First off, Happy Summer! Here in the Northern Hemisphere we are heading into Summer and it sure is starting off hot here in Montreal! We’re in the midst of our first heat wave and I had to get out of the house and seek some cool relief at my local Starbucks. As I was walking here, I started thinking of some of things that I accomplished lately and why I have been able to move forward with my goals and get more done.
Outsourcing.
the always growing to-do list!
As a busy solopreneur or someone who is just starting out with their business, you may agree with some or all of these reasons about what is holding you back:
- How can I trust someone else to do the things that I do?
- What can I possibly outsource?
- I can’t spend money on outsourcing, I’m still trying to MAKE MONEY!!
- I don’t have time to manage someone else (and that’s why I’m doing the solo thing)
Trust me, I used to feel the same hesitation about outsourcing, until recently.
What changed?
Why I became an Outsourcing Convert
If you visit this site regularly, you probably have seen that I interview entrepreneurs and ask them to share their expertise, advice & tips for those just starting out. I’ve been using Skype to record the videos and then posting them on Youtube after some editing.
I started to think about what else I could do with this awesome content…the most obvious being a podcast and then putting it on iTunes. While that is one of my goals for later this year, I thought about those of us who like to read and process information that way…
Lightbulb moment!
Why not transcribe the interviews!
I could then package the relevant interviews together into a small product and offer it here on my website.
And off I went!
I started organizing the interviews and selected a few that would provide readers with insight on ‘making the leap into entrepreneurship’.
There I was super excited about this new product idea but I soon realized I was faced with the daunting task of transcribing over 75 minutes of audio. Something that I have never done before and seemed kind of painful once I started doing it. #ugh
From High to Low to High Again!
What seemed like a great idea turned into a mini-nightmare. Transcribing is not one of my strengths..and wasn’t something I necessarily wanted to focus on learning.
Should I abandon the idea and move on to something else?
I didn’t want to let the idea go just yet so I decided to finally explore Elance and see what outsourcing was all about.
Not surprisingly, there were tons of people offering transcription services at prices that ranged from super cheap to super expensive. Because this was a prototype product, I didn’t want to spend a big amount and I also wanted to see what the quality of the work would be before committing to transcribing all 75 minutes of audio.
I posted my project as ‘transcribe 20 minutes of audio’ with a budget range and watched eagerly as the bids started rolling in. There was hope that this product could become a reality!
And there were lots of bids..it was easy to eliminate the ones that were way out of my budget and focus on the more affordable ones…..and because you are getting offers from all over the world, you truly see how far your dollar can go!
I started to feel excited about the idea again because now I could potentially get someone to work on it and I could continue doing the things that I am good at and enjoy doing.
Curious to see what happened next?
Stay tuned for part 2! Sign up here to get it delivered right to your inbox (bonus: get my free ebook too!).
