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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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