Businesses these days are filled with many tasks that can very easily overwhelm the entrepreneur. With all of the things that have to be done by computer, in the real world, and with employees, it’s no wonder that stress is through the roof. That is where automation and outsourcing come in. Automation is a simple process for setting up something and having it continue without human action. Outsourcing is hiring another person to do work independently outside the company.
Why Outsource Automation
It’s good to outsource and to automate things because doing so will make your life a lot easier. Outsourcing automation takes the pressure off of you and frees you up to do other things you enjoys – or at least gives you more free time. By either making some routine tasks automatic or sending those routine tasks to someone else to complete, your life is open to new possibilities.
Things to Automate and Outsource
Virtually everything that happens in a business can be automated and/or outsourced. It’s all a question of whether or not you want to. Things such as website design and programming can be outsourced to people who have the skills required. Simple things like answering emails and responding to blog posts can be automated or outsourced. It’s a wide open field, but once you decide what to automate and outsource, your life will become much easier.
Places to Outsource
There are tons of places to outsource, but a couple of the best places to outsource your work are online bidding sites such as Elance.com and Freelancer.com. These sites have thousands of professionals and companies waiting to take the menial or specialized tasks and make short work of them. Most of them are competitively priced. Beware, however, that the lower the price does not necessarily mean the work will be up to par. It’s best to be careful and examine each freelancer before accepting bids.
Types of Outsourcing Professionals
There are many different types of professionals who accept outsourced work, such as writers, programmers, and marketers, to name a few. However, for the automation of mundane tasks, virtual assistants can be the most helpful. They can respond to routine emails, do research, and enter data that would otherwise take time away from the business owner. In addition, they can submit articles to websites, participate in social media, and manage voice mail among other things. They can do a little bit of everything.
Automating and outsourcing is a sure way of making a business run lean and mean. It frees you up to tackle more vital and exciting things – like running your actual business! It takes some foresight and planning to automate and some money to outsource, but the returns on them both are well worth the effort. It makes a business go from a hassle to a money-making machine.
I’ve had a couple of freelancers from Elance before and they worked as part time web designers in my business. Just this month, I got a referral to hire full time workers from Staff.com as oppose to Elance’ contractual employees. I signed up an account and bid a job, after a few hours of exchanging info they were able to forward me a shortlist of candidates. I mean really good candidates at a reasonable price.
That’s great James! Appreciate the comment and Happy Holiday’s to you
Kevin Ocasio recently posted…Your Go To List of Outsourcing Resources!
Outsourcing is a great way to duplicate your efforts, but be careful. I outsource some things, like content generation and social interactions, but I’m very careful of who I use and I proof ALL content before adding it for one of my clients. For example, if you tell your content writer you need 100 articles of at least 250 words, and all of them are between 250 and 255, pointing to the same domain, you risk the search engine ignoring them. So then you just paid for content that is not helping you at all.
Bill Gelwick recently posted…Page Rank – Are YOU Missing Out?
Great point Bill! Outsourcing is great, but you have to keep on top of the work your outsourcers are doing for sure. Otherwise, like you said, you’ll basically end up paying for nothing. Thanks for stopping by and commenting
Kevin Ocasio recently posted…Social Marketing Resources To Get You More Twitter Followers, Retweets, Likes And +1′s
Yeah. Outsourcing is really appealing. It can save you time and effort plus all the hassles in worrying. You just have to make sure you are getting the right outsourcing partner.