing websites we recommend, you can review past work records and referrals. This ensures your project manager is up to snuff before you hire her. When considering hiring a PM, you are going to want to contact several individuals.
Have a “meet and greet” on Skype, in person or through some other type of real-time interaction. Be open with what your company is about, what you expect, and the areas for growth in the future. You must absolutely be able to communicate quickly and easily with your project manager, so this virtual meeting process is essential to hiring the right type of person.
8 Common Outsourcing Mistakes to Avoid
In your haste to become more productive and efficient, save money and create free time in your life, you may be in a hurry to get started outsourcing. Before you do, consider the following 8 outsourcing “DONTs” you should avoid at all cost.
1 – Don’t overestimate how much money you may save. Your time interaction on each outsourcing project should be accounted for. So should every step of the outsourcing process, so you don’t incorrectly believe you are saving more money than you actually are.
2 – Don’t rush things. As mentioned in an earlier section of this report, you should take outsourcing slow. Start with just a couple of simple jobs, and if you realize significant benefits, only then should you build your outsourcing team.
3 – Don’t fail to put accountability in place. The more steps there are between you and your outsourcer, the greater the possibility that the quality of the work you receive is less than acceptable.
4 – Don’t forget to be a coach as well as a boss. As time goes on, you will find yourself outsourcing tasks that you know how to do effectively. When you find a freelancer who may be a little rough around the edges but is otherwise a perfect employee, take the time to coach that person and train them appropriately.
5 – Don’t be scared to say, “I don’t think we are a good match for each other.” This is business. You don’t have to be mean when you terminate a relationship, but you should certainly be honest.
6 – Don’t hire someone on reputation alone. Ask to see samples relevant to the work you need created, as well as an extensive list of testimonials.
7 – Don’t be stingy. Pay what you owe, and pay it quickly. Once you find a diamond in the outsourcing rough, it would be a shame to lose that valuable and virtual team member because you are slow with payment.
8 – Don’t expect million-dollar results for $5 per hour. You can save a substantial amount of money by outsourcing, but if you don’t pay someone what they are worth, they will not be around for long.
