Outsourcing might become a necessity at some stage in a freelance writer’s business. The question is how and when. If you are ticking along nicely, without ever needing to take on more work or increase your rates, then you might be happy with what you’ve got. As long as you understand that your business won’t grow anymore.
Some freelance writers are perfectly content with a part time business. By the way, there is nothing wrong with that. For the rest of you though, what do you do when the business grows so much you can’t keep up with the demand for your services anymore?
I’ve pondered this exact question for many months now and am still nowhere close to a perfect answer. Maybe you can help me to find the missing pieces to the puzzle.
Here are some of my thoughts. I would be interested to see whether some of you “chew on the same issues”.
Problem: trust
Do you have a trust issue with employing other writers who will work in your stable? If so, could it be because they have the powers to reduce your well established name into slush? Trust matters a lot when we outsource. The question remains, do you go on and keep writing only what you can handle, or do you take the plunge and outsource to grow your business? How do you circumnavigate this trust issue?
Problem: time
Another problem is: how do you train someone else to do your job for you without losing valuable time to explain everything - which would of course defeat the whole purpose of outsourcing in the first place. Do we need manuals we can forward? Or is a simple conversation over the phone going to be sufficient?
Read on for the solution.
Problem: money
When does outsourcing become a real need for you? Is it when you get close to busting your billable hour limit, or should you just cap the maximum amount of work you can take on board? Plus, once you decide to outsource, what percentage of your income would be a suitable starting point. Tim Ferris writes in the The 4-Hour Workweek
Upon thinking some more on this, I have to say Tim is 100% correct. Since we only consider outsourcing when we ARE fully booked and can’t handle the growing pressures of our business anymore, it would make sense to delegate the less desirable jobs such as admin work to a VA instead.
Problem: burnout syndrome
One big issue you might have to deal with eventually is the burnout syndrome. Especially, if you are working your butt off without ever getting some rest. Certainly not a desirable place to be in. We all need to chill out. Preferably every week.
We are not machines who can work on autopilot. Once we stop to relax every now and then, we start to burn out. Work will suffer and our ability to work well will be heavily reduced.
Problem: style
How can you possibly teach another writer to write in the same style you do if you ever consider outsourcing our work? For starters, how would you explain to the client that your writing style has suddenly changed? You can’t!
Problem: admin work
It’s a fact that freelance writers don’t write every day, all day long. There are those unseen, but necessary tasks that need to be considered, like billing, promotion, research, communicating with clients, email, or even brainstorming. All of these take a huge chunk of time out of our billable hours every week.
To outsource this type of work, one would need to find a VA. Joe Falconer wrote a great post on how to double your income with the art of delegation. While I get Joe’s concept, I still struggle with the actual implementation.
Solution: focus on your core competencies
As you can see, all of the above are problems enough to make us run and stick our head in the sand while missing out on a lot of potential income.
I’m dealing with the same issues myself and only gradually am I able to make the mental transition to do what is right for my business.
See, my core competency is the actual writing I do for my clients, so why should I bother spending time with answering emails, build niche sites on the side (which take a huge junk out of my day if done properly), or upgrade all my various WordPress blogs, install data bases, etc.
Wouldn’t it be much easier (and more profitable) to outsource these jobs instead?
The answer is starring us right in the face: if you can hire a VA who can do those tasks for you for less than you earn, you are onto a winner.
It’s as simple as that.
Granted, in the beginning you will think twice on whether to spend that money on outsourcing, opposed to buying yourself that new computer, the new shoes, or a new wardrobe. But in the end I think it will be worth it, since you just managed to double your billable hours.
Taking the plunge
I took the plunge to outsource a couple of months ago when I hired a struggling, upcoming freelance writer to write the copy for my niche sites. I just didn’t have the time. Now, I have two month’s worth of articles to build my sites with, which will grow my residual income even more.
It wasn’t easy to take the plunge, but after countless conversations with friends (thanks Don, Justin and James), I finally took the plunge and I know it will be worth my while.
Since I have gotten a feel for outsourcing now, I will be looking into even more ways to offload those threaded tasks in my business to a VA. To do this most effectively I will need to come up with a set of tasks and steps that can be followed by anybody. This will assure that my work gets done up to my standards and keeps my hands free to work with my clients. In my eyes this is a win-win situation for all parties involved.
Do you outsource? If so, what are your experiences?
