A Definitive Guide to Cheap, Affordable Outsourcing For Accelerating A Small Online Business’ Growth
In a previous blog post, we looked at the following: the simplified meaning of outsourcing, its advantages to an internet business entrepreneur and the reasons why many online marketers do not outsource. In case you want to read that post later, the title is “Understanding Outsourcing – How A Solopreneur Can Use Outsourcing To Grow Any Small Online Home Business and Income 5 Times Faster In One Year”.
In this post, we’ll look at the various places (and rates) you can find outsourced virtual assistants/ freelancers, tips to avoid outsourcing going bad, tips to get good quality virtual assistants/ freelancers at Fiverr (or anywhere at all), the common online business tasks that other internet marketers outsource at Fiverr (elsewhere too) and finally we’ll look at some screenshots of interesting $5 offers at Fiverr. You’ll find that this post is a definitive guide to outsourcing your online business tasks very cheap at Fiverr.
What Is Fiverr?
In case you are wondering ‘what is Fiverr’ and how Fiverr works? Fiverr is a social media micro-jobs (site) marketplace where skilled people offer their services for $5 per task. Simply put, Fiverr is an online outsourcing platform (website or ‘blog’). For a small business owner (online or offline), Fiverr is an online micro-jobs site for purchasing outsourced services from online virtual assistants /freelancers.
Every freelancer/ virtual assistant on Fiverr offers to provide (outsourcing) service for no more than $5. Once you go to Fiverr website, you’re greeted with “I will ___ for $5″ and they usually state to complete the tasks in a few days
Leveraging Fiverr $5 Outsourcing Services To Online Virtual Assistants To Multiply Your Blogging Business Profits And Productivity
From comments in the previous posts and some discussions across the blogosphere, there’s a strong suggestion that many online marketers and bloggers are interested in outsourcing or delegating some of their day to day routine online business or marketing tasks to freelancers /virtual assistants. One common barrier that has prevented many from doing so is affordability.
That is the premise for today’s post – sources of alternative, quality but cheap outsourcing service providers (aka outsourced freelancers/ virtual assistants) to delegate some of their business tasks to. Overwhelm and inability to complete daily pre-scheduled “to dos” is one heck of a problem that majority of bloggers and internet marketers face. Thus, getting a helping hand that is affordable can go along way to make good bloggers better at doing what they love most and know best how to do – writing fresh, relevant posts, engaging with readers through comments and emails while also building relationships with other bloggers through the social media platforms.
Why Do It All By Yourself When You Can Hire Good Virtual Assistants For $5…. Shhhh!
You too can now afford to outsource some of your online business tasks because Fiverr.Com makes it easy for you to outsource some of your internet marketing tasks no more than at $5 – and you have a myriad of online virtual assistants /freelancers to choose from. Yes, any task that takes too much time to complete; tasks that you are not good at or hate to do – let someone else who is better at it do it, at Fiverr.
You do not need to go broke before you can leverage on outsourcing to expand your business (and income) – Fiverr.Com to the rescue!
Kim Roach one of the people I follow tightly (remotely) online always says, focus at doing the things that bring bigger results; focus on strategies that bring bigger results. Bigger results = bigger earnings.
Let me share this with you – if you look at some marketers in your niche, you’ll notice that they have tens and hundreds of backlinks to their posts and product campaigns while you are struggling to get a handful. Have you ever wondered how they did it? Have you ever wondered why they have so much time to do the social part of internet marketing (such as Facebooking, tweeting, commenting, forum marketing) while you are trying to play catch-up on your core business activities.
Most of them outsource a major part of their business, in fact some outsource up to 80% of it so that they focus on the front-end of internet business – writing exceptional contents and interacting with prospects (commenting, Facebooking) and networking with other marketers (commenting on other blogs and forums).
Doing Today What Your Competitors Are Not Doing Will Amount To Rapid Business Success.
Yes, getting ahead in any business is about doing what your competitors are not doing, to gain a competitive advantage over them (and of course grab all the target customers’ attention).
Now you do not have to get all these advantages at the cost of an arm and a leg, with Fiverr’s generous $5 gigs*. Thinking Business Efficiency and Productivity On A $5 Budget – Think Fiverr. In addition, Fiverr is built with all necessary communication and file transfer features so that you do not need to exchange email or personal contact with your outsourced Fiverr virtual assistant/ Freelancer.
