Outsourcing can get very complicated, very quickly. From years of outsourcing, trial and error, recruiting va’s for clients and hiring over 1000 VA’s ourselves, we have a simple process.
As a pre-cursor, this is always going to be defined by the project or set of tasks that you ultimately need doing.
Think of outsourcing as falling into two different categories: project-based outsourcing and role-based outsourcing.
- Project-based outsourcing is used when a business needs just one task or one project completed. This might be a simple task like creating a logo or installing an auto-responder form on a website, or it could be a more detailed project like creating an e-commerce site or a mobile app.
- Role-based outsourcing involves finding someone to fill a particular role within your business on a part-time or full-time basis. In role-based outsourcing, the VA becomes a member of your team. In order for this to make financial sense, you’ll need to have enough work to justify paying someone regularly to perform these tasks.
The upside to having a full-time or part-time employee on your team is the speed at which you’ll be able to implement everything you want to do. But what if you don’t have enough work or revenue to support a full-time or part-time virtual employee?
Great question. In such a case, you’ll need to work with a project-based mindset but keep a long-term perspective. This means each task you outsource is an opportunity to
- Learn how to properly communicate the work you want to delegate. Save any correspondence or media that could be used to train future VAs. There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel.
- Find a VA you might want to work with in the future on a part-time or full-time basis. Some of the best working relationships will arise out of working on smaller tasks together. Keep an eye out for promising talent that you’d like to bring on board in the future.
Whether you start on a smaller scale with freelancers on a task-by-task basis or you get started with a team of part-time or full-time workers, the first step is to define what you need doing. This will provide the starting point for what type of category to hire a va under.
