The Top 10 Tips for Outsourcing like a Pro

For many years now, people have been looking to work for themselves rather than someone else. This kind of entrepreneurial spirit is integral in human nature, but today it is easier than it ever was in the past because of the Internet.

On the other hand, it’s not exactly easy – you do have to work. To balance it all out, though, you have freelancers. Freelancers make it so that you don’t have to struggle with jobs that are over your head or skill level, allowing you to focus on the big picture.

My wife and I outsource just about every facet of our business (she outsources more than I, believe it or not) and it has been a true godsend. The marketers that I’ve spoken with at seminars have said the same. Many have actually approached me months or even years later and said that outsourcing was what made the difference in whether their business sank or swam.

Whether your business is brick-and-mortar or online, you should get to know outsourcing. Data entry jobs, illustration jobs, infrared photography, web designing projects, photo retouching, writing and editing web content – all of them can easily be outsourced.

The Top 10 Tips

People have some misconceptions when it comes to outsourcing, but you have no perspective without really studying it. My wife Arlene and I discovered the website Elance in 2004 and utilizing it really streamlined our entire business. Here are the top 10 things we have learned after all these years and 400 outsourced projects later.

1. Don’t Assume That It’s Over Your Budget – Many business owners will wrongfully assume that they can’t afford to outsource and will waste valuable time trying to make a go of it themselves. Websites such as Elance make outsourcing easy and affordable because they are set up so that freelancers underbid each other to get jobs.
2. Provide a Clear Description of What You Want – If you want your freelancer to make your idea a reality, you have to clearly let them know what you want. If you don’t provide a lot of details, you shouldn’t complain when the results aren’t what you imagined.
3. Set Deadlines/Milestones and Use Escrow – Elance and websites like it have features in place to protect the process and the exchange of money. Milestones let you track progress and the escrow account assures your freelancer that they will get paid for their services.
4. Evaluate Your Prospects’ Feedback – Before you decide on a freelancer, look at the Elance profiles of all the freelancers that have bid on your project. Their feedback scores will give you a pretty good idea about their past behavior. You should also look at any comments that previous providers have left for further insight.
5. Haggle on the Price – Once you have your list narrowed down a bit, now’s the time to haggle. Send your freelancers a message and ask each of them what their minimum bid would be to get the job. Many will come down on their bid to get the job.
6. Answer Private Messages Quickly – If you want to hit your deadline, you need to answer your freelancer’s questions expeditiously. Your project will get stuck in limbo if you don’t.
7. Pay Expeditiously – As soon as your freelancer turns in your finished project to your satisfaction, release the money held in escrow. Elance has a failsafe that releases the funds by default after a time, but don’t dither; do it yourself. We all need to make a living.
8. Conduct All Your Business in the System – Some freelancers will ask you to deal with them one-on-one, rather than through Elance. Don’t take the bait; you will lose the protection of the feedback system and their escrow accounts.
9. Form Relationships – Use Elance to an even greater advantage by using it to build a team. If a freelancer gives you the results you want, hold onto them for future projects.
10. Build Your Own Feedback – Providers also have a feedback score on Elance, so be diligent and forthright and your score will show everyone that you are a good provider.

True Experts Can Be Found on Freelancer Sites

No business owner is an expert at every facet of their business. This is why freelancers are necessary. Freelancers are true experts and professionals versed in a variety of skills. You will never be as versed in editing, let’s say, as a freelance editor. By utilizing a freelancer’s skillset, you have high-level expertise at your fingertips that will make the final product that much better.

You should also look for a freelancer with a deep understanding of your subject matter. When my wife and I were building our website for mothers dealing with epileptic children, for example, we went out of our way to find a freelancer writer that had personal experience of dealing with a child with epilepsy.

Fortunately for us, we ended up finding a writer that also happened to have an epileptic child. The final content had a genuine perspective that we would not have had otherwise.

Going a Step Further

Reading this guide will give you a good start for successful outsourcing, and you can further your knowledge by listening to a podcast or attending a training on the subject. You can also learn by doing so I encourage you to get started today.

Many of those who are reading this have probably outsourced to freelancers already, while some may be neophytes and have some concerns. So let’s talk about our collective experiences for the betterment of all in the comments area below.

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