Personally, Fiverr is now in the centre of my planned ‘offline consulting strategy’ – to enable me develop ideas for helping local offline small businesses start marketing online. With Fiverr, I would be able to focus on and do more strategic marketing for these businesses, knowing that outsourced freelancers are handling the techie and tactical tasks – all hands on deck to achieve more in less time.
*’Gig’ is a term used for freelance jobs, at Fiverr.
Popular Online Marketing Tasks Other Bloggers Outsource To Virtual Assistants/ Freelancers
Sometimes looking at what other related businesses are doing would help us get more ideas to tweak ours. Below are popular examples of the top tasks to delegate based on the most popular internet business activities that other online marketers and small businesses commonly outsource to freelancers/ virtual assistants at Fiverr or other places:
Graphic Design Tasks You Can Delegate to Virtual Assistants
- Graphic design works such as creation of eBook cover; design of website header graphics, design of custom Facebook or Twitter page background
Social Media Marketing Tasks You Can Outsource
- Get More Social Media Followers: Getting tons new Twitter or Facebook fanpage LIKES (say, a thousand new LIKES or twitter followers)
- Setting up mass social media accounts for social media traffic domination (such as for all over 40 social sites supported by OnlyWire; over 30 supported by Ping.Fm; social ADR about 15 supported social bookmarking sites)
- Social Bookmarking your posts and articles to hundreds of social bookmarking sites
- Social Networking / Facebook Fan Pages: Managing your social media activities
Cheap SEO Jobs You Can Delegate to Freelancers
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and keyword research
- tasks such as: kyword research, link building
Home Business Email List Building and Email Marketing tasks you can outsource:
- Creating squeeze pages and landing pages
- Creation of a fancy opt-in box
- Ccreation of a sales letter/ copy
Outsource Blog Content Writing and Marketing Tasks to Virtual Assistants
- Outsource article writing
- Outsource desk research
- eBook writing
- Outsource mass submission articles to many (say, 20) article submission sites (Some people pay high monthly costs for
Examples of Audio and Video Microjobs to Outsource
- Creation of video for a blog content
- Video/ audio transcription outscourcing
- Voice-over for your new eBook product (pretty girl voice, husky macho voice, voice over for your video product or video sales letter etc.)
Blog / WordPress Technical Setup and Customization Services you can Outsource
- Website/ blog setup and maintenance (such as: setting up new WordPress blogs (for your main or mini niche sites), installing up WordPress plugins, upgrading WordPress, Backing up websites/ blogs and important documents)
- Any blog platform or WordPress Theme Customization
- Migrating blogs / websites from one platform to another without losing any data (e.g from blogger blog to WordPress.org etc.)
- Outsource web design and the technical side of blogging / webmaster activities you can think of
Online Business / Blog Promotion:
- Advertisement such as email your offer to hundreds or thousands of a freelancer’s list, tweeting your status/ offer multiple times, sharing your status/ offer to thousands of freelancers’ social media followers etc.)
Outsource Tedious Internet Marketing Tasks That You Get Stuck Doing:
- Outsource any routine, tedious and time consuming mico-activity that you suck at (do not know how to do at all, cannot do fast or well) or distracts you from the big picture – use outsourcing to get unstuck
Other Fiverr-Like Micro Jobs Site You Can Find Freelancers
Below is a list of some of other good places to hire virtual freelancers:
- Elance
- Guru.com
- oDesk.com
- 99designs (crowd sourcing)
- Fiverr Clone sites like tenbux.com and dealerr.com
All the above places cost above the $5 per job at Fiverr.Com and you can also run into bad freelancers if you do not take precautionary measures.
*By the way, Fiverr jobs are called “gigs”.
Food For Thought: How Purchasing Outsourced Task For $5 Can Result Increased ROI And Profit
I look at outsourcing like this –Scenario 1: if 1 man can take 5 years to build a small online home business from ground zero to a steady monthly income of $2,000 (a modest example), it’d take 5 men 1 year to achieve the same income. Are you gunning for 5 years business growth strategy or the 1 year rapid business growth strategy at the cost of $5?
Scenario 2: Again, if John Doe spends $5 on fiverr freelancers to increase backlinks to his site and get ranked up to page 1 of Google and gets a high click through rate that converts well to generate $20 a day ($600/ month i.e. $595 profit), for a certain affiliate product review; And Miss Butterworth juggles all the activities herself and 3 months after is still trying to get up to page 30 of Google, and manages a few clicks a week – zero sales, $0 made.
