Are you ready to hire your first freelancer? In this article. I’m going to share with you the 5 best outsourcing websites to save you time and help your business grow.

I’m also going to share with you something that happened in my life, on my farm, to help you make a decision in your own business about the right time to hire somebody. Eventually you have to hire somebody to help you. Especially, if you want to continue to grow.

In the beginning, it’s hard because you’re not making a lot of money and the time has to be right to justify that extra expense. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

I’m going to tell you a personal story. A while ago I had to make a decision here on the farm. Whether or not we were going to do it ourselves or hire the work out.

On a side note, I’m actually working on a blueprint course on affiliate marketing. So stay tuned because when it’s ready, you’ll know exactly what I would do if I were to start from scratch. In the beginning I often wondered why somebody didn’t have a blueprint to follow. And, that’s why I’m going to create one, so watch this space.

My Story On The Farm

Anyway, back to my story. We have a truck that we bought several years ago. We bought it from an old city municipal building up in Cleveland when we lived down in Southern Indiana. The night we drove it home, it was snowing really bad.

Thank God it had a snowplow on the front because it was horrible that night. We used this truck a lot for our driveway. We have a driveway that goes through the trees out to our mailbox. It’s about a quarter of a mile long. And, it requires us to put down a lot of gravel.

Anyway, after using the truck for several years, we decided that we were going to sell it. What with the insurance, the repairs and replacing the tires, it just wasn’t worth keeping anymore.

So, now we’re just going to start renting our equipment. Instead of running the truck, we could rent two pieces of equipment. One to make the driveway nice and flat and the other to cart the gravel and put it down the driveway. This will probably cost us less money and save some time as well.

But what does that have to do with your business, you ask? Well, let me explain.

Why You Should Consider Hiring A Freelancer

Have you started feeling like everything in your brain is about to explode? You have so many different things to manage, not only in your job but with your life as well. And, you just don’t have enough hours in the day.

You won’t feel this way in the beginning because you don’t really know what you’re doing yet. But, when you do know and you’ve been trying to do it all yourself, you will start to feel this way.

I promise you, there will come a day when you need to hire someone. And it’s a very, very, very scary thing to do. It’s scary because you don’t want to waste your money by hiring somebody who may not do the job right.

Just know that sometimes you’ll hire people that aren’t the right fit. But, sometimes they’re wonderful. That’s just part of life. And we have to get over that part.

We call this outsourcing. You’re outsourcing part of your work. Therefore, somebody else can do it for you to free up your time. We also call it hiring virtual assistants. So when you hear other people talk about “I’m hiring a VA”, that’s a virtual assistant.

What Can A Virtual Assistant Do?

A VA is somebody who you meet online and who can help you do some of your work. Now, what are some of the jobs that they can do?

• They can help create graphics. Maybe you’re working on a project that has a sales funnel, and you need a lot of graphic design or a website. You can hire someone to do that.

• Or, maybe you need help with copywriting. You’re really good at design but you just aren’t good with words.

• What about communication? Maybe you’re starting to get a lot of emails or a lot of comments on your videos or your Instagram. Responding to all those takes a lot of time but it needs to be done because you have to engage with people. You can hire someone to help you with that.

• You might want to get a videographer. You might not be good at putting your videos together or you find it really time-consuming.

• What about your email list? You can hire someone to write your emails for you.

• Or, maybe you like to edit your own videos but find it very time consuming to upload them with the descriptions and adding the end screens. That’s something pretty safe that you could hire a VA to do.

The 5 Best Outsourcing Websites

Those are just some ideas you need to start thinking about. Once you’re ready, have a look at these 5 best outsourcing websites you can visit to hire people.

1. Upwork

One of my favorite places is Upwork. I use this most of the time. Once you’re on the site, you can start to look for someone who excels at what you want done. You can find people who are writers, or designers who can create ebook covers or Facebook group banners.

What you really have to do is look at the descriptions the freelancers have posted and what they do. Check how much they’ve earned and what their job success rate is. Also, where are they from if that matters to you.

I actually found a woman who takes my transcripts and turns them into blog posts for me. Not only that, but she also posts them on my site and does all the on-page SEO. She’s from Australia and I absolutely love her work. She’s very responsible.

I used to think that I had to hire someone younger because of social media. I assumed that younger people would be better with all that social media stuff. Actually, my VA is closer to my age and she has been phenomenal.

So, maybe the older generation might be more reliable and the young ones might be more creative. I don’t know. You have to make that judgment call for yourself.

2. Freelancer.com

I don’t have an account with Freelancer.com and have not used them personally. But you can visit the site and do a search for the kind of freelancer you’re looking for.

Some of these freelancers charge by the hour and others charge a flat rate for projects that they complete. What you have to remember is that someone who charges less is probably new. They’re wanting to get more testimonials and build up their reputation on the platform.

On the other hand, people who charge more, already have a high success rate. However, everyone has to start somewhere and someone who’s new might be really awesome at what they do. You have to decide if you want to give them a chance.

Just ask them to show you some of their portfolios to get an idea of the kind of work that they do.

3. Fiverr.com

I have used Fiverr before to get some designs done for a book, some pamphlets and some of my freebies that I give out. I found this couple who are based in Indonesia and they did awesome work. He created the designs and she did the copywriting. It ended up costing me around $10 to $20 per design. But, it saved me so much time.

4. Guru.com

Once again, on Guru.com, you can search for a freelancer or you can post a job if you know exactly what you want done. If you post a job, you’ll get matched with people who have the skills you need.

Plus, you’ll also get freelancers vie for the job that you’ve posted. And, they’ll give you an hourly rate that they charge.

You’ll also get asked if you just want to hire people from the United States or if you’re prepared to hire from anywhere. When I’ve hired freelancers, they’ve all been from another country. I know that in the United States a freelancer will cost more but other countries have lower rates.

But I didn’t take that into consideration because I wanted to give everybody a chance and it was more about the talent that I was looking at. Therefore, I didn’t want to only keep it in the United States but you can do that if you want to. And, I’ve never had a problem with language barriers either.

5. DesignHill.com

This site focuses on logos and other creative projects. So, if you’re looking for a lot of design work, this might be the right place for you.

Have You Thought About Becoming A Freelancer Yourself?

On the flip side, you can also hire yourself out as a freelancer. I know that when you’re first starting your business or building your YouTube channel, you won’t be making a lot of money in the beginning.

So, why not consider becoming a freelancer yourself. Maybe there’s one area that you’re very creative in and that you really enjoy. You can easily hire out your skills and make some money on the side.

If you’re not working a full-time job, this is a great way to supplement your income. It’s a way to bring some money in and not feel defeated when you’re putting so much time into your business and not making much yet.

You’ve Got This!