When you’re an online business owner, it can sometimes be difficult to determine when to get help to move you towards your goals. My advice: outsource as soon as you can. There are ways to do this inexpensively if you don’t want to hire someone full or even part time.

Some things to think about as you decide whether or not to add someone to your team:

• What core aspects of your online business are not your passion or strengths?
• Where do you know you want or need to grow and you need an expert, rather than wasting time trying to re-invent the wheel?
• How and where can this be dome faster, better, less expensively?
• Where can you get out of the middle and still have your business vision followed and implemented?

In this episode I share 12 tips to outsource effectively:

1. Prepare for growth in advance and hire people for their skill. Even if you don’t feel you have the budget yet, get clear on what you need now. (Scroll to the bottom for some low-cost ways to outsource now.)

2. Create an onboarding process for new hires. When I’ve done this, it’s extremely effective to get your new team member integrated and understand your business mission and vision.

(Tweet this:)

3. Invest time and training into your new team members.

Time – give them adequate training. I’ve made the mistake before of just throwing things at a new VA because I didn’t want to take the time to train them. Do it. The time you invest upfront will pay huge dividends over time.

Training – I create training videos with exactly what I want team members to do. In addition to showing them the how, you also want to explain WHY you want things done a certain way. Doing this will help your team members start to think like you do. You can use any screen capture recording software and Screenr.com is an easy to use free option. Save all these videos and soon, you’ll have a video training library for your team so that as new members come on board, no one has to train them one-on-one, they just refer to the video library.

4. Ask their opinion and rely on their expertise. Make sure to let them know that you want them to speak up and bring up ways to create systems or make your systems run more efficiently.

5. Act like the leader. It’s your job to lead and hold yourself and your team accountable. You can’t be an absentee leader.

6. Have weekly meetings or an end-of-day (EOD) report. This helps you see what’s working and what isn’t so you can give feedback, make adjustments and celebrate what is working.

7. Give projects a start and end date.

8. Provide all the tools they need to be successful. This includes training courses if necessary. I purchased a WordPress course for my head VA many years ago that has paid me back many times over.

You can also go above and beyond if you think it makes sense. I’ve purchased a laptop for a new hire in the past. She had the skills to do the work, but her own laptop died a few weeks into working together. I ordered a laptop with the capabilities she needed, drew up a contract that outlines as she spent more time working for me, she owed me less for the laptop. She’s stayed with me for years, so the laptop became hers after a time – I got an amazing Virtual Assistant who knew I believed in her enough to invest in her.

9. Let team members know how their work affect the other team members and the success of your company. When people know they’re part of a whole, it helps them do their job better.

10. Reward team members when they do a great job.

11. Have a probationary period where you both decide if it’s a good fit.

12. Quickly let go of people who are not working. Follow your intuition and don’t try to force a working relationship. It’s just like a personal relationship, you KNOW when it just isn’t working and it’s time to let it go.

Some places to find outsourcers and team members:

• Craigslist
• Elance
• Odesk
• Pepper
• People per hour
• Fiverr – great inexpensive place to outsource one-off projects (or find new team members – my transcriptionist came from here)

Final tip: When you place an ad for a new team member, be sure to ask them to do something “extra” – my go-to extra is asking them to write a sentence to a short paragraph of what they specifically would be a good fit for this position. You wouldn’t believe how many will NOT take this extra step. If they aren’t willing to do what it takes to get on your team, you can be sure they will not be willing to do what it takes to be a stellar team member.

Click here to download the sample hiring ad I’ve used for some great hires on my team.

Tomorrow, stay tuned for Day 30 of our Law of Attraction series for entrepreneurs as we cover 8 ways entrepreneurs disempower themselves and what to do instead!