If $5 can make a big change to your business income and growth, would you do nothing or…?
What Do You Think About Fiverr, The Micro-Jobs Site?
I hope that so far, this post has given you insights with pros and cons for outsourcing and how you can significantly reduce the cost and overheads associated with doing business online, while gaining more family and fun time PLUS growing your business profits on just the $5 terms.
Do you think that your business can make more money with cheap Fiverr outsourcing as a business driver? What do you think about spending $5 in exchange for a bigger business and bigger profit a lot faster than you ordinarily can, and more free time? What online business tasks are you likely to outsource? Do you think there should be no more excuses to getting to the next level fast – with Fiverr freelancers?
More Posts on Home Business Outsourcing and Fiverr: Do you know that this is one in a three-part series on internet business outsourcing guide and secrets of Fiverr outsourcing. You might want to read the other posts in this series:
- Part 1 of this series: “Understanding Outsourcing and how to achieve 5 times fast business growth by outsourcing on a budget”.
- The follow up post where I shared over 10 steps to find good Fiverr business outsourcing service providers to outsource business tasks to, and what exactly to look out for in order to avoid outsourcing to Virtual Assistants (VAs) and freelancers going bad.
Finally, thanks for reading and I’d love to hear them – let’s have a conversation in the comments area about using Fiverr for outsourcing needs.
By the way, this post is part of the business productivity series; you may want to also read (top 9 productivity killers and how to avoid them; how to build a highly productive online business). You can find those posts under the ‘business leadership’ category in this blog.
Thanks for reading and before you go, please
1.) Share it: Help a friend of yours learn about how to expand their business $5 – Facebook this post. Tweet it. Digg it. Stumble it. [Click the easy share buttons below]
2.) Comment: Leave me a comment below to let me know you were here, and of course share your thoughts
Thanks for your time here to read the Fiverr – Cheap Outsourcing Secrets for Small Online Home Businesses, and be sure to leave your footprint at the door (comment) to let me know you really were here:)
Yours in Rapidly Expanding Our Businesses On $5 Fiverr Outsourcing,
Stella
29 replies on “The Small Business Outsource Haven And Tasks Other Marketers Are Outsourcing”
Hi Stella,
Like most people I have tried quite a few gigs on my test sites. You know the seo gigs don’t work but hey you got to satisfy the curiosity 🙂
For design stuff they are great. Writing articles i can’t recommend since some articles I received were just stolen. (ie failed copy scape badly)
For social marketing I have had some results but still barely worth it.
Nik
[…] one of the main reasons why i use this Guide for Cheap Outsourcing Secrets is to save me on time and wasting doing what i did before which was basically trial and error. You […]
I really like how you provided illustrations of particular projects that can be contracted, Stella. That aspect is where many business owners get trapped. They know they should delegate but do not know what to delegate.
You’re right there – when a small business starts to understand they should delegate to external resources, they get stuck on “what should I outsource” or “what are other small businesses like mine outsourcing”. That was why I wrote this post, hoping it would give some people a clue on where to start.
Thanks for contributing to the discussion.
$5 per task is unbelievable! but I’ve heard about Fiverr and how we can find the right freelancers to make our workload easier. If this service delivers quality service more people are going to use Fiverr. I’ve tried outsourcing a couple of times but the way Fiverr works sounds very different.
I know – $5 is an unbelievable price to tag on a service BUT Fiverr is fast becoming the place where many small and home business owners are going to get some of their difficult and time consuming small business tasks done. It’s cheap but you can still find quality service, if you know how to generally find outsourcing providers (online/ offline).
I wrote a beginners’ guide (post) on how to find good freelancers because I thought that some of my readers may want to know how to start and what to avoid.
Two things to know:
1. I am an out of the box thinker when it comes to creating new approaches to problem solving.
2. I am always looking for affordable resources to help cancer survivors and caregivers resolve key issues.
1 + 2 = Sometimes what is a smaller task to healthy people can be the thing that shuts down a caregiver or survivor because healing and caregivng can take a lot of energy if they don’t have management tools. Perhaps Fiver is a place they could post small tasks they need help with – such as researching insurance issues, finding financial resources, creating a medication schedule tool, etc.
I’ll have to check it out with that in mind. Great post!
HI Tambre:
You’re just like me, tactical thinker:)
I agree with you – one man’s small task is another man’s tedious tasks – but then again small tasks can be sometimes critical to the success of a really big project, and time consuming too. Outsouring those to virtual assistants and freelancers on outsourcing sites like Fiverr (and oDesk, elance, hiremymom, peopleperhourrentacoder)help to get them done without stress; Fiverr is the cheapest of those.
