Let’s be candid – You can discover these outsourcing secrets the easy way or the hard way, but you’re going to find this out sooner or later.
The hard way is the way most marketers do it. They make mistakes when outsourcing, lose time and money and then learn from their mistakes.
I propose we cut out all that nonsense and I’ll tell you what you need to know here and now. Ready?
1: Outsource customer service as soon as humanly possible.
The reason why: If you don’t, you’ll waste half of each day doing things like answering support tickets, changing email addresses for members who changed their email address (yes, that is a thing) issuing refunds, answering questions and so forth. That is the time you could spend doing something else like… let’s see… wait, I know – MAKING MONEY. Your focus should be on building your business, not answering support tickets (“When I log in, I see a funny thing at the top that says I’m logged in… is that what it’s supposed to say?”) I’m not kidding, that is a real support ticket I once received. Another reason why: Your virtual assistant who is handling your support can shield you from the negative ninnies. What’s a “negative ninny,” you ask? It’s that person who buys your product and then rants on for six pages on how awful your product is, how terrible you are, and so forth. You don’t need to hear that stuff. Just tell your V.A. to handle it for you without ever telling you about it. (In this case, refunding the person and removing them from every list is all that’s required.) And by the way, if you think that your products will be so great, everyone will love them, well then I know you haven’t created any products yet. I don’t care if you invent the method for turning pixels into gold, someone will hate it. And that’s okay, as long as you don’t have to hear about it.
2: Outsource the things that bring you profit FIRST.
So let’s say you want to outsource website building, content creation, product creation, sales writing, software creation, and so forth.
Ask yourself this question: What’s going to bring me the fastest return on my money? That’s the project to outsource first. Maybe you pay someone to create a product for you, and then you turn around and sell that product to hundreds of buyers. BOOM! You’ve just made your money back and much more. But what if you don’t have any customers yet? And no list? Then maybe you need to outsource the building of your squeeze page so you can start list building so you can start selling stuff to your list. Whatever will put you in profit first is the thing you need to outsource first. This way, you’re not coming out of pocket by thousands and thousands of dollars without seeing a return.
3: Pay outsources based on the JOB, not by an hourly rate.
You want to know going in what it’s going to cost you to get a specific job done. And a true professional will be able to tell you exactly what it will cost.
A lot of marketers make the mistake of paying by the hour to get a job done. So not only don’t they know what exactly the job will cost – but they also don’t know if the outsourcer is dragging the job out longer to make it pay more. Yes, it’s been known to happen. The exception to the non-hourly rule? Your virtual assistant or customer service person. Because of the nature of their work, in most cases paying them by the hour is the way to go.
4: Outsource work you’re putting off.
Did you create a new product, but you haven’t edited yet? Or maybe you haven’t built the website or made the sales letter. All the time you invested in creating that product is going to waste. Outsource someone to do what you haven’t done, so you can get it online and start making sales as fast as possible.
5: Outsource what you’re not good at, and what you don’t like doing.
Sure, you love building websites, but let’s face it: You haven’t updated your website skills since 2007. Or you know how to write sales copy, but you HATE doing it. Those are things you should be outsourcing. By focusing on your strengths as well as strategically planning your business, and letting other experts handle the rest of the work, you’ll make more money faster than if you try to do everything yourself.
6: Outsource the instrument playing while you conduct the orchestra.
There may come a time very soon when you have a system in place for making money. It could be as simple as creating a product in your niche, write several pieces of content preparing people for the product, record several videos leading up to the launch, and then launching. All of that is a lot of work. You’ve got sales copy to write, JV’s to contact, swipe emails to write, etc. If you can afford it, outsource everything you can so that you can focus on working ON your business instead of IN your business. People who focus on working on their business while outsourcing the lion’s share of the work tend to make 5 to 10 times as much money as those who work in their industry. Sort of a no-brainer.
7: If you haven’t yet outsourced something – what is holding you back?
If you already have an online business, or you’re in the process of building one, and you haven’t yet outsourced something, then odds are it’s because fear is holding you back. Go to Fiverr, Upwork, Craigslist or Warrior and outsource a small job, to see how it works. I promise you’ll be hooked and your business will grow twice as fast.
There is not a seven-figure internet marketer out there who don’t outsource. So isn’t it about time you did, too?
Thanks for reading
Steven Smith
