Unlocking the Secret to My E-commerce Success: Outsourcing 101
Navigating the intricate world of e-commerce, one compelling discovery has significantly transformed my journey: outsourcing. My drop shipping business, while extremely profitable from the start, had me slaving day and night trying to list, do product research, take care of customers, and fulfill all the orders myself. Something needed to change…and that’s what led me to hiring virtual assistants. Today, let me explain how you too can harness the power of virtual assistants without breaking the bank.
Outsourcing: A Universal Key
The magic of outsourcing isn’t exclusive to e-commerce. It's a universal tool, capable of fueling any business type, by buying back precious time and offering a canvas for innovation and resilience against competitors. In a nutshell, it unleashes potential - not just to compete but to lead.
Step-by-Step to Profitable Outsourcing
My journey to efficient outsourcing wasn’t special. It followed a formula:
1. Identify Un-Outsourceable Tasks: Comprehend what aspects of your business mandate your personal touch (you can't outsource these because they require you - you'd be surprised just how little things actually do if you're honest!)
2. Identify tasks you can outsource: Gradually identify, automate, systematize, and outsource specific tasks, starting with the simplest first....then progressively scaling to the next one from there.
3. Choosing the Right Platform: My favorite hub for high-quality, affordable virtual assistants (VAs) has been onlinejobs.ph, although options like Fiverr and Upwork are also good for certain things.
4. Crafting a Clear Job Posting: Be explicit about what you seek, inviting qualified candidates to share their qualifications.
5. Training Your VAs: Employ step-by-step screen recordings to convey exact expectations and systematically implement your strategies. Make sure you test them on a small scale first before trusting them with larger tasks on their own.
6. Effective Communication and Payment Methods: I use WhatsApp for seamless communication with anyone, anytime, in any country. I use PayPal or Western Union for financial transactions (usually paypal, but depending on the country some countries like Pakistan don't have it so Western Union is a good alternative).
Some of my successfully outsourced tasks include listing on various websites, product research, order fulfillment, and even customer service (just to scratch the surface), but you can really outsource almost anything.
More than Just E-commerce
This method, while used in my e-commerce business, can be applied to almost any other business too.
Outsourcing, when done right, can help scale any business, liberating the entrepreneur to learn, innovate, and explore new frontiers - ones previously shrouded due to time constraints. This is how you free up your time to scale with other more important tasks...and do continuous R&D to find new opportunities for expansion.
I remember vividly when I onboarded my first VA. It wasn’t just a hiring; it was an investment, one that yielded my most profitable year despite managing and paying a team of five full-time VAs. The essence was in erecting systems around daily tasks, training others to execute those systems affordably, and utilizing the salvaged time judiciously to learn, innovate, and strengthen my business over and over.