So as I've said in other videos, you're much more likely to start a successful online business. If you just concentrate on one core area, one core service, perhaps, that you are providing clients, and then you build from that. And you won't start a successful business. If you continuously move from one shiny objects or one project to another, the latest thing that's caught your eye, so we know about concentrating on that core, but also we know about diversifying from that core or pivoting or going into other interesting areas. And we know about growing the business of course, you've got to grow the business, and you'll want to grow the business. And a lot of business people and entrepreneurs will tell you, the only way to build a business is to create a team to build a team of freelancers or permanent staff.

Work on your business for you. So you have more time to do more important tasks. And this is true, but I have spent a lot of time outsourcing. And that is a skill to outsourcing trust me, there's a right way in a wrong way of doing it. And we'll get onto that soon. But I've got to tell you that it is trial and error a little bit.

So you will find out first you get freelancers doing work for you. And half the time you'll you'll blame the freelancer, you'll say, this guy or this lady just didn't understand when I told them, trust me, it's not their fault, it's yours. You really need to try and develop a skill in describing the tasks and picking the correct person for the correct role. Personally, I found that I have learned how to do this through trial and error. There. are books on it, you can look into it.

But I can't say that the books have taught me anything more than I've learned just using up work or freelancer.com. A lot of people use Fiverr. I haven't used it that much. A lot of people use 99 designs, whatever you're looking for whether it's designers, coders, somebody to do any sort of tasks you want, then do make an effort both to write a good description for the role. If you make it clear that you need a very skilled freelancer, then you will get rid of the bad freelancers who won't apply for the role, have a text file or a swipe file on your computer ready with certain information about your company to make it sounds really professional and you really need this Freelancer to fulfill this important role. That helps a lot.

And the other thing to remember is to pick the correct candidates when you narrow them down for interview. So you look through their Application seriously see what they've written. See if they've answered your questions correctly, see if they've got the right background, see what their reviews have been what other people have said about them in the past, and then hone them down to a few. And then you can get in touch with them, and then hone them down to just the one person who you want to hire to do the task. So I found a lot of success with outsourcing design tasks, I find that's the easiest probably because that's something that I used to do. I have done for so long, 20 years.

So I really know what I'm talking about. I really find it easy to to outsource design because I can do that job if I wanted to. So I'm very good at noticing the problems maybe before they start. I'm also quite good outsourcing web design and writing is another one which I use To find very difficult, but I now outsource that successfully as well, I've got to say a word about price. If you pay more, you'll get better freelancers, that's an obvious thing to say. But when you're just starting out, you tend to want to go for the cheap ones, which may work for the tasks with very little skill involved.

But usually you should pay more money or the correct rate. There's no such thing as a correct rate, but you should pay in the mid range, you'll see mid to high range and then you'll generally get someone who's a lot better at the job. So we talked about the application process. We've talked about getting the correct people for the correct jobs, when it's a very skilled and technical job. However, there is another side to outsourcing that's very important. And that's the role of the VA or the virtual assistant.

Now, this isn't very technical. On the face of it, you would think, well, they don't need to be good at coding, they don't need to be good at design or any of these very difficult disciplines. But they do have to be very good at organization, they English has to be very good. They have to understand your business. And you'll actually find that the VA role, or I have found the VA role actually quite difficult to outsource at quite difficult to find good candidates for and the reason for that is it's such an important role within your business. You really want to give it to the right person.

Now let's talking to Darren Rouse, he's got a very successful blog called pro blogger dotnet that I've been reading and I've been following him for many years very successful blogger is actually makes more money from a photography site, and he has a huge full time team. When I talked to him last year. I think he said he had about six or seven full time staff working For him, and he would say that the best way to recruit was within his community. I thought this was very interesting. So he's a blogger. So he recruited from maybe the people who left comments on his blog, or the people who had contact him because of his blog.

That's what he meant by his community, maybe people he knew on social media as well. That's where he got the best results in recruitment. So there's another thing for you to think about. Do you know the correct person already, for the VA role, or for any other role, but the VA virtual assistant, the person who does your emails, who does the organization, have the day to day running of your business, the person who actually get other people to do tasks for you when they need to be done? is the person who is very important to your business. And you need backups as well.

You need to think of what happens if this good freelancer, this good employee suddenly decides to get another job. It's very important as well. So outsourcing is a huge part of growing your business. But it's really something that you need to start doing very small little bit by little bit as soon as possible, because it's a skill that you'll need to learn. So I hope I've helped you with a few tips in this video about outsourcing. My name is Rob coven.

I'll see you in the next video.