The Three Greatest Reasons For Outsourcing Your Next
Project
As of late, I've become
fascinated with the
idea of outsourcing projects. This has quickly become a new way of thinking for me.
In the past, I have
always been determined to do everything on my own. "If you want something done right, you best do it yourself right?"
Not necessarily...
I first developed the idea of outsourcing from the book
The 4 Hour Workweek.
This book has been truly life changing for me to say the least.
It has
introduced me to thoughts and ideas that I never even considered
previously!
One of the chapters in the book is titled
"Outsourcing Your Life." The ideas behind this chapter is what I would
like to discuss with you now...
In the Internet age, outsourcing
has taken on a life of it's own. You will soon see just how beneficial
outsourcing can be for you. And it doesn't matter if you are a CEO or
your at the bottom of the corporate ladder, I know for certain that
anyone can benefit from outsourcing.
This leads right into
why
I believe you should outsource your next
task. I have what I consider to be, the three biggest reasons why you
should begin outsourcing.
The thoughts and ideas below have come from several projects that I
have outsourced through
Get A Freelancer. As of this
writing, I have
had some
amazing experiences
with the outsourcers at this site. Here are my top three reasons why
you should start outsourcing as soon as possible...
Reason #1: It Gives You The Ability To Do Anything
One great thing that should be outsourced is something that you are
unable to do, or
have no interest in learning how to do.
I had a great idea for
some software that I wanted to develop. I have a college degree in
Computer Science. But to create the software I wanted, I needed to
learn a new
technology that I wasn't very familiar with at the time. With my
technical background, I knew with enough time I would have been able to
eventually learn how to do it. Then I asked myself...
Why bother?
This technology I needed to learn, I knew I would likely only use for
this one project. So I thought to myself, why would I waste hours of my
time trying to learn
it? After all, all I would need to do is take ten minutes to describe
what I
wanted and outsource it to someone who already knew how to do it.
Which is the first reason as to why you should begin outsourcing. You
are instantly given the ability to do
anything!
- Want to develop a new piece of machinery? Hire a
mechanical engineer.
- Have an idea for a vitamin supplement? Hire a
manafacturer that can make it for you.
- Want to create the latest electronic gizmo? Hire an
electrical engineer that will make you a prototype.
- And in my case, have an idea for computer software?
Hire a person that is an expert
in that area of computer programming.
All you have to do is describe what you want, wait for someone to bid.
Then for a very reasonable fee (more on that later) you have work being
done that you never thought you could ever have.
You don't need to go to college and become an engineer to have a
product developed, you can hire a really smart kid right out of college
for $8-15 an
hour to do it for you.
The possibilities are truly endless!
So whenever a great idea pops into your head, don't think "Gee, I have
no idea how I could do or make that." Just think, hey I'll post it on
Get A Freelancer and see what
happens.
If it turns out that it costs too much, you can always close the
biddings. It's not like
eBay where you will have a bunch of really annoyed buyers thinking they
were going to get your used junk for $9.99.
The people working at Get A Freelancer don't have time to complain.
They are usually too busy with the endless amount of demand they have
for their services.
I'll say it one more time, you can do
anything in this
world with outsourcing. Think of it as instantly having a master's
degree in every college major possible.
Reason #2: You Can Get Things Done Dirt Cheap
If you want to be blown away by something try this...
Go to
Elance.com
and type into the search box "virtual assistant". A virtual
assistant is someone (usually far, far away) that will
basically do anything that you want them to. As long as it's not too
technically difficult (or illegal). Do you wish you had someone that
could call and remind you to buy
groceries after work? A virtual assistant can handle that without any
problem. And so much more!
What you may have noticed if you went to Elance and looked up virtual
assistants was their hourly wages.
$2 or $3 an hour is nowhere near unusual! That's not a typo.
It's a huge world out there. The lifestyle in one country is completely
different than the lifestyle in another. Likewise, spending $5 in a
country is often times a lot different than spending $5 in
another.
It's time that you take advantage of this currency difference!
Unless you've been living under a rock for the last 10+ years, you
probably
know that many businesses are outsourcing parts of their business to
countries like India or China. What you may not know is that you can do
the very same thing yourself. And you can have someone bidding on your
project
20 minutes
from now!
Does it really make sense for you to spend a few
hours of your time doing something that you can hire somebody else to
do
for you for $3 an hour? I didn't think so.
For a simple three hour project, I'd rather pay $9 and then go sit
around by the pool the rest of the afternoon. I imagine you would like
to do the same.