Monika
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Yes indeed, outsourcing will definitely leave you with some free time.
Again, it depends on how good the hired person is. I remember once, one of my friends’ got a person to write a few posts and he had to re-do some of the posts himself!
Ideally, one should always ask for samples and have a good idea of the person that’s going to be hired. Otherwise, its going to be a real headache!
Shamelle
@ Shamelle: Exactly, this is the thing I fear most when I think of outsourcing a writer to do parts of my job. So far I haven’t been able to do the mental transition and will be happy to outsource my back office tasks rather than trying to oversee another writer who writes for my clients.
Monika,
I know that ultimately I will be in the same situation, so I’ll be asking you for an update at some point.
(You know, just reading this and thinking about VA’s, I think I could outsource my current full-time job…)
-Brett
@ Brett: And I bet you wouldn’t mind doing this either. I suppose I can’t blame you for it. Hey, you might be in for a winner. Then you’ll have more time to do what you want to do.
Updates are fine with me. I’m still in the baby stages of outsourcing anyway right now, but hope to find an assistant who can take some of my admin load off me.
Great article Monika, as always.
Focus on what you do well and let others do what they do well. It’s a beautiful way to work and live, isn’t it?
@ Kathy: Yes it is. It makes business sense too doesn’t it. I wish they would have taught these things at school rather than teaching us history or past wars.
It is actually a very powerful combination to have a team of people working for the same targets, especially if they are all good at what they do.
Burnout syndrone - a lot of exhausting work is stressful but does not necessarily cause burnout which is different form stress - burnout is caused by feeling trapped and helpless whereas stress is causes by taxing activities. For tons of information on ob burnout see my site at docpotter.com.
@ Docpotter: Hi Beverly, I do agree with you on that - partially. I still think that we can get burned out, even though we love what we do. Others might call it having empty batteries.
We can feel trapped by having too much on our shoulders and not knowing what to do to solve the problem fast we get burned out.
I appreciate your comment though. It certainly carries great value and I’ll be round your place to take a closer look.
Monika,
The concept of outsourcing is excellent. However, I owned a business for many years with a number of employees, and I vowed when I sold that, I wouldn’t hire anyone again. I realize VAs and other people you outsource to are independent contractors and not employees, but I prefer to work alone.
Of course, that limits how much money I can make based on the number of hours I’m willing to work. But I’m satisifed with that.
@ Lillie: There is nothing wrong with being satisfied with the load you can handle as a one woman show. You’ve obviously made your experiences (perhaps not so good ones) and came up with a decision you stick to.
To me, outsourcing is still very new and I’m trying to find the boundaries and guidelines that will work for my business.
While I can’t see myself to outsource my actual client work at this stage due to a trust and branding issue, I can feel comfortable with the thought of outsourcing my own writing work (like I did on my niches) or even admin. I feel this wouldn’t potentially violate any client relationships or even ruin my name in the process.
Some might disagree and I’m willing to listen to any feedback.
I’m building a business that is based on training up young writers. Outsourcing will be our bread and butter once things get rolling. For now, I try to take one-off jobs to minimize the eventual shock when a new writing style appears from my company.
@ Peter: Great to hear. How do you do your training? Is it done through a membership model, or do you run workshops of some kind?
I’m not sure what you meant though with the shock effect on your company’s writing? How would one off jobs minimize the shock? Is this to do with your stable of writers who do the work for you, or do you mean something else?
Sorry to be so thick, I think my morning coffee wasn’t strong enough today
I’ve been giving outsourcing some thought lately, so this post is timely. I’m nowhere near outsourcing right now, but I’ve been asking myself it that’s a path I would take when I reach the right stage of my freelancing career. The most important thing for me would be to make sure I could find high quality and trustworthy writers and pay them a fair and reasonable wage. I’ve also considered providing manuals, since if you are going to outsource, that would certainly help both in terms of how the writing should be done and how the back-end works (i.e. payment, etc.). I’m still not sure about all of it though…
@ Melissa: I’m with you on that one. Those aren’t decisions made lightly believe me. I really have been chewing on those thoughts for months now and like I mentioned, I’m still nowhere close to being content with the solution.
Good, informative article on outsourcing Monika. Thanks.
I think I should have read this a few months ago…
I made the mistake of outsourcing some of my freelance writing work to another member of my family. I provided the platform and half of the writing work and she produced the other half, plus helped me with posts to the new website, which was to be a focus point for new clients and somewhere for old ones to catch up with us. Profits were to be split fifty fifty.
