What to Outsource?

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I want a consensus from you guys, if there is one, on the topic of outsourcing.

When do you decide whether a service should be outsourced?

Is it a pre-planned thing, lets say, for example, you just always outsource certain services and others you work on personally, or do you decide on a client by client manner? Because it is said that most of your time should be spent actually engaging clients, wether by cold calling, email, etc. (80/20 rule), but what services do you generally find yourself actually doing and not outsourcing?
#offline marketing #outsource
  • You should know the process backwards and forwards before you outsource. You should also give the person you outsource to a series of steps to see how they preform. I would say that having an idea you will eventually outsource is fine but you have to be an expert in the process yourself first - otherwise fixing issues or personel could be a problem as you don't want to take their word on anything. That is from my personal experience with outsourcing. It really started with smaller tasks and grew as my confidence in the people I outsourced to grew.
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    • Outsource tasks that are tedious, something you'd rather not do or are not good at or time consuming tasks like ppc campaign set up, research, backlinking etc.

      Your job is to ensure that your system flows. But as the other posts mentioned, yes, have your system/blueprint in place first. This will help to streamline the process better with your outsourcers. Also, have backup outsourcers for your tasks just in case one falls ill or MIA. Things happen, so you want to continue your flow of tasks without the hiccups.

      Your job is to promote and market your biz. Of course, if your funds are limited, you can still do some tasks as well. Some big marketers surprisingly still choose to do some tasks that can be outsourced.
  • I outsource the tasks which are time consuming or where I do not have the required skills. For example when I undertake a web site project for a client, I normally outsource the graphics and some SEO work. I am not skilled in graphics and certain SEO tasks are time consuming.
  • One of the easiest way to work out what to outsource is to:

    - First know how much you are worth per hour
    - Perform a task and see how long on average it takes you to perform said task
    - Look for tools, people, services that can complete the task in less time you completed it - to the same level of quality or greater
    - If you can find a source which can do that AND at a rate that beats yours then that is what you outsource

    So basically:

    If you are worth $80 per hour and it takes you 2 hours per day to perform daily backlinking tasks on all your websites that means you spend $160 per day building backlinks.

    So then you go out and find someone or something that can do daily backlinking at the same level or greater for less than $160 per day.

    If you find an outsourcer who can do this for say $40 then you are making $120 extra per day then you did before (well thats my positive spin on it)

    And in this scenario the end result is - you must outsource it or you are wasting your own time and money.

    After realizing this for myself i began to see what a fool i was trying to do everything myself, so now i outsource pretty much everything that doesn't involve design or htm/css (these are the things i'm good at, fast at, and enjoy doing)

    Actually there is one other thing i would probably never outsource as well - keyword/market research, which is essentially doing your due diligence.
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