My advice to you is to always have in the back of your
mind having
someone do your work for you. If you are working on a project, ask
yourself these two questions...
- Is this project time consuming?
- Could I easily explain with step-by-step instructions
to someone else how to do it for me?
If the answer to these two questions is yes, don't hesitate for one
second. Outsource it!
Find something else you can do while this other project is being done
for you. A project that you can't easily explain to someone else how to
do.
I couldn't go online and say, "Hey, someone please write an article
about outsourcing and the many great personal experiences I personally
have had doing it." It just doesn't work that way.
But I could say, "Please, I need someone that can check my email twice
daily. Then, either reply and set up a meeting with the client and
update my
calendar. Or, forward me the email so I can take care of it personally."
You have so many options when it comes to virtual assistance!
Especially considering the fact that it
only will cost you $3 an hour to hire one.
What happens if you hire someone and they really screw it up?
Well,
that's a chance you have to take. You may consider starting them out on
something very easy so you can test out how quality of work they do.
iif
they turn out to be really bad, it's
only really costing you a few minutes of your time and likely about ten
or twenty bucks. Not exactly the end of the world for
most people. Especially when compared to a business screwing up hiring
a bad employee. That problem would likely cost them thousands of
dollars
without breaking a sweat.
I highly encourage you to at least try hiring a virtual assistant. At
Get A Freelancer, post a project
saying that you are
looking for a virtual assistant to do some basic computer tasks. And
that you
are looking to pay $2-3 an hour.
You won't believe how many offers you will get!
As I said before, the worst thing that could possibly happen is that
you lose $30. But that is
unlikely. Because what virtual assistants can do is usually far more
than what you would expect someone being paid a few
dollars an hour could do.
Reason #3: It Frees Up Your Time For More Important
Things
With some projects you outsource, you have no idea how to do them. It's
either outsource it, or it doesn't get done. But
many of the projectss you should outsource are projects that you are
fully
capable of doing yourself.
I use this example a lot, but the first thing I ever outsourced was the
Amazon links on my
personal
development books recommendations page. This is something
that I was certainly capable of doing myself. In fact, I could probably
do
it better and faster than anybody else.
But why bother spending 2-3 hours of my time on such a very basic task.
Especially since we've learned so far, basic tasks can be done for only
a few
dollars an hour. I can type up something in five or ten minutes, take
another five or ten minutes to hire someone. Then go off and do
something much more productive and valuable.
Note: If
you hire a company such as
Get Friday, you can skip step
two about choosing whom to hire. With an outsourcing company (not just
one individual), they
will take your project and assign it to a person that is
best suited for the job.
So why is freeing up your time important? There are several reasons
actually...
As mentioned before, you can use this time to do something more
important. You can also use this time to simply relax. One of the
lesser known
benefits I have discovered about freeing up your time is that it
prevents you from becoming
burned out.
As we are learning more and more, 40-50 hours a week behind a desk
doing repetitive work is very boring. And it's causing people to become
less and less productive.
Giving yourself some added free time is good for your mind and it's
also good for
your personal development.
We could all afford to spend a little less time working and a
lot
more time doing the things we love. Outsourcing helps give you this
option.
What you need to do right now is place a dollar amount on your time.
That amount may be $10 an hour. Or it may be $50. Whatever it is, give
yourself a dollar figure that you consider your time to be worth.
Then...
Start outsourcing as many tasks as you can that will cost you less than
the hour's worth that you determined.
For a theoretical example, if you say your worth is $10 an hour, start
outsourcing a bunch of your $5
an hour jobs. Use this added free time to start working on $15 or $20
an hour jobs. This is the
fastest
path imagineable to getting great results!
From there, you can get to where your time is then worth $30 or $40 an
hour. Then you start assigning $15 an hour jobs while spending your
time doing
$50 or $60 jobs.
Pretty soon, you may decide that it would be best to not work at all.
This happens after you start outsourcing
more and more projects.
It
all comes down to how a business owner makes money.A business owner
pays someone $10 to who works and helps make them $15. They keep hiring
more and more people that can do this and before they know it, they are
rich. And they don't have to do any of the work to make it that way.
I highly encourage you to start freeing up more of your time. One way
you can
start is by hiring someone to clean your house.
If you're making $20 an hour at work, why not pay someone $10 an hour
to clean your house? It just makes complete sense.
Unless of course you enjoy scrubbing your stove
and polishing your toilet!
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