Issue #1003 – Outsourcing – Is it for you?
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Action Today: Outsourcing – Is it for you?
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Friday October 7th, 2011: Issue #1003
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Published by Trevor Greenfield. I always welcome your comments.
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Hi,
You’ll have noticed that a lot of people are talking about
outsourcing today. Not surprisingly I probably get as many
questions about outsourcing as I do for any other subject.
So let’s begin today’s topic with looking at exactly what
outsourcing is. You may think everybody knows what it is and an
explanation is unnecessary but there’s a lot of misunderstanding
about what outsourcing is that I’d like to clear up.
You may think that getting articles written for you is
outsourcing but I call that out-tasking. You’re taking one of the
tasks that you need to get done and finding a supplier to do it.
This concept applies to any single task that you need to
accomplish in your business. We’re just finding a freelance
worker to do the job for us.
For me, outsourcing starts when you begin to create long-term
relationships with workers who become an essential part of your
business. They become members of staff who happen to work from
home but are none-the-less key people in your business.
That’s a very different definition than the one most people apply
to outsourcing. Having sorted that out, what difference does that
make anyway?
You can get very good work done on Fiverr.com, I use that service
a lot and have been very pleased with it. The one problem I have
had though is that when you get a great job done it’s difficult
to build a long-term relationship with that person. The Fiverr
rules forbid you from contacting them outside of Fiverr so if you
have a job that you need doing that your Fiverr contact will be
happy to do but not for $5, it becomes complicated to get it
done.
You have to place several $5 orders to make up the total and mess
around quite a lot. It would be a lot easier if you could just
deal direct. That’s when taking on that person for all of your
graphics work, or all of your content writing or whatever you
used them for comes into its own. What’s more over time that
person learns your processes, your way of working, what you tend
to like and dislike etc. and you begin to get more better quality
work.
Is outsourcing for you?
So is outsourcing for you and when should you start? To answer
that we need to talk about how you view what you are doing
online. Are you involved in a back bedroom hobby (which most
people online are – sadly) or are building a business that will
free you to do what you like, when you like?
If you are still treating this like a hobby, then you’ll probably
only ever out-task your work and probably never reach that stage
of freedom that you dream of. Sorry if that sounds harsh but it’s
true. Rich Shefren explains how the truth finally hit him when he
first got online and found himself swamped with work like we all
have in his Internet Business Manifesto. You can get a free copy
at http://www.strategicprofits.com/get-the-manifesto/ (not an
affiliate link).
He created a business organization chart where he listed all of
the positions that his organization needed to have to get the job
done. He started with the CEO at the top, that was him. Then
below the CEO he created positions for VP Marketing – him, VP
development – him, VP Product creation – him etc you get the
picture. Then below that level he created people within each
department and against all of the positions in the organization
was, you’ve guessed it – him.
How on earth can any organization survive let alone grow with
just one person doing all of the dozens of tasks that need to be
done. It’s impossible. No wonder we feel overwhelmed.
So if your goal is to build a business that is going to provide
you with the lifestyle and freedom you desire – the ‘Internet
Lifestyle’, then you have to outsource at some point.
When do you do that? As soon as you can afford it. If you are
still doing a day job while building your business, use some of
your day job income to fund an outsource worker. If you feel that
you can’t afford to do that, how many $37, $47 and more ebooks,
wordpress theme bundles, blog creation softwares etc. etc have
you bought this month? If you put a block on buying anything else
that doesn’t directly help you with the part of the business that
your are currently at you could well have enough to pay for
someone to work for you.
As an example, I recently started using a service where I have
someone create me 2 niche sites that are fully researched to have
good income potential, built on a search engine friendly
wordpress theme and hosted for $147. Let me make it clear, this
is not one of those services where you get the same sites as
hundreds of other people. This is a service where I outsource all
of the initial research and site building work to experts who
know this aspect of niche marketing inside out. And this service
is just for me, the sites are unique in niches that I choose.
