D.I.Y. Making You Crazy? Try Outsourcing.
Outsourcing – using an outside contractor to do some of your daily or weekly tasks in order to free up time to do more important things like run your business. Tim Ferriss, whose bestselling The 4-Hour Workweek has just been updated and expanded, suggests hiring offshore help to save money. In this short video Greg Rollett of Gen-Y Rock Stars translates outsourcing to the music industry.
Music Outsourcing from Greg Rollett on Vimeo.
Good stuff Greg. Just finished the expanded 4HWW a few weeks ago and got some decent ideas out of it. Been mainly using the 80/20 for a lot of stuff.
I need to check out Source Control though.
Good work on the video and some good ideas on outsourcing.
Greg, great info man…It’s so hard to imagine outsourcing things sometimes, but it seems the only way to get more done in less time. Thanks for the reminder and link resources!
Label 2.0 rocks and for those unfamiliar, see http://evolvor.go2jump.org/SH2
Doing what you know, and leaving what you don’t know to the experts is great advice.. but I have a problem with using off shore resources. The U.S. is in a world of hurt because we send our jobs to other countries, rather than “take care of our own” and employ the talented individuals here.
Hey Phil – You can outsource to whoever you need to, doesn’t have to be overseas. There is a ton of talent here in the U.S. and in the music industry there are tons of talented college students, recent grads and people looking to make an a name for themselves. You can find them for low budget items and outsourcing in additional to bringing them on as VA’s.
You can also find some great design, IT and other work on sites like Craigslist.
oDesk – one of the services I recommend has US based workers in addition to the overseas angles.
There is also the price you are willing to pay for a task and what the task is worth to your business. Having a talented video producer work on your media is something that has a higher perceived value than writing articles for SEO. When looking at this scenario, it makes business sense to pay someone a very fair wage overseas a few bucks for a few articles than pay a typical $10-20 here. Remember that the music business is a business and must be run as one.
Thanks Tanner for the comment. The 80/20 rule is awesome if you can find the source of the 80. Once you do the sky is the limit.
Hey Andrew – outsourcing for the first time is tough. Start slow and with tasks that you can manage easily. This could be article writing, logo design, research on blogs to follow, etc. From here you will slowly start to lose that fear.
Glad you are enjoying Label 2.0 – its a blast being able to work with musicians like you.
Thanks for posting this Bruce…Greg’s stuff is always on point!