Outsourcing can be a very important part of running an online home business. It allows you to scale your business efforts in a way that you normally can’t by yourself because you simply don’t have the time or skills to do everything on your own. Making money online takes a lot of work and having help can work wonders for your productivity.
Outsourcing some of your internet home based business tasks is a great way to continue growth. The ability to outsource mundane tasks to employees you can pay a few dollars per hour is a great way to offload some of your work and increase your own personal productivity. However, low cost labor doesn’t always come easy. Depending on who you outsource to, there may be training that needs to be done, they may take a few months before they start paying for themselves, their fees might be hard to pay at first, etc…
You have a lot of options in terms of countries in the world in which you can hire outsourcers from as well as many websites and other places where you can find them for hire. You can stick with your home country where the cost per hour will most likely be higher if you live in the United States or another more developed country, but communication and productivity may also be higher, so you have to weigh cost versus those things. There are many countries, including India and the Philippines, which are much cheaper in price but communication and productivity may be decreased.
An example is an assistant I once hired from one of these countries had constant power outages so her work would be delayed several hours until the power came back on and she could start working again. This obviously hurt her lifestyle and productivity since much of her day was spent sitting around waiting to be able to get some work done.
There are many things to consider when hiring an assistant from a foreign country, but the biggest things are their pay rate, time zone, skills, and whether or not they can understand you and vice versa. Language can often be a very big barrier to outsourcing.
The pay rate is almost always negotiable, especially for countries in Asia and other parts of the world. Most of the world works like that, unlike the United States where there’s usually a set price for everything and you can take it or leave it. People are willing to work for less with a potential for bonuses every month if they perform well, for example. One of the best things to do is a trial run with the person by having them do a few tasks for you for one day and see how much they get done, how many problems they have, and how much they will cost you per day.
Time zone isn’t a major factor because you can communicate via email. However, it is nice to know exactly what time they will be online in your time zone. My assistant almost always starts at around 11:00pm my time, so I can assign her tasks before bed and know she has something to work on all day for me. Make sure you are familiar with the time zones so you know the best way and time to contact your home based business outsourcers.
Skill is debatable; some people will call themselves an expert when they are clearly not up to your standards. However, most tasks that people want completed for their online home business can easily be taught. Creating some screenshots or short training videos of what you want your employees to do will save you a ton of time and allow you to hire “unskilled” laborers for a much lower price and train them to do the business tasks for you.
Outsourcing is a changing and evolving area of internet marketing that is becoming more common all the time. Outsourcers are able to do more and more these days and the cost is getting lower and lower for people that are skilled at what they do. Learn to harness the skills of other people and use them to drive your home based business forward towards more productivity and profits.
Your write up of outsourcing is quite commendable. But the challenge is this, how will it be convenient for someone who is a newbie in online business? He needs to know and acquire some skills and make some money, before he is able to outsource. I need some sites to go to get some tutorials and ebooks to learn. Thanks.
I think the outsourcing concept is a great tip — especially for the home based business owner. This is a more budget-friendly alternative to hiring full-time employees.