I’m sure you’ll want to know some tips to ensure you and your clients find the right-fit freelancers and know red flags to avoid; be sure to read the “A Guide To Finding The Freelance Virtual Assistant That Will Do What You Want Exactly How You Want It”.
After reading about Fiverr here I did not waste any time and created my own profile there with my first Gig. Cool site with very fresh idea which costs way more than $5.
Thanks so much for coming around and I’m really glad that you got something out of the post, and have even gone ahead to take action to put up yoour first gig at Fiverr.
That alone makes my day! Fiverr is cool and the secret for freelance virtual assistants is to consistently deliver good quality Gigs in order to get repeat Gigs and plenty, from same customers. You may want to read this to know what Gig buyers are looking for, so you can be sure you always not go against it: Fiverr: What Gig Buyers Really Want From Gig Sellers
I’ve been reading some of the cool posts on your blog and I must say that I’m impressed at the content theme and quality and how targeted they are, to small business owners. I could not comment because there was a login restriction. Hope to see you around more.
I have used Fiverr for a few month now. Although I have not made big money, It sure is a nice place to make little money to pay off hosting bills. It is also a great place for getting custom videos done.
Lol. Glad you are using Fiverr. I agree, video and audio and graphic jobs have a lot of cool providers there.
Don’t worry, you’ll make the big money soon on Fiverr. Just ensure to treat your customers very well. I agree with you, no money is too small and every bit can contribute to paying for hosting.
Read this post to know what your Fiverr customers expect from you so that you can get repeat jobs (that’s where the big Fiverr money is): What Fiverr Customers Really Want From Gig Sellers
[…] Fiverr! The Poor Marketer’s Outsourcing Haven And Secrets To Profiting From Outsourcing Online Bus… […]
Hi Stella
I recently discovered Fiverr but have yet to use it. Backlinking is a task I just can’t seem to get to… so I am going to invest some time to find the help to do it. Is it not amazing what some people will do for $5.00 Seriously.
I loved the post. Thanks, Jayne
Hey Jayne, thank you so much for taking the time to read and commenting. I’m so grateful.
I’m happy to know that you loved the post:)
Yes, backlinking is a huge task – almost every blogger/ marketer says so, and can be a load of distraction if one is mot careful. It’s good that you’ve started experimenting with Fiverr for outsourcing. You may also like the follow up post where I gave 10 steps to finding the best Fivver virtual assistant that will do your job exactly how and when you want it. Here’s that post: Online Outsourcing Guide To Finding Good Business Services Freelancers At Fiverr
*BTW, I just read your post on the story behind ‘the last post’. I was touched by the love (and respect) that guy had for his readers – shows the depth of attachment and passion bloggers can have with their blog and readers. I loved it and tweeted:)
[…] Fiverr! The Poor Marketer’s Outsourcing Haven And Secrets To Profiting From Outsourcing Online Bus… […]
[…] be done, and avoid drowning in a sea of “to do” activities. Also ensure that you find really cheap, quality freelancers to outsource tedious and technical business tasks to, so that every time you use a freelancer or virtual assistant, you are sure of increased outputs […]
I liked the way you broke down all the components here, & it reminded me to check out Fiverr again. I have used it in the past, but never took the time to track if the results of the projects had any effect. (I think it was getting .edu links)
Now that I have a more focused plan for link building they probably do have a place.
~Bruce
btw BlogInteract brought me here….
Hey Bruce, first of all I want to thank you for taking the time to come over to read, and secondly to leave a comment. I’m grateful. And I’m happy that you liked the post:)
Fiverr, undoubtedly has a place in the ‘toolbox’ of any serious blogger or marketer. It’s very affordable and offers an opportunity for anyone to broke loose from overwhelm and start getting things done when they should get done. You know there’s never been enough time of a solo-preneur to get on speed and that impacts on income generation, and the usual “97% never make it”. I believe if a portion of that 97% can stop hugging those tedious, time consuming task, they can become better bloggers and marketers – which is what they do best.
I’m glad you’re rethinking Fiverr. It’s worth it as long as one takes precaution to fine good freelancers. BTW, the follow up post is on How to find the best Fiverr freelancer. You’ll want to read it.
I just read your Twitter come-back post and how you’re starting to grow new followers and buffering away – interesting read. Just followed you on Twitter:)
Hey Stella!
