There’s one question I want you to answer today. The answer might not be one you’d like, but it could be a huge turnaround in your business:

What is your hourly rate?

For example, if you sell products and services online, calculate how much your time is worth. If you’re worth your salt, your time could be worth in the 3 figures.

The point is that you have a hourly rate, and it should determine what you do in your business and what you should outsource.

For example, if you’re stuck doing customer support, outsource it to a virtual assistant. It can get done quicker and cheaper than if you did it yourself.

If your time is worth 100 pounds and you just spend 3 hours doing customer support, you could have just wasted money. Because you could have gotten someone to do it for much less than that, so you can concentrate on the tasks that make you money.

Further, if you mow your own lawn, you need to hire someone to do it for you. You can easily get someone to do it for way less than your current hourly rate.

It’s all about leveraging time and resources. The savvy entrepreneur will recognize the valuable tasks (and their hourly rate) and delegate tasks that don’t match his/her hourly rate.

Yet many beginning marketers do everything themselves. They don’t realize the value of leveraging time and resources so they can concentrate on the money-producing tasks.

What are these tasks? They could be writing copy for your next promotion, working on the next joint venture deal, or preparing for a sales webinar. This is the stuff that’s going to make you money.

Not customer support. While necessary, there are too many marketers who do their own customer support. Of course, this shoudn’t be neglected, but it can easily be outsourced to someone who can do it for way cheaper than your hourly rate.

So the next time you start working on your business, ask yourself if what I’m doing is worth my current hourly rate. You’ll find many tasks that you could delegate, allowing you to concentrate on moneymaking tasks that could boost your hourly rate even more.

Live, Love and Laugh!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Internet Marketing Academy

Many marketers get into the erroneous thinking that they have to do everything themselves. That they have to create the website, write the copy, submit all those articles, and learn Photoshop.

This cannot be further from the truth!

Believe it or not you can outsource the most daunting tasks of your business to an outsourcer and let them take care of it for you. And you can get quality work for pretty cheap, that is, unless you know the following 5 outsourcing secrets.

1) Take A Look At Their Portfolio

First thing first, you need to take a look at what they’ve done for other people in the past. There are a lot of providers who have a track record of creating what you’re looking for, whether it’s graphic design, copywriting, or Google Adwords.

Sure you can take a chance on a beginner who doesn’t have any experience. But there are plenty of outsourcers to choose from and you can afford to be picky.

2) Look For Someone Who Answers Your Ad Personally

Many outsourcers will cut and paste a generic message responding to your post. It usually says something generic like, “Our team is dedicated to doing anything for you.” or something similar that makes it obvious they didn’t read your wanted ad.

You’ll want to look for the outsourcers who write a customized response that’s written just for you. They tailored your response for what you’re asking for in the job posting.

These are the people you want to check out–not the ones who cut and paste the same message, hoping someone bites.

3) Take a Look At Feedback They’ve Received

Some sites have a feedback rating system that allows providers and employers to leave feedback. Make sure you check out their feedback before hiring them. If they have a history of not finishing work or understanding the scope of what the client wants, then you should pass over them.

No questions asked.

4) Have Them Do A Small Task To Prove Their Competence

If you’re looking to hire someone, ask them to perform a small task for you before you hire them.

For example, you can ask them to install a WordPress blog or write a blog post so you can see if they’re know what they’re doing if the job involved working with WordPress. This will also weed out other providers who aren’t willing to do a little more to get the job.

The ones who’ll do a small task that’s relevant to what you’re hiring them for will turn out to be the best workers for you.

5) Have A Backup Plan

Let’s say you’re preparing for a launch and your programmers skips town on you and doesn’t finish the work you hired them to do. You’ve lined up people who are ready to promote for you on the launch date, but now that’s in jeopardy since your programmer left you.

Always have a backup plan in place so your project won’t be seriously delayed. For example, you can have another programmer waiting to assist you if one doesn’t work out.

The worst thing you want to have in business is ONE of anything. Because if you lose that one thing, your business goes down the tubes. Unfortunately with outsourcing there is a chance a outsourcer will not finish the work and you need to be prepared.

Outsourcing is your ticket to doing less and making more money. Follow these 5 steps when hiring your next outsourcer and your life will be a lot easier!

Live, Love, and Learn!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Internet Marketing Academy