Staff – you have the freedom to choose to have employees or not. You can choose to do the work yourself. You can choose to outsource the work to freelancers.
I have chosen to not have employees. I made this decision when I started Search by Burke in 2008. At the time it was because I didn't have an office or space for them to work from. Then I soon learned that it wasn't necessary for me to have full-time or part-time employees to provide quality services to my clients. What was needed was quality people doing quality work on a project basis.
I have a few people that I've been working with since 2008, and they're part of my core team.
Then I have people I contract work to, depending on the need at the time.
Where to find quality people
Some were referred to me by trusted connections.
Others I found on oDesk and tested with small projects before using them for larger projects.
If you want to outsource work, here are some places to find quality people doing quality work:
It truly depends on your need, but I can assure you that you can outsource pretty much everything related to doing internet marketing.
Why outsource?
As a business owner it's important that I spend my time on revenue generating tasks. The moment I begin spending hours on video editing, or hours on uploading content to the email auto-responder, or hours cleaning up my customer database…is when I am no longer working on a business to grow but working in a business like it's a job. And that's not why I started my business. I don't want a job – I want to grow a business to have increased revenue, which increases my income, but also to provide revenue/income for those who help me grow the business – the people I outsource to.
It's the same reason I would hire an employee – I just don't want to deal with employment law, taxes, and the drama. Nor do I want to be tied to an office or space for them to work in.
My businesses allow me the freedom of movement that I desire. They also allow me to determine the level of overhead costs I want to include in my budget. I can do the work myself and increase cash flow or I can outsource the work and spend that time creating revenue generating new business or creating new revenue generating campaigns. My choice.
If you want an internet based business, you have the freedom to choose whether or not you have employees and just how much work you want to do yourself.
There's a lot to be said about that kind of freedom.
I'll keep it simple and say:
I'm really, really happy that I have an internet based business and the Freedoms it gives me.
