At some point in your freelance business, you may realize you need to begin outsourcing. It kind of looks like holding your head in your hands feeling frustrated because you’re exhausted from doing everything yourself. It could also look like realizing you can continue to grow your revenue if you simply had more time.
Unfortunately, every time you try to outsource you have the same old predicament. In order to make more money you need to outsource, but in order to outsource you need to make more money. Here’s how you can start to outsource on a budget.
Only outsource the most important thing right now.
While I now have a couple of team members and am looking to expand, it wasn’t always this way. I did everything by myself for a long time. When I did finally start to outsource, I started with what was most important at the time – administrative work. As time went on I started layering in other team members depending on what was needed as my business grew.
Take a look at your business and determine where you may need the most help right now. Use this to determine what kind of team members you can start layering in.
Outsource what you hate.
I hate email and invoicing. Fortunately, there are tools available to streamline the invoicing process. Unfortunately, no such thing really exists for email. Even automated email marketing systems require work. That’s why one of the first things I ever outsourced was email management.
Once I started outsourcing everything I hated, I had newfound time I could use to focus on making more money. Over time, that’s exactly what started to occur. When I had more money coming in I could then reinvest some of it back into the business by expanding the team.
Start small.
It can be scary to outsource when you are on a tight budget. I get it because I’ve been there.
The best thing you can do here is to start small. Perhaps you hire someone from Upwork to help with backend stuff. Maybe you hire someone to make Pinterest images for your blog off of Fiverr.
The point is there are plenty of areas where you can start small without it having to cost an arm and a leg. Once you have them the same concept applies, use this newfound time to make more money.
Outsource tasks that directly affect your bottom line.
This is the stage of outsourcing I am in right now, and it could be a good place when you want to outsource on a budget. At this stage in the game, I need help with uploading client work onto WordPress and SEO research – these two things directly affect my bottom line because they are a part of client work and are currently taking up a whole lot of my time. If someone else handles these two things, I can easily take on more clients and make more money.
Final Thoughts
You can outsource on a budget and build your team slowly over time. The internet has made it easier than ever to do so, and if you’re methodical about what you outsource (and when) you’ll be able to layer stuff in while still growing your revenue.
