Up until about 5 years ago it was only big corporations that outsourced their labour abroad. The idea that small business owners and freelancers could do something like this was unheard of.
Fast forward to 2011 and we live in a super connected world where, for the first time, services like oDesk, Elance and asksunday.com mean it’s possible for anyone to start outsourcing some of the routine and low-skill work in their business to people abroad.
I first delved into the weird world of outsourcing about a month ago and I’m back with a practical guide which will teach you exactly how to hire talented people over the internet for as little as £1 an hour.
Step 1 – What to outsource?
You’ll find people with just about any skill set you can imagine – whether it’s general admin, customer service, telesales, illustrators or computer programmers.
(Bear in mind that you’ll have to pay more per hour for someone who’s an experienced computer programmer than for someone who can just do copy and pasting though.)
Step 1 is to have a think about what areas of your business you could outsource. Likely candidates are low-skill tasks that suck up your time and areas where there’s skills gaps in your team.
Here’s a very quick list I put together to give you some inspiration
- Diary management
- Book keeping
- Data entry
- Research
- Graphic design
- SEO Link building
- Managing your social media communities
- Proof reading and editing
- Content writing
I decided to get some help with my social media marketing. Specifically some of the more routine things I do on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
Step 2 – How to find outsourcers
I used oDesk and I’d recommend it to anyone else as a good place to start. But there’s plenty of other options out there.
There are 3 main models…
- Advertise your project and a community of outsourcers place bids on it. You choose who you want and pay them on an hourly basis for work completed
- Pay a monthly subscription and get an on call assistant who you can contact for help in real time
Examples: AskSunday
- Specialist communities of programmers, designers or other creative experts who you post a project brief to. They come back with project proposals, you pick the winner and pay them on completion of the project.
Examples: 99designs, mediapiston
Step 3 – Using oDesk: A step by step guide
If you’re following this guide you should use oDesk to begin with.
The process for finding and hiring someone goes like this…
- Make an account and post a job on oDesk
- Set the advert as public to attract applicants from across oDesk
- Search for outsourcers (see ‘who to hire’ in Part 2) and invite them to apply for your job too
- Review portfolios and pick the best applicants for quick interviews over Skype
- After interviews negotiate rates via email
- Ask 3-10 of your applicants to do a sample 1hr project for you (paid of course – set a small budget for this step)
- Pick the applicant who performed best and give them further work to do
- Consider investing some time in training your best outsourcer
- Pay them small bonuses or incrementally increase rates to keep them motivated
Join me for Part 2 of the Outsource Your Marketing for £1 an Hour Guide in the next blog post.
I’ll be covering…
Step 4 – Who to Hire
Step 5 – How Much to Pay
Step 6 – How to Manage Your Workers
… and much more
If you want to get an email reminding you when Part 2 gets released just click the subscribe link here (You can unsubscribe anytime you like and I won’t ever share your email address. Scouts honour.)
See you next time…
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