I only need to take care of the on-going marketing and traffic
generation, which I can outsource elsewhere. Think about it,
These sites only need to make $75 in commissions each and I’m in
profit. It doesn’t take many ebook purchases that won’t help my
business to grow to run up a bill of $147.
You see, if you look at your business in the right way and only
spend money on things that will directly generate an income,
that’s when the growth really takes off.
By the way, if anyone is interested in using the service that I’m
using to get my niche sites created, reply to this email address
and I’ll talk to the people about opening it up.
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I’m looking at moving offices at the moment and that is taking up
a lot more time than I imagined. What are your thoughts about
where you work? I know for a lot of people, working from home,
taking that short commute across the landing to your spare
bedroom has a lot of appeal. I tried it for several years and
honestly found it had a negative effect on my lifestyle. It was
all too easy to just pop into the office to do a bit more work.
What I also found was that gradually over time, because it was so
easy to pop back into the office, the time I spent in there
during the day when I was expecting to work became less
productive. I wasn’t structured enough and found myself being
distracted by reading email, and surfing aimlessly when I should
have been working.
Since moving out of the house into a little serviced office I
have become much more focused. For me now, I work at work and
enjoy my leisure at home. That suits me much better.
What are your views? Do you work well at home or do you get
easily distracted. Do you also find like I did that it is too
easy for your spouse to ask you to do jobs, because ‘your around
the house anyway and this won’t take you long to do’?
Drop me an email about it, I’d like to know your views.
+ + | | | + +
The unusually hot weather is slowly coming to an end as forecast
and real October weather will soon be upon us. I’ve noticed it
getting a lot colder at night these last few nights. I’m a
fanatical tropical fish keeper and breeder and during the summer
I keep lots of tanks out in the conservatory. The warm weather
means that I don’t need to heat the tanks and I control the algae
problem that otherwise exist out there by using ultra-violet
units on the system.
At this time of year I’m always faced with trying to find
somewhere to put my conservatory fish for the winter. What
usually happens is that during the summer with the advantage of
the extra tank space, my stocks grow. Then when winter comes I
struggle to find space to squeeze them all into.
If you’re not a fish keeper you probably don’t know what I’m
talking about and could care less but those of you that are
certainly will. Whatever your hobby might happen to be, they all
have a habit of getting out of hand.
One of the things that I like about living in England is our
history. A good example of this is my local pub which is called
‘The Virgins and Castle’ and as been a pub since some time in
the 1400’s. I must research why it has the name come to think of
it, that must have an interesting story to tell. Anyway the
highlight of the pub is that it sells real ale, something that
some of us, at least, think is very important.
This weekend they are having a beer festival where lots of
different real ales from around the country will be available to
sample and I’m really looking forward to that. So Cheers
everyone!
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The Thought For Today
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What is greatness?
It takes a great man to give sound advice tactfully, but a
greater man to accept it graciously.
Abraham Lincoln was great, not because he lived in a log cabin,
but because he got out of it.
Great principles do not need men and women as much as men and
women need great principles.
Greatness is not found in possessions, power, position or
prestige. It is discovered in goodness, humility, service and
character.
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Action Help
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Consider which of the parts of your business you like most and
which you dislike the most. Having identified the jobs that you
dislike the most, or don’t feel you are the best at, set a goal
to find someone to do that job or the one you dislike the most
and outsource it. Check out sites like replacemyself.com and John
Jonas’s blog and cost out what it would take to replace yourself
in that task.
It can be cheaper than you think and will propel you business
faster than anything else.
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Products and services to streamline your business
recommended by Trevor Greenfield
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Reliable hosting for your niche blogs or website
http://www.nichemarkethosting.co.uk
Unstoppable Affiliate
http://trevor.linktrackr.com/UA
Newbie to Millionaire
http://trevor.linktrackr.com/newbie
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Contact details
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Trevor Greenfield, Queens Rd, Kenilworth, Warwickshire,CV8 1JS,
UK.
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