If you are considering using a product launch to quickly grow your business, one of the best things you can do for your sanity is to learn how to make it as hands-free as possible.
In fact, this goes for everything you do in your business.
If you can outsource the stuff you don’t want to do, the stuff you don’t like to do, and the stuff you don’t know how to do, you can focus on the more important stuff that helps you to grow and prosper.
Now if you’ve never done any outsourcing before, you might be scratching your head.
How, exactly, do you go about figuring out what to outsource, and then finding a good freelancer to complete the tasks?
That’s what this series of posts is about.
Over the next 4 posts, you’ll discover a four-step process which includes:
1. Determining Your Needs. In this first post I’ll be explaining where, what, and when to outsource for your business.
2. Advertising Jobs. Then in the next post, you’ll learn how to write a good job description to make sure you get what you are paying for.
3. Evaluating And Hiring Freelancers. In the 3rd post in this series, you’ll learn how to screen candidates and pick the best freelancer for your project.
4. Managing Projects. And in the forth post, I’ll give you some battle-tested insights into making sure your projects go smoothly.
OK, now let’s walk through the first of these four parts of the process…
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Step One: How To Determine Your Product Launch Outsourcing Needs
There are three questions to ask yourself to help you determine needs.
Question 1: When should you outsource?
Here are three good times when you should consider outsourcing a task:
• When you don’t have time to do the task yourself. Perhaps you have other work, family and social obligations. Or perhaps this is a low-value task, and you need to free up your time to focus on high-value tasks. These are good times to outsource.
• When you don’t know how to do the task yourself. Maybe you don’t know anything about it, so it would take too long and there would be a big learning curve. Or perhaps you just don’t know how to do it well, meaning a freelancer would be able to offer a better end result.
• When you don’t want to do the task yourself. Ever notice that you procrastinate on things you really don’t want to do? Don’t force yourself – just outsource the task to someone who’ll cheerfully produce a great end result for you.
In other words, if you’re stuck and not moving forward very quickly, then outsource the task.
Which brings us to the next question…
Question 2: What should you outsource?
The sky is the limit when it comes to outsourcing.
Let’s look at a quick list of common tasks:
• Content creation. This may your product launch content (including pre-launch content and email sequences, and even the product itself), ongoing newsletters for both prospects and customers, blog posts, social media posts, PDF reports, ebooks, video scripts, and more.
• Social media management. Your freelancer may create and post traffic generation content on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms. They may also help you develop an overall social media launch strategy, depending on their skills and experience.
• Graphic design. This includes web graphics, video presentation graphics, product graphics and more.
• Planning. Here you can hire an expert to help you plan and strategize various parts of your launch and/or other parts of your business, such as marketing or your launch sales funnel.
• Data entry. This sort of task is a great one to outsource, as it’s a low-value task (which frees up your time to focus on high-value tasks), and it requires very minimal skills to complete.
• Customer support. You can hire people to both answer phones and deal with inquiries sent through your help desk. This may be a permanent position, or you may hire people temporarily during expected influxes (such as during your product launch).
• Video editing and production. Most product launches are video based these days, so unless you have skills and experience with video production, this is a task that’s best left to someone else.
• Administrative assistance. You can hire someone to help you with a myriad of day to day jobs, from research to content creation to data entry and more.
• Research. A competent freelancer can help you do market research, product research and more. Your freelancer might give you a report of their findings with links and data, or they may find the resources and let you interpret the data. It all depends on their skill set.
• Traffic generation. Generally, this involves hiring multiple experts to focus on their area of specialty (such as media buys, affiliate marketing, SEO, pay per click, etc).
• Copywriting. A sales letter or ad can make or break the success of your product launch, which is why it’s a good idea to hire a professional copywriter to create these materials for you.
• Legal services. Here’s one area where you should absolutely hire a professional. This includes creating policy documents for your site, reviewing agreements, helping you incorporate, and other legal issues that come up.
• Transcription. If you plan to include videos, audios or webinars as part of your product, you can pay somebody to transcribe them into text very inexpensively through Rev.com.
• Order fulfilment. If you’re shipping physical products, or you need to manually deliver digital bonuses for an affiliate promotion, you can hire someone else to take care of fulfilment.
• PowerPoint® presentation. If you do slide-share presentations for webinars, videos or conferences, you can hire a professional to make your presentation look great.
• Lead generation. This person can help you set up your lead page, tweak it for good conversions, and drive traffic to it.
• Installations and set up. A good freelancer can help you with everything from installing a WordPress blog, to installing complex ecommerce systems.
• Email marketing. You can hire someone to help you create your launch email sequence, as well as better autoresponder sequences that boost your open and click-through rates, meaning you’ll sell more through email.
• Accounting. A good accountant can save you money by ferreting out tax deductions that you didn’t even know about.
• Public relations. A good PR person can send out compelling press releases and land media interviews during your launch so you get additional publicity and exposure.
• Blogging. You can hire someone to create content for your blog, handle blog comments, and publish content on a regular basis.
• Document formatting. You can hire someone to format your Kindle book, ebooks or other documents, which will give your readers a great first impression.
• Affiliate recruiting. You can hire an affiliate manager to find, recruit and motivate affiliates.
• Search engine marketing. This includes SEO (search engine optimisation) as well as PPC (pay per click) marketing using platforms such as AdWords.
Next question…
Question 3: Where you should outsource?
You can cast a wide net by using one or more of the following methods:
1. Post a project to a freelancing site. This includes sites such as Guru.com, UpWork.com, and Fiverr.com
This is the method I recommend in this report, since you get access to freelancer ratings, as well as some amount of protection through most freelancing sites.
For example, some sites run an escrow service, which protects both you and the freelancer.
2. Search Google. For example, you might search for “ghostwriter” or “software developer.”
Be sure to check the organic results as well as the sponsored results (ads).
3. Ask for recommendations from trusted sources.
This includes your colleagues, mentors, and other associates.
You can also ask on business and marketing forums or Facebook groups.
So now we’ve covered the first step in getting started with outsourcing, your head might be spinning with all of the possibilities 🙂
But before you race out and start hiring, you’ll need to know how to create a specific and detailed project description (AKA a brief) in order to find the most qualified person for the job and to get the best results.
And that’s what we’ll be covering for you in the next post.
Warm regards,
Rocky
PLUS: When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you to grow your business using product launches:
1. How To Build A Profitable Launch List.
Building an email list is critical if you plan on doing a launch for your product, service or business. My 1-2-3 List Building Cheat Sheet will show you how to build a responsive list of prospects who are ready to buy from you during your launch. Click Here.
2. How To Create A Signature Product Out Of Thin Air In 72 Hours Or Less
Creating your product does not need to take weeks or months. My 72 Hour Product Creation Guide shows you how to build high value products or bonuses one after the other in 72 hours or less. Click Here.
3. How To Outsource Your Product Creation And Make It Hands Free.
Outsourcing the creation of some or all of your products and bonuses is a great way to save your time for the more important (and more fun) things you’d rather be doing. Grab my Hands Free Outsourcing Cheat Sheet to learn more. Click Here.
And don’t forget to check this out 🙂
Jeff Walker’s free Product Launch Formula training.
Disclaimer: If you purchase PLF through my affiliate link I may receive a referral fee from Jeff Walker, however you will pay no more to purchase the program through me than if you went directly to the Product Launch Formula website. If you would like my personal help as you create your first launch using the PLF process, check out my PLF Bonus offer here.