In this episode James Mackay shares the top 3 things outsourcers need to do to make the process flow. Check out http://outsourcing101course.com to sign up for The Free Outsourcing 101 Course that includes video tutorials and much more!

Last time we talked about how to handle problem freelancers. In this episode I am going to talk about the three most important things an outsourcer needs to do to ensure the process is effective and efficient.

Today we’re going to discuss:

I talk with may people who tell me they just don’t feel confident handing their life’s work over to a total stranger to work on. It’s understandable on one level, isn’t it? Sometimes people work on things for so long that they treat the project almost as a child; they become very defensive and protective of whatever it happens to be.

Well, I have some bad news. These people are really going to struggle getting the most out of outsourcing. If you have been with me since episode one, you might remember how we discussed one of the singularly most important benefits of outsourcing some of your work: It allows you to effectively “buy time”.

I’ll recap it very quickly: if you have a task that might take you 5 hours to complete, you could outsource the job to someone else. If it costs you $100 then you have effectively bought 5 hours that you can put towards lying under a coconut tree, or possibly put the time towards working on another aspect of your business or project. See how it works?

But if you are the kind of person who can’t bring your self to let go, then what’s going to happen is this:

That’s an example of how not to use a VA to be more efficient. Sure, it’s important to make sure the VA does the work you’re hoping for and it’s important to be keep your information secure. But just remember – you should be setting clear outlines and expectations before the job so you shouldn’t need to be hovering all day.

As for security – you can ask an international freelancer to sign a non disclosure agreement or any other type of contract but unless you’re running a multi national corporation, you won’t have the resources to chase it up through an international court. I won’t say the contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, but you get the idea.

And now, a little word about training.

I’d like to use another example here. This is a true story. A friend of mine, who will remain nameless because he promised to listen to this course and I don’t want to embarrass him, was in charge of sending out invoices for his company. It was a company offering a high-end subscription service, so there were about 20 customers paying exactly the same amount each week.

Doing the invoicing should have been automatic but it wasn’t. So he had to go into Excel – yes, that’s what they used for their invoicing – punch in the details of each customer, update the details and create a PDF invoice. It took about 3 minutes for each one, so an hour in total. Let’s say his time is worth $50 an hour.

That means:

What could you do with $2,500 a year?

Now, imagine this alternative scenario:

Now Josh, ooops, I mean this guy, had an advantage because he didn’t need to find a good VA because I gave him one. But you can see how much time and effort he says over the year – at least $2,000!

This brings up the matter of mindset. You need to get over the feeling that you have to do everything yourself. It’s just not true. Once you break through the mindset life will become easier.

I understand the mindset situation can set you back for 2 reasons:

 These are decisions that you, as the future outsourcer, need to make.

And that’s all I have for today’s episode. We spoke about the three important things outsourcers need to address when using freelance workers – security, training and mindset. It’s now up to you to implement them as you see fit.

Don’t forget, as always, to drop by outsourcing101course.com to pick up your freebie. You can get to all our podcast episodes by simply typing in outsourcing101course.com forward slash the episode number where we have transcriptions and a different freebie each week.

The freebie for this week is a worksheet where you can calculate how much training you can give a Virtual Assistant before it no longer becomes worth the money. Very interesting way to see if you are using your time appropriately.

As always, I thank you for taking the time to listen to the podcast. A lot of effort goes into producing the episodes and the follow up website so I really do appreciate you taking the time to drop by and listen. If you are enjoying the podcast please subscribe and maybe leave a review. We are trying to spread the word of outsourcing far an wide and leaving a review or rating helps us spread the word.

Drop by for the upcoming episodes because I cover the most common questions I am asked about outsourcing, and the big one: how to manage your freelance workers.