Outsourcing is recognized as one of the modern day business miracles. I believe that outsourcing is an art every single businessman must understand.
Today company owners; like you and I, take on so multiple responsibilities. Outsourcing provides an opportunity for us to get our activities done in a lesser time span.
I know the word itself seems complicated but no worries we'll be going over the 10 steps to outsource your business.
Let’s start with number one shall we?
1. Define
The first thing you have to do is define which tasks you will be outsourcing. Identify what you do and what you don't like doing. Obviously, you’ll have to outsource the latter. Let’s face it, if you don't like doing them now, much more in the future right? Outsourcing is an option one can take to get those projects completed.
Next, get a sheet of paper and split it into the 4 categories below:
Start with the first line then little by little fill up the succeeding lines. Before you go on to the fourth column, start crossing things off from the second line. Then select a few which you can transfer to the "Delegate" line. This technique also arranges your responsibilities from the most productive down to the least productive.
This table will develop as you move across it; before you know it your job will be more convenient since the tasks have been designated. Although you might not be able to outsource particular segments of your business immediately, that shouldn't be a problem. These things just need time.
2. Decide
Second, create a priority list for the jobs you plan to outsource. Select at least one of them which you feel pretty comfortable of assigning right away. Then outline the action steps that you would take and then break them down simpler terms. This will enable your outsourced employees to follow along exactly the way you want them to.
So, there’s also the question of if it’s a technical task and you don’t know how to do it very well, then just give them information and the results that you’re looking for from that particular task and they’ll handle it from there.
3. Identify
The third step is identifying the qualifications and main responsibilities of your outsourced workers. Remember, you'll only get your preferred candidate if you determine precisely what you need.
Use the following questions if necessary:
Budget is also crucial, if you don’t have the right budget and they ask for a lot more money that you have then you’re wasting your time.
4. Post Your Job
Now, upload your job online. Well, you have several options on where to upload these outsourcing job posts. So you have to create a document which outlines all the qualities you need from an employee. Remember to avoid creating generic posts; stick to “specific and concise”.
5. Seek
Next step, seek. This is when you begin hunting for the applicants that match your qualifications. You'll get a long list of job seekers and you might think of taking on the first applicant because that's definitely less demanding. Then again, it's recommended that you refer to your job descriptions just to guarantee that everybody matches it.
Price is also essential. You'll get a diversity of prices. Therefore, be thorough, find out why these people demand those rates and where it is in your budget. Given they charge too high, Pinpoint the cause for this. If its way too low, is the amount of quality level of the job sacrificed?
6. Sorting across the Applications
Next stage, limit your list of applicants. Check out their resumes for past employers. Analyze if the work they’ve done for other companies are up to par. Use the application process as an evaluation tactic.
7. Interview
After sorting through your list of applicants, it's time for the interview process. Interviewing outsourced applicants is just like any other interview. Yet the real question is; how do you interview correctly? Well, there are various techniques for this. First of all, build up your interview questions ahead of time. If you have to, search online for references.
Second, measure their skills in connection to the projects you will be assigning to them. Give them a scale to use when they answer, a degree of 1-10 for instance. "Okay" isn't sufficient.
If you’re hiring graphics artists, try to examine their portfolios. Is that the kind of work you would expect to represent your business?
One of the things I do like to do as well is to make sure that the people I hire can in fact think for independently. Nowadays, common sense isn't at all that common. So it's important to ask queries and evaluate how they answer.
8. Trial Period
Next, try them out. I do this often. I usually provide them with a task however it's incomplete. I want to see if they can fill up the gaps by themselves. They must solve the problems that develop without asking me what I want them to do. That's the type of result I need.
For me; that’s a tried and tested technique. We all know that the online world plays host to individuals who falsify their resumes. Therefore, you need to be careful. Validate everything you can.
9. Training
Training is the ninth step. Utilize screen capture programs if you have specifics obligations for your employees. This technique will help you train them according to your preferences. You can also use tools like DropBox for file sharing. For web based data storage on the otehr hand, you can use Googledocs. No worries, GoogleDocs is free.
10. Let Go!
Last step, let go. Let them go and do the work. Don’t micromanage or else you’ll find that they won’t do their work properly.
Eric Sonboone is an expert in internet marketing outsourcing, specifically graphic design outsourcing. He had been in the internet marketing business for 5 years devising effective internet marketing strategies to different companies worldwide.