When I built my first digital product, a set of niche WordPress themes, I tried to do everything myself. Graphics, CSS, HTML templates, sales copy, marketing. After burning through weeks of evenings and weekends on tasks I was mediocre at, I finally hired out the graphics and HTML work for under two hundred dollars. The product generated a thousand dollars in revenue in the first ten days.
That experience taught me the most important lesson in my entire internet marketing journey: you cannot afford to do everything yourself.
Your Time Has a Dollar Value
Most part-time entrepreneurs make a critical mistake. They assume their time is free because they are not yet making money online. But your time is not free. If you make fifty thousand dollars a year at your day job, your time is worth roughly twenty-five dollars an hour. When you spend three hours fumbling through graphic design that a professional could do in forty-five minutes for fifteen dollars, you have made a terrible trade.
Think of it this way. Imagine you have an employee named Joe who costs you twenty-five dollars an hour. Joe is buried in tasks, and important revenue-generating work is not getting done. Meanwhile, Joe is spending hours on things a ten-dollar-an-hour contractor could handle. You would tell Joe to delegate immediately.
You are Joe. So am I.
What to Outsource First
The best place to start outsourcing is with tasks that meet two criteria: they are not your core skill, and someone else can do them faster or better than you can.
Common tasks that part-time entrepreneurs should outsource early:
- Graphic design. Logos, headers, social media graphics, product mockups. Platforms like Fiverr and 99designs make this affordable.
- Website maintenance. Plugin updates, backups, security monitoring, speed optimization. Managed WordPress hosts like Cloudways handle much of this automatically now.
- Content formatting. Turning your rough draft into a polished, formatted blog post with images and internal links. A virtual assistant can do this for five to ten dollars per post.
- Video editing. If you create video content, editing is one of the most time-consuming tasks you can hand off. Editors on Fiverr and Upwork can turn raw footage into polished content.
- Transcription and repurposing. Turning podcast episodes into blog posts, social media content, and email newsletters. AI tools like Descript handle the transcription, and a VA can manage the rest.
How to Start Outsourcing
In 2008, I used ScriptLance and RentACoder. Those platforms are gone now, but the modern equivalents are better in every way:
- Fiverr for quick, defined tasks with fixed pricing.
- Upwork for ongoing relationships and more complex projects.
- OnlineJobs.ph for hiring dedicated virtual assistants, especially in the Philippines where English proficiency is high and rates are reasonable.
The key to successful outsourcing is clear specifications. Write down exactly what you want, provide examples of what good looks like, and set explicit deadlines. Vague instructions produce vague results.
Start with one small task this week. Post it on Fiverr, see who responds, and experience the freedom of having someone else handle work while you focus on what actually moves your business forward. Once you experience that leverage, you will never go back to doing everything yourself.
Hey Mark – what is your take on Site flipping? I’m wondering if there’s merit to it? Let’s say you spend $50 outsourcing a site totally turn-key and then flip it for $100. You walk away with $50 cash just for putting it all together and turning on the switch. I frankly don’t understand the point of spending $100 on a site not generating revenue, but apparently some are doing it.
Mark, that is precisely what I’m struggling with — the need to get something done, but not have the time or especially the money to do it.
So what do I resort to? Yep — doing it myself. The upside is that I’m learning so that next time I’ll get better at doing it and it hopefully won’t take as long. But of course, the downside is my wife and kids asking for identification when I enter the house. 🙂
What I wish — what I think we all wish — is to know if we could make $1,000 in the first 10 days with our product as well, we wouldn’t be so concerned about spending (investing) the money into what we’re building. I can just imagine the look on my wife’s face when I can tell her I just made enough to pay for my kids school books or we can buy that [insert product here] we’ve been wanting to get.
That’s where I want to be. Financial freedom, my friend. I will get there. Perhaps these freelancers can help, so I’ll go check them out.
@Kent — I think that site flipping should be a key part of an AdSense empire strategy
1. Spin up sites very fast
2. Do some marketing for each site
3. Wait (wait while repeating #1 and #2)
4. Identify profitable sites
5. Sell the ones that are not profitable.
Regards,
Mark
Hi Mark,
One psycological obstacle which I face when trying to outsource some coding on sites like Rentacoder is that, as long as you have to make very detailed specifications on what you whant (in order to be sure to get a good result), I’m afraid that somebody else could copy my idea.
Would love to hear your opinion.
ciao
alex
You’re right: better to hammer out more projects (with the low risk that once in a year get copied), rather than be stucked and not getting done nothing.
Thanks for your reply.
ciao
alex
I sent you a PM this morning on the address of your mailinglist (not sure if it was right to use that).
ciao
alex
Mark i noticed you don’t have any adsense ads yourself, why not?
@Big Blogger — Definitely a risk, but not one that I worry about. Here is the deal. If you have a great small idea – just do it, get it out there, be first and promote it. The internet it enormous, and there will be plenty of hits to go around. In some cases (possibly not yours 😉 ), people use this worry as an excuse to procrastinate. Just take massive action and outrun the competition.
If, on the other hand, your idea is a big idea or theft of the idea would harm your business directly, you can have the developer sign a NDA. For example, if you just invented Twitter or MySpace, get an NDA. Make sure you involve a reputable programmer and consult an IP atty to discuss protection of trade secrets and patents.
Note that the above does not constitute legal advice, I am not an atty (I do not even play an atty on TV).
@MMOSafely — I have lots of AdSense on other sites. I have found that adsense does not convert well in the IM niche on blog home pages.
However, on blog pages that get SE traffic (like tag pages), it does better. You can see an example here: http://www.masonworld.com/tag/make-money-online/
Hope that helps, Mark
Sure Alex — my pleasure.
My one piece of advice across all niches, markets and industries is “Take Massive Action.”
Regards,
Mark
Thanks for letting me know. I will find it and reply.
@Mark — I definately recommend that you think about ROI each and every time that you consider outsourcing. Just be careful to consider the value of your time in the equation.
For example, you and I were struggling with HTML the other night (do you remember that IM conversation). The creation of squeeze pages is a perfect example of something to outsource. You write the copy in word or something and give it to a html guy….he does it while you sleep and you pay him $5-$50 bucks depending on what you need.
Regards,
Mark
Personally, I think flipping sites isn’t worth it, you will be able to make much more from actually earning from the site.
Outsourcing could be really big help for your company. it is not only a time saving and money saving but you will be able to hire a professionals that having a highly competitive skills that can make your businesses improve.