Hiring Freelancers
If it's worth more than you can hire someone for to do what you're doing, you need to hire someone and outsource that "role". Another reason to hire freelancers is to bring in skills you don't have yourself - maybe web design, or graphic design, or copywriting, or bookkeeping. Hiring a freelancer can expand the capabilities and capacity of your organization, while giving you flexibility to scale up and down according to your needs (and cash flow).
Is it going to cost you money? Of course, at first. But how much more money can you make with that available time? Or better yet, hire freelancers to assist your sales and marketing in ways that will have a quick return and get your outsourcing program to pay for itself!
It also may not cost as much as you think. While you may first think of offshore outsourcing for software development or call centers by large corporations, the advent of low-cost telecommunications and web conferencing have opened up a world full of freelancers to even the smallest business. And in countries like India, China and Romania, highly skilled workers, fluent in English, can be had for a fraction of U.S. or Western European pay rates. For some tasks, you can hire a Ph.D. from India for about the U.S. minimum wage.
And in case you start having pangs of guilt about sending that work overseas instead of to local workers... just go take some of that extra money you're making and celebrate with a pedicure at the local spa or a fancy dinner at your favorite restaurant. You'll feel better.
Here are some more resources to help:
Comments
You definitely save money using freelancers. Local freelancers are often cheaper as they have fewer overheads and are sometimes moonlighting. We have hundreds of freelance designers using our website and many of them have full-time jobs already. Offshore freelancers will save you more money again.
Alec
Director
DesignBay