It should have been an ideal situation for both of us. For me, because I was becoming snowed under and for her, because it was a way to get started on the internet and build from there. The site would eventually have been hers and I could get on with the daily grind of producing ever more content for websites.
Sadly, at the first hurdle, she decided to opt out and left me with a website with too little content and clients who were requiring their promised work ‘yesterday’.
It has taken me the last two months to get on top of all the unfinished work (along with all the other things I do on the net). The website in question (and not the one in my signature…) hasn’t been updated in weeks and therefore doesn’t look great as a ‘dynamic business’.
And to tell the truth, next time I think about outsourcing, I will put family last.
Lesson learned
@ Zania: Oh my. Sounds like you have learned something indeed. It sucks when you try to be nice and help someone and then get kicked in the back for doing so.
I’m a firm believer that family is the worst kind of people to go into business with. The professional aspect of the deal is totally missing, which will quickly lead to trouble when emotions run high.
And they always end up doing.
Agreed Monika,
And I had always stuck to that same belief up until recently. So I’m backtracking to that right now
I’ll be interested to see how your outsourcing develops, so I hope you keep us posted.
And Andrew’s way of outsourcing seems like a very good way to achieve a satisfactory outcome, so I’ll be looking for his further answers on this as well
@ Zania: I will keep you posted, especially once I get this rolling correctly. Never mind about your backtracking.
I think you did learn a valuable lesson anyway, even if it came at a cost.
They are often the best ones anyway, don’t you think?
@ Monika: Actually, I’m in the baby stages of my venture. The plan is to offer the training free through my website (not the one linked here; I only have a draft up), blogging on details and charging for one-on-one consulting/workshops.
Sorry, the “shock effect” statement was a little unclear. What I mean is that right now, I try to accept clients that only want project-by-project commitments arranged through my company. When they come back for later projects, that makes it easier to explain that a new staff writer might have a different style.
Of course, a lot of this is still dreaming while I do the grunt work to get going.
@ Peter: Thanks for clarifying your last comment. Wow, what you have in mind sounds great. I’m with you now on the shock effect thing too. Actually, what you are doing is a great foundation to brand yourself too.
I love to see your site once you are up and running for the public for sure. I’d be interested myself to see how you lead those workshops since that was also one thing I have been toying with for some time.
I’ve been outsourcing for a few weeks now, and I’ve had ups and downs. For me, I could do the work myself, but since I’m going back to college in a couple weeks, I figured I wouldn’t have time to do much writing, so I’m trying to find the right VA now before school starts.
I’ve gone through 3 so far, and I’m starting on my fourth right now. I am concerned about whether I can trust a writer, so that’s why I give them something small as a test so I can see if they’re writing style is what I want and if they’re trustworthy.
I also give them a deadline a couple days before I actually need the work in case they don’t come through or something major needs to be revised or edited. That’s my safeguard.
My fix to the writing style issue is spending just a little time editing the piece so that it can’t really be recognized as someone else’s work. The key is to find the balance of how much time to spend doing the editing to make the outsourcing worth while.
I usually write up a nice long email at first to lay out the guidelines and what they need to do for the project, and so far it’s been effective and they’ve done fairly well following the instructions.
My experience with outsourcing has been overall positive. It just takes that first plunge and strategic outsourcing to make your experience a winner.
@ Andrew: Great feedback, thank you very much. I remember you mentioned to me you are going back to college soon. Good to see you got things organized while trying to find a solution early, before the problems surface.
I love how you make your VA’s submit the work before the deadline. Great thinking and smart to boot.
The email you write, is that done with a template you came up with, or are the jobs all different requiring a new set of rules?
@Monika, I actually like the idea of outsourcing writers and after chewing this over I started a daydream where I could actually pay writers excellent wages to be part of a writing team through my business. The biggest concern is trust. Will they get the work done on time (writers have a reputation for being pretty flaky)? Will they write clean, error-free copy and follow the style guidelines? It’s scary but I think it could be done and done well.
I’m not sure about outsourcing other (admin) tasks though. I have things set up to be pretty streamlined in terms of paperwork. Plus, I don’t like the idea of giving anyone access to my financials or stats. That’s scary!
@ Melissa: I wouldn’t do that either(giving a stranger access to my financial). But, I’m thinking of outsourcing the more mediocre tasks of running a business like upgrading sites, research, link building and all the other zillion things we do at the back end.
