The Curse Of Too Many Options and The Blessing Of Outsourcing

Sunday morning and I am cursed by options, not to mention two small children who cannot decide what they want to do.

Do we go to the Gulliver Park in Valencia?
Do we return to the train park in Ribarroja?
Should we see if there is anything interesting around the show jumping in Valencia near the science park?
Do we just walk down to the local park and play with a frisbee, baseball bat and ball and go on the swings and things?

and oh so much more.

This is reflected in our business life too. There are so many things that can be done and in many cases need to be done concurrently that sometimes it is hard to focus on what needs to be done and how the eventual goal will be reached. What would give a greater return on investment even though it may be boring and repetitive. This is why I have my outsource team. Jobs that I know need doing, directory submissions, backlinks, rewriting of articles, spinning articles, searching out domains to buy and a whole lot more are outsourced so that I can concentrate on the more income producing short term stuff like taking clients out to property, promoting products I truly believe in, researching websites before again outsourcing the real set up with plugins, directory submissions etc…

Without an outsourcing team I truly believe that it is impossible to be totally effective within your business. However many people say that it is not feasible for them to outsource because of the cost. Let me give you a few facts and opinions.

1) How much is your time worth? My time is worth between $50 and $100 per hour as a consultant, depending on the job. A lot of the repetitive jobs can take up a lot of time as they are labour intensive yet required. Those jobs can be outsourced for between $1-$5 per hour. If I am able to free up time that would otherwise be used doing the boring yet necessary parts of my life I earn more on the bottom line.

2) There are 24 hours in a day, fact. With an outhouse team there can easily be 72 hours in a day or more. As long as you are earning a good living your outsourcing should grow and there should be a return on that investment i a dollar, euro or pound value that the outsource team are producing in their work. If you cannot measure it then how do you know what they are producing.

3) Controlling your outsource team. There are services such as oDesk where not only can you outsource jobs but also follow how the job is being done in real time. Basecamp is another excellent tool for doing this. I find that I often make mistakes with my team but that usually the mistakes are my fault through not giving enough guidance as to how to do the job correctly. I use Screenflow to record videos of me doing the job once and then tell the outsourcer to follow and learn the video so that they can repeat the actions ad nauseum. Video is the most fantastic way of teaching them.

Look out soon for our video course on controlling an outsource team and how to give correct instructions. We will talk you through making videos using Screenflow, and how to give concise instructions to your team and we will also give you the opportunity to use our team to get your outsourcing up and running.

Related Reading

1) Authenticity On and Offline

2) Spain Goes Against The Grain Again

3) Five Business Books You Should Read

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• Checklist for IT Outsourcing (business-project-management.suite101.com)
• When and Why should you outsource services? (startups.com)

Originally posted 2010-05-09 22:23:53. Republished by Blog Post Promoter