Just imagine being on vacation and not having to worry about your business.
I’m on the beach right now taking a few minutes to write this blog post. It has been the perfect vacation with total relaxation, reflection and a recharging of the batteries. I encourage you to take a look at the concept of a leveraged business model where you can truly earn beach money! Yes, you can live your ultimate dream lifestyle.
And, this is why I want to talk to you about outsourcing in this weeks article.
Outsourcing has been an accepted part of modern business for a pretty long time now. But Tim Ferris turned outsourcing upside down with the release of The 4-Hour Work Week by showing just how far you can take outsourcing – my favourite example is when Tim outsourced his dating to a VA (Virtual Assistant), proving that even lifestyle tasks can be outsourced if you wish.
When you’re working to create your dream lifestyle outsourcing simply has to play a major part in it. The lifestyle you want requires as little input from you as possible and effective outsourcing means that you will be able to just switch off and enjoy your life instead of constantly fretting over your business.
Why aren’t you outsourcing already? The answer to this for most people is fear – fear that the person you outsource work to could ruin you or your business. The reality is the exact opposite – your VAs or outsourced staff will be doing their very best to keep you happy because in turn you’re paying their wages which pays for their food, light, heat, etc., or in other words you’re fulfilling their physiological needs.
What to Outsource
The reality is that you can outsource pretty much anything you can think of, for both your business and personal life. The most common tasks that are sent to outsourcers are:
- Checking and replying to email
- Bookkeeping
- Date entry
- Content creation
- Social networking
- Making or taking phone calls
- Website or blog design
- Website or blog maintenance
- Search engine optimization/link building
- Software/application development
When you’re working in network marketing or any other business outsourcing is incredibly valid – it can change how you play that game completely. An outsourcer can run an article marketing campaign for you, design your blog, create sales and marketing reports for you, write blog posts and then bookmark them for you or run searches for people in your area for local networking events or even for companies or people who might be directly interested in your offer.
Where to Find Good Freelance Providers
When you first start off with outsourcing you’re probably going to be pretty cautious and start out with small tasks and maybe even just once off tasks. When you’re getting your feet wet you can start by outsourcing some work to VAs on sites like Elance.com, VWorker.com and Guru.com. This provides you with the opportunity to delegate small tasks and get used to how everything works.
Then as your confidence and experience in outsourcing grows you should start looking at hiring full-time outsourced staff. I have hired virtual assistants in the Philippines and they handle my social media posting, as well a book editing expert.
Remember this is all part of systemizing your business and if your business processes are documented properly all your outsourced staff need to do is follow each step that you’ve given them.
Outsourcing frees up my time so I can focus on the priorities of my business and simply makes my life easier. If you’d like to chat about how to go about outsourcing, feel free to contact me for a telephone meeting. I can also put you in touch with my efficient and amazing personal assistant who does various outsourcing tasks for me. She always makes time for people I refer to her.
In the meantime, make every effort possible to create leverage in your business so you can live your beach money lifestyle!