I’ve also dappled with the trust of having a stable of writers under my wings and maybe one day I will, but at this stage I’m not ready for that step. Too much can go wrong and it’s taken me too long to build a name for myself to risk all that with one false move.
In the end, I think slow might be a solution: like taking on board a new writer and giving that person more and more responsibilities while carefully monitoring their performance.
What do you think about that?
The slow process sounds like a good idea. Monika, was it you who mentioned that you have someone handling your personal blogs while you deal with client work?
For me, I guess I’m new enough at this that the name I’m building will be my business name, hopefully built more or less simultaneously with me building my team of writers. At the same time, though, I’m still trying to build my own brand–so it’s an interesting balancing act. Must be newbie zealotry.
@ Peter: No, I never mentioned this about getting another person to handle our blog. I actually think that might be counter productive. I see my blog as my voice and it is part of my branding image.
If I was to employ another person to blog for me, (either in my name or in theirs), it would diffuse my own voice. I don’t think that would be good for my business, since I attract many clients with this blog.
I also think you are right to be zealous about the ways you brand your business. getting it right from the start will save you a lot of headaches down the road. You can never be too zealous actually.
Monika
Okay…really DUMB question:
“Callenges out Outsourcing”.
That typo was deliberate, right?
As for burn-out. Hoo-boy. If anyone wants to know more about it, I’m the resident expert.
I got a PhD in Burnout Engineering.
And then I went to do a Post-Doc.
@ Friar: Huh? I must admit you got me puzzled. I read through this article twice and can’t see where you came up with that supposed spello?
Am I such a suck at copy editing? Arrrggh, maybe I need glasses, or make that a beer glass instead. Ok, maybe not, it’s still day time in Oz, but could you please point me kindly to the place you are referring to.
Resident expert in burnout, wow, that sounds like a load full. Maybe you have to start burning your boat too then. I’m sure Brett can guide you on this.
LOL
I’ll help Friar with the boat burning tomorrow night (or was that beer drinking?)
@ Brett: Maybe he doesn’t need help anymore. Perhaps he has already drunk a few, either that, or I’m drunk without even realizing. Which, come to think of it would only be the second time in my life ever after 40 hum… plus perhaps one years.
@ Monika: I didn’t mean this blog in particular, but lower-profile blogs in general. Yes, though, I can see what you mean by that being counterproductive.
And I can help Friar out on the typo: it’s in the blog title: “Callenges of Outsourcing.” I think the “out Outsourcing” bit was his own typo.
@ Peter: Duh, I’m so stupid. I swear I didn’t see that one, even though I proofread the whole lot like 3 times. Maybe I shouldn’t try to edge into copy editing then should I.
Thanks for helping poor Friar out. And here I was suspecting he was onto something….liquid of course. Hehehehe…. My bad, I think I need a vacation.
As for your comment on the lower profile blogs, yes, outsourcing these could be an option I suppose. After all, even high profile blogs outsource. It really depends what your blog is and what YOU the owner is trying to accomplish with it.
If it is a writer’s blog, I’m against it (as outlined in my last comment to you), but if it is a generic blog and you are not using it as a branding platform, why not.
It really depends on the desired outcome. Does this make sense?
Clear as crystal!
@Peter
YES…THANK YOU! I thought I was starting to lose my mind, because I swear I definitely saw “Callenges” in the Blog Title. (Only today it’s been corrected to “Challenges”. But nobody’s said anything.
@Monika
Hah. I thought maybe you deliberately mis-spelled “Challenge” as a tongue-in -cheek way to show that outsourcing created it’s own set of problems.
It’s messing with my head. Oboy…brain hurts….Too difficult to think right now…need BEER….
@ Friar: LOL, I’m sorry for suspecting you of things you didn’t do. I was looking for the word “out” in the mention you made totally missing the actual point.
And no, it wasn’t my intention at all. Just a huge sore looking spelling mistake that escaped most of us, including myself.
I’m surprised I didn’t get an email from someone as I usually do.
Enjoy your beer buddy, you deserve it!
Thanks for the link, Monika.
The implementation is certainly tricky. In my experience, it becomes easy only once you find a suitable competent individual — if you can trust them with just about anything, you’ll feel comfortable delegating tasks and it’ll cease to be a problem. But it may be different for you; that’s just my experience with the issue.