Love what youve done with the website and how youve broken down your information into little chunks. I was on fiverr a long time ago and since then a lot has changed.
But my two cents will be to double check before ordering, might be just a fiverr, but its still worth getting the most out of it. I will advise you to send the provider a message prior to ordering enquiring about:
-Their present workload
-Estimate of how long it may take to complete your job
-Explaining your job is.
Hope it helps 🙂
Martinsays: Nice post.
Thank you so much Martin. I value your contribution to this post. I’m glad you like the presentation and structure:)
You’re right about an outsourcer doing a due diligence before ordering micro-jobs from any freelancer, whether on Fiverr or anywhere else online or offline. Many small home business owners and online marketers have testified of getting quality service at Fiverr while a few were not quite satisfied on their try. Even at that some people went back to order more Fiverr gigs after a bad experience, and they learnt “the hard way” to keep their eyes open next time.
I have a follow-up post on how to find the perfect Fiverr freelancer to outsource a business task to, and thankfully already have some of your suggestions and will add the others (thanks). That last part “an outsourcer explaining their needs well” is the reason why most people do not get what they want, from my research. So sometimes, it’s the outsourcers’ fault.
BTW, I was reading your post and will loved your personal affirmations for getting un-stuck. Ingenious! Will leave you a comment.
BTW, this is your first comment here, right? (LoL)
I used Fiverr a couple of times, but wasn’t really satisfied with the results.
Hi Bojan, thanks for reading and sharing your personal experience from using a Fiverr freelancer.
As you know, one can get unsatisfactory results from even an offline staff, as well as from an outsourced staff or freelancer from a micro job site – no matter the reputation of the outsourcing firm or the size of the outsourcing site. However, with some caution one can weed out the likelihood of finding not getting job done to expectation.
As mentioned in this post, in the follow up post, we’ll look at how to find the right-fit Fiverr freelancer that will give you more bang for your $5 buck. You may want to subscribe to receive update when that post is published.
Just read your post on how to use traffic jam to our advantage. Excellent tips to learn something new while on the troad.
I love how you offered examples of specific tasks that can be outsourced, Stella. That part is where lots of entrepreneurs get stuck. They know they should outsource but don’t know what to outsource.
Thanks Michelle for reading and sharing; it’s always a pleasure to see you around.
I’m glad you shared your insights about entrepreneurs’ pain points with outsourcing. I hope that the guide in the post will help readers to know where to start outsourcing from.
I really liked the lesson you taught in your post about finding a ‘teacher’ who teaches in a style one learns best. That is what always works for me. Just shared a particular experience that cost me (money) when I did not check first before buying an educational product.
I have used fiverr for several outsourcing projects with mixed results. The good ones were GREAT, the bad ones, well, what can I say? it was only five bucks! LOL
It’s always a pleasure to see you around, Martha. Thanks for sharing your personal Fiverr outsourcing experience.
I guess that goes to suggest that when one finds a good freelancer or hires a Virtual Assistant (VA) through micro-job sites like Fiverr, it’s a good idea to re-use their services again instead of hopping to test new unfamiliar ones. Again I think by searching for the Fiverr freelancers with top ratings, one can significantly reduce the risk of getting online jobs that are not as expected.
I bet you learnt some VA hiring tips from the ‘not so good $5 jobs’ that will help you to hire better at other times.
You know, Martha I read your ‘ego post’ and it reminded me of myself on tight projects when I practically forget that the World consists of other things and people apart from the project of that moment. Lol
I wrote a blogging on fiverr about the same time as you. I see now that I was just scratching the surface.If you can get a designer to do a good job for5$ its surely a bargain. I have tested some rss and directory submission, but I have not seen much traffic incense yet..
Hahaha, that was quite a cool coincidence, BJ. Fiverr is increasingly getting the interest and attention of more bloggers and online marketers, hence you and I blogging about it almost same time. Personally, I think Fiverr should be in the ‘toolbox’ any online solopreneur that is building a business on a tight budget yet looking for rapid growth in structure and income.
I’m sure you’ll experience traffic spikes soon, from the Fiverr gigs you delegated to the freelancers; you know not always do these submissions get picked up fast by Google, depending on the sites. But they will be, eventually.
Just read yours and liked that it compliments my own Fiverr outsourcing post. BJ, I really appreciate your coming around and commenting. I just left you a comment and tweet to say thanks:)