With business running costs ever increasing, we business owners have to be smart if we want to not just survive, but thrive in the upcoming years. Knowing your numbers is the key to having long term success for your business, and there's nothing worst than burning lots of cash before your business becomes profitable.
But that doesn't mean you can't spend at all.
Getting help from your local talent could end up costing you an arm and leg, but with outsourcing, you can get the same (and even better) level of talent overseas for a fraction of the cost.
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Sure, it's no secret that outsourcing has gotten a bad name for itself ever since the early days of the internet. And yes, I'm sure you still get emails from people trying to sell you website packages each day (just check your spam folder). But that doesn't mean outsourcing is bad, you just need someone to show you where the REAL talent is.
With that said, let's dive into a few of the things you can outsource to get your business up and running:
Logos… This is one of my favourite parts of starting a new business. You know those gurus that say… don’t worry about the logo, focus on making the first dollar… My take is: logos are part of the journey of starting a new business. Have some fun and work with a designer that will bring life to your idea.
Like many others, if you’re starting your business on a shoestring budget, then you probably can’t go and find your local designer… But you don’t want to get stuck with a logo whipped up on Microsoft Paint either (yes, I’ve done that).
Go on Fiverr and find a gig that is perfect for you. Some designers specialise in creating logos for iPhone apps, some designers specialise in creating minimalistic logos. This is why I love Fiverr. The talent available will mean you don’t have to settle for a designer that is an all-rounder, you can work with specialised talent and get an edge in your designs.
Image Editing
If you’re in a e-commerce space, you probably know all the extra tasks you need to do. One of the hardest and most important tasks are photos. With poor photos, you will get poor sales. So don’t take the short cup and use unpolished photos on your website.
But this is the hard bit. What if you’re not great at taking photos? What if you don’t have the magic touch and know-how to use Photoshop to turn your average shots into wallpaper worthy photos? Of course, hiring a Profesional to come in and taking them will cost you an arm and a leg, so what can you do?
Follow me…
- Find a cloudy day - the reason why you want to find a cloudy day is that when you take photos on a sunny day, the light isn’t dispersed evenly, and you get random shiny spots on your products. Of course, if you have a lightbox for indoors, then you can pick any day you want.
- Use a white background if possible, but it’s not the end of the world if you can’t.
- Take the photo with your phone or camera set on a tripod. Make sure you angle the product well. Use the grid function on your phone to help, or just Google how others photograph products similar to yours.
After that, go on Fiverr and find a gig that will help you edit the photos. They will turn your unedited photos into professional photos that people won’t even know the shortcut you took.
Video Editing
Ever since Facebook announced itself a video-first platform in 2016, the demand for videos over photos as skyrocketed. Of course, this makes total sense. If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a video worth? As a result, the days where a simple phone taken photo could be the creative you use to promote on social media was retired and came the era of storytelling through videos.
Nowadays, not only do you need a video, but it needs to be attractive enough to convince the person to click through your website. So you may be thinking now… how do you even get an attractive video without hiring a videographer to burn a hole in your wallet?
Simple.
Look at your phone. If you’re using any phone that’s good enough to play games on, you have a phone that’s good enough to film. Whether you’re selling a product or a service, follow these steps.
- Find a day where sunlight is good
- Set your phone up on a tripod (tape it to a stick if you don’t have a tripod)
- Film your product in action or yourself explaining your service.
Now that you have the video, you might be wondering… no way will this sell on social media. But fear not! This is when Fiverr comes in. With hundreds of professional video editors that can help you edit videos, they can help you turn your choppy video into a short and attractive video ad. They can help you add a catchy background tune, your logo at the start and words to explain the video.
Marketing Strategy
Why just the strategy? Why not hire someone outright to do the whole thing? The reason why I recommend you to find someone on Fiverr to do the strategy is because as a small business owner, you should have full control of the marketing behind your business. I strongly believe marketing is the engine behind every business, powering sales and giving life to the operations side of things. As the owner of the business, you should know everything that’s going on with marketing. If you decide to take the easy route and thing you can just outsource the marketing away and sit back and rake in sales, you are setting yourself up for failure (and a hole in your wallet). Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty and micromanage your marketing.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t get help and get set up on a winning direction. There are experts on Fiverr that specialize in helping you create a robust marketing strategy for you to execute. From branding to planning out the nitty-gritty digital marketing path best for your business, these experts will provide you with the research and strategy you need to succeed.
Marketing Tasks
So once you have a strategy, with a set number of tasks to do, how do you go about achieving them? When I mentioned you should take a hands-on approach, it means you should overlook the strategy like an eagle soaring up high, it doesn’t mean you need to use all your time to complete all the lists like a checkbox.
This is where Fiverr comes in. Once you have a strategy in place, break them down into actionable items. Where it’s creating 2 blogs a month and having a strong link building system in place to promote those articles or a target to doing at least a podcast interview a month to promote your business, there is talent available on Fiverr to help you complete these tasks.
What makes Fiverr so special is that unlike other outsourcing platforms, which operate as a marketplace, Fiverr is an eCommerce business. Rather than scouring through individuals one by one and going through their resume, you can save time and directly see which gig can benefit you most on Fiverr.