The Power of Outsourcing: Why It Matters and Where to Start

Is it time to delegate?

One thing every entrepreneur struggles with is lack of time. When you start getting overwhelmed and feel like you don't have enough time to rest properly, to brainstorm ideas on growing your business, or to begin working on new projects, it's time to delegate some of your work.

Outsourcing basically means letting other people do what doesn't necessarily require your role. The best way is to hire a virtual assistant and let him do all the repetitive and boring tasks like answering email, reaching out to customers, doing a research, posting on social media, checking stats, taking care of your blog, etc.

What you'll get in return is your time and this way all your energy and focus will be invested in the things you're good at, like entering new fields, partnering with new people, creating new products, improving your personal brand, and more.

These are the activities you, as an entrepreneur, should have on your daily to-do list. Anything else must be delegated. That can be hard for first-time business owners though, as most of them just aren't used to letting others do the work.

If that sounds familiar, you may worry too much that the virtual staff you hire won't do a good job and even end up supervising them the whole time, which makes outsourcing pointless.

But you'll need to give it a try and feel the benefits. Start small - hire someone for a one-time job and see how it goes. It may not work out with the first or second person, but keep looking until you find the right fit for the position.

Once you do, you'll be amazed at how quickly he does what once took you hours, and how inexpensive that is. Most people online whose second language is English are actually hard working and don't charge much. And when you calculate the cost of your time, you'll be gaining a lot from the whole outsourcing thing.

Where to find employees

Go to sites like UpWork, Freelancer and Guru and post a job offer saying exactly what you're looking for. Expect many proposals to come your way immediately. Take some time to go through each and see who sounds confident and experienced enough. Hire a few people to work on one project if you want to, just to see who'll do the best job. Then, keep working with him.

Once you've outsourced the mundane tasks you do daily, move onto hiring more people to work for you remotely. Need a graphic designer? An accountant or financial adviser? A marketer to take care of all your communication, campaigns, media pitches, branding, or else? Or maybe you'd love to work with a programmer and create an app?

Anything is possible once you start trusting those who are actually good at what they do. The freelancers on these sites usually work for themselves and care about quality. Once you arrange the price that works for both of you, the site takes care of the rest and your money won't go to waste without you being happy with the work provided.

So that's why outsourcing matters and this is how it can help you be more productive and efficient and have time for other important things in life besides work. So, are you ready to hire your first virtual employee?

(images courtesy of Unsplash)

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Who's voting on this shit? Seriously Steemit is going to be a big pile of shit if this is what kind of posts authors will be getting rewarded for.

You know where you can go to get a metric fuck ton of better advice on these kind of topics? Try smartblogger.com , fourhourworkweek.com/blog/ , or smartpassiveincome.com.

At least these guys have spent years with a shit ton of excellent helpful content litered all over their websites.

2k payout for this post? Something sure seems way off and I am a little less excited for Steemits future at this point.

WOW. I am "a little less excited for Steemit's future" because of haters like you. The reception I've received here is shockingly harsh and discouraging. I blog on entrepreneurship because it is my passion and I hope to provide some useful, very practical advice for beginners. If you hate my writing so much, why don't you ignore it?

My post wasn't a personal attack on you personally. It is how things are getting paid out on Steemit and curated that is appearing to be bull. As a person who has been here a little while now, something doesn't seem right and smells a little fishy. My wife wrote a freaking 6-8k word post awhile back on avoiding scams when traveling internationally, it had more information in it than some ebooks from amazon, and it paid her a big fat fucking 0.03 cents. You know how long she worked on that post? Months, to be honest, a matter of fact she was creating it to place on her website, but decided to place it here instead.

That is just one example of a high-quality post with no reward. How a pretty basic informational post like this one that is pretty common information found all around the net is getting a payout like it is ought to raise a few eyebrows. ​

To be honest it feels like you outsourced this article

or some whales outsourced it to him/her shhh ;)

To add a reply on topic here and not comment on your magical post success.

I believe in outsourcing too. With the internet spreading and quality of service increasing (connection uptime, bandwidth etc.) the world is more and more connected and the people are also. Benefiting from other people's skills through delegation is an amazing thing and superbly advantageous when done right.
One small aspect I wanted to mention here is that it is hard to find someone that has acceptable cost and good skills. Most of the candidates I have run into on UpWork (old oDesk), Freelance.com etc. are of poor quality overall.

I would give you 100% support on the post above if you are an individual professional but if you have a small, mid or large company, the management overhead or running a team of freelancers is ineffective. Outsourcing is still key here too as it helps you get more for less, but in that case you would need to look at agencies that are specialized in the BPO sector. This gives more confidence (it's a company not an individual), more security (companies invest more in the infrastructure and get all sorts of certifications like PCI Compliancy), plus they leverage more mature processes and continue to grow in knowledge, technology and offering.

PS. you forgot about Fiverr

Thank you for the on topic reply! There are good freelancers, but it can definitely take some time to find them! The focus of this article is indeed the individual professional or entrepreneur who is starting out. I may discuss agencies in the BPO sector in a future post.

How on earth is this post valued at over $2000? Seems like drivel you find all over the interweb.

You give out some seriously good tips for employers and employees alike, thanks a bunch for the suggestions. Namaste :)

Namaste. :)

Im not understanding something: you seem like a whale with hundred upvotes, .... but with no steempower and 0 followers, with your first articles earning thousands. Please help me do the same.
Also thinking the account :berniesanders is involved in something strange.... also avoiding the dollarvigilante to get steem for his articles.
This is strange but will totally listen to any response, im not mad, im happy to see... the first case of real success, a part from @dollarvigilante .
But seems odd, something is missing here.

totally an inside thing. This isnt even great advice.

Ps: you earned yoir first suscribers.... but it stills seems like the developers, or someone inside steemit give you a boost with multiple account upvotes.... just what I believe for what I see

You recommend upwork or freelancer? Nothing but low quality work on those sites.

The last time I outsource, I got two incoherent person dribbling nonsense all over my blog.
The first person I outsource I tolerate just because she was pretty.
The second I literary obliterate on the freelance portal he crawled out from.
That was last time I tried the 'outsource' option.

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You're right, I don't have time to read all of this.

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