In my last newsletter, where I discussed the benefits of outsourcing tasks I received a lot of requests from people wanting to know about web sites where they could find suitable people to outsource to. I discussed the benefits of outsourcing tasks you are not particularly good at or that are of low value to other people who more are more talented in those areas. In doing this you can grow your business more quickly and make more money.

Now I don’t pretend that this is an exhaustive list, but these are people or sources that I have either tried or have heard good things about.

I’ll start with tasks that I tend to write about and then move to other tasks that may be less common.

Perhaps the best general sites where you can find many different kinds of service providers are:

• www.elance.com
• www.rentacoder.com
• www.guru.com

Some of the services available form these sites, include virtual assistants, web site design and development, programming, copywriting, graphic design, training design and ghost writing.

With the emergence of Web 2.0 I believe that blogging and podcasting will be very important. If you are planning on doing any of this, here are some sites that may be helpful:

• www.uniqueblogdesigns.com
• http://rockinthemes.com
• www.relativitycorp.com
• www.marketingbreakhroughs.com

For video creation and submission try:

• www.mediastreams.com
• http://turnhere.com
• www.tubemogul.com

If you are looking for people to write articles, these ones in addition to the 3 in the first section offer a lot of choices:

• www.Ifreelance.com
• www.scriptlance.com
• www.getafreelancer.com
• www.need-an-article.com
• www.submitcomfort.com

While we are talking about having articles written, don’t forget that they have to be submitted to the thousands of sites on the web. This job can be made easier with article submission software. Some useful products and services include:

• www.articlesubmitterpro.com
• Unique Article Wizard
• Article Post Robot
• www.thevoiceofcopy.com/article_submission.html

If you need help with marketing services, try:

• www.jvptechnology.com
• www.outsourcingto.us
• www.online-internet-marketing-services.com

For pay per click advertising start with:

• www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/

Once you understand it you can outsource the management of your pay per click campaigns to:

• www.getfoundnow.com
• www.searchengine-optimization.net
• www.redflymarketing.com
• www.weboptimiser.com

No business should be without PR and here are a few places where you can get the help you need:

• www.spreadthenews.com
• www.webresearchservices.com
• www.the-project-managers.com
• www.prleads.com

These sites are just a handful and represent the tip of the iceberg. There are literally thousands more, but they are a starting point and if you start with these, you’ll begin to find more.

“To be nobody but yourself in a world, which is doing its best night and day to make you like everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”

– E.E. Cummings, American poet

“Why Even The Smallest Business Can’t Avoid Outsourcing.”

So your business is running, you’ve read lots of books, you’ve done a bunch of courses and you have no intention of being one of the 85% that don’t make it. 

After a while it occurs to you that your business is not going where you need it to. You may be feeling frustrated and there seems to be a never ending stream of tasks to get done. 

You are working harder and harder, but don’t really see the progress you would have hoped for. So what do you do? You try to work even harder, often trying to do everything yourself. 

Generally speaking, this results in tasks being done at below optimum levels, employees who never get the chance to develop as well as burn out for the business owner. 

More importantly, it is one of the biggest barriers to growth. No one can succeed on their own. Everyone who succeeds does so with the help of others. 

At this stage a lot of business owners are confused. They are running the business and they know that they have to be the brain, but many don’t realize that it doesn’t have to be you doing all those tedious tasks. 

Every successful business has a hierarchy in which tasks get delegated down from one level to the next. But if you are in a small or one person business don’t think for one minute you have to be doing all the work. 

In fact if you are smart about delegating, this should free you up to do the things that make money, while others who earn less than you, do the tasks that take you away from making money and growing the business. Don’t think of paying someone else to do menial tasks or jobs you are not great at or don’t like doing as an expense, think of it as an investment in your growth. 

These people need not be employees. In fact I’d recommend against hiring employees in the early stage. It’s often much more cost effective to outsource these tasks to skilled specialists and hire them on an as needed basis. 

Growing a business is not easy, but by outsourcing, you can make it a lot easier. 

You know you should be working on your business more than in your business and outsourcing is one of the ways you get to do this. If you do a good job of outsourcing, you’ll find that you’ll work less and make more money. 

I always find that when I delegate clearly defined tasks to good people, I make more money. So can you!

It’s really interesting, if you search on the web for almost any business activity, there are people to whom you can outsource. You probably already outsource your accounting and legal work, so it’s just a matter of thinking a little differently and looking for tasks that can be outsourced. Here are some ideas:

• Website creation
• Blog creation
• Article writing
• Copy writing
• Article submissions
• Video creation
• Video submission
• Pay per click management
• Publicity and PR
• Link building to social media and other web sites
• Sales and marketing to affiliates and JV partners
• Cold calls to telemarketers
• Office work to virtual assistants

There are literally dozens of sites that do this kind of work. Of course you have to do your home work and be clear about what you want and expect, but if you do, you’ll find it a rewarding experience.

You’ll get things done that otherwise might have fallen through the cracks, you’ll often get a far better job than if you did it yourself or in house and you’ll probably pay for it out of the increases in sales you’ll get because you now can focus more time and attention on these important tasks.

To add value for your clients, follow these four principles:

1. Clients always have hidden personal expectations that might be unrelated to business objectives…

This means that you should focus as much on the qualitative, personal aspects of your relationship with clients as you do on achieving stated goals. Recognize these aspects even when the client cannot or will not express them. Sometimes there are unknown client expectations. When this happens, take a broad focus on improving your client’s situation not only in ways they have requested, but also in ways they haven’t even expressed.

2. Consider the expectations of all ‘clients’…

Your ‘client,’ in the broadest sense, is far more than the person who hired you. It could include a more senior executive you’ve never even met, a young up-and-coming manager who is part of a team with whom you’re working. Or it could be other stakeholders such as the owner’s spouse or grown children.

3. Improve your clients’ condition, don’t just meet expectations…

Let’s assume that as a consultant, you have been asked to design and facilitate a quarterly strategy session with the senior management team. In between these sessions, however, you have added significant value, including: introducing your client to a potential strategic partner; coaching two senior executives on their managerial style; and helping the CEO prepare her year-end evaluation for her board of directors. These value-added activities were not part of the client’s stated—or even hidden—expectations for this assignment. Yet if you asked the CEO about the value of your work, she would cite these latter contributions as being just as important as the workshops formally contracted for.

4. Tell your client, tactfully, about how you’ve helped…

If you’ve been married or had a partner for some time, that individual probably does things for you that you take for granted. The same thing happens in professional-client relationships. Although in a personal relationship it’s not always appropriate to detail one party’s contribution, it is often necessary to do so in a business relationship. Some clients are great at recognizing your value, but others are so preoccupied with running their businesses that they don’t really add it all up. Don’t be shy about telling your clients what you’ve done for them. Not only must you satisfy your clients, you must help them understand how you have helped them.

There are two approaches to highlighting the value you have delivered: First, you can periodically sit down and review your performance with your client. Offer and solicit comments about your contributions as well as about what you could do better.

Second, you can ask for feedback about your contributions from people within your client’s organization. Remember, third-party endorsements are far more powerful than anything we say about ourselves. So when a manager in your client’s organization tells you how much she enjoys working with you or expresses gratitude for your contributions. encourage her to tell that directly to your client. When an executive hears this from one of his or her managers, it is very powerful.

If you dig down into almost any business growth problem, you nearly always find something relating to a lack of new customers or insufficient sales at the root!

Sometimes you are not doing enough marketing, sometimes your marketing isn’t working the way you would like; maybe the people you reach just don’t seem interested and sometimes you just don’t know how to reach the people you need to reach.

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