Guest Post
The key to running a successful Amazon business is taking advantage of the fact that you can outsource anything these days. You don’t have to get caught up in the daily grind just to do it again the next day as long as you have trusted freelancers who can help you out.
Outsourcing, or the practice of hiring third-party contractors to perform tasks you’d normally do in-house, offers a wide range of benefits including reducing costs, streamlining operations, and increasing flexibility in your company.
In this blog post, we’ll be going through five simple steps to outsource anything for your Amazon business. Furthermore, we’ll be talking about some of the tasks you can start outsourcing now. Read on to find out how you can start today!
A Simple 5-Step Process for Hiring Online
Outsourcing for Amazon businesses isn’t as complicated as you might think. As long as you know a few key things, you can start finding skilled individuals or boutique agencies who can help you with your business. If you want to outsource anything for your Amazon business, then you can follow these five simple steps:
Step 1: Identify Aspects of Your Business that You Need Help With
As a business owner, your focus should be on looking for ways to grow your business. There are aspects of running your Amazon store that simply do not give value to your time. These are tasks, while crucial for your business, are repetitive and take a considerable amount of time to accomplish, like answering emails and scheduling meetings.
You can also outsource anything that requires a special set of skills that you or any of your full-time workers do not possess. Having a specialist onboard will definitely push your business further, especially in areas like SEO, graphic design, and listing optimization.
Step 2: Identify the Qualities and Qualifications You Need from a Freelancer
You need to determine the qualities of the person you want to work with in your business. Since you can outsource anything online, start by creating a list of the specific skills and qualifications needed for the position. If you’re outsourcing anything that’s Amazon-specific like PPC or product listing, then you need someone with ample experience and proven success in these tasks.
Apart from expertise and experience, it’s also important to look for qualities like communication skills and professionalism. Since you’ll most likely be working remotely with a freelancer or boutique agency when you outsource, you need somebody who is equipped with strong people skills, doesn’t miss deadlines, and has work habits that marry well with your own.
Step 3: Find and Hire Great Candidates through a Freelancer Platform
These days finding freelancers to whom you can outsource anything for your Amazon business has been made simple by freelancer marketplaces like FreeUp.
As a freelancer platform, FreeUp pre-vets freelancers and boutique agencies to make the hiring process easier for business owners like you. All you need to do is sign up for an account, submit your requirements for the position, and wait for as short as one business day to get introduced to a freelancer that fits your needs.
As an option, you can do a quick 15 to 20 minute call before hiring a freelancer to see if they’re really a good fit. You may also use this time to introduce them briefly to the terms of engagement and the workflow you wish for them to follow.
Step 4: Onboard the Freelancer
Onboarding is one of the most important aspects of working with a freelancer. This process involves providing them with the right resources so that they can get to know your business and your processes well. It prevents untoward mishaps from happening by ensuring that both you and the freelancer are on the same page all the time.
Once you’ve chosen a freelancer you can effectively work with, you’ll need to introduce them to your business goals, culture, and processes. Let them know about your products and services as well as who you intend to sell to.
Along with this, it’s also important to reiterate the terms of engagement together with your rules for communication.
As part of the onboarding process, you should also make sure that they have access to platforms and the pieces of software you are using.
Step 5: Manage Freelancers Well
A crucial part of working with remote freelancers when you outsource anything for your business is using management strategies that will keep things running smoothly.
Opt for a project management tool that will help you and the freelancer track and manage daily tasks. It’s also helpful to have regular meetings or check-ins at least once a week to get everyone updated and to address any issues that might pop up.
Make sure as well to set reasonable deadlines for tasks. Always discuss and agree on workable turn-around-times and output volume.
Finally, it’s important to make freelancers feel like they are a valuable part of your company even if you don’t see each other in person. Give them constructive feedback and encourage a culture of mentorship. In doing do, you can foster a strong and desirable work dynamic for everyone.
Four Tasks You Can Easily Outsource for Your Amazon Business
Whether you’re an Amazon solo-prenuer or you manage a number of people, outsourcing can be beneficial for your business. Freelancers all over the globe can help you with a wide variety of tasks so you can focus on continuously scaling up your company. Here are some of the tasks that you can outsource for your Amazon business:
Product Listing
Your products’ success on Amazon greatly depends on using the right keywords, clear product descriptions, and well-constructed titles. If you’ve been in the business for long enough, you already know what works and what doesn’t.
An expert can help take over certain listing tasks for you such as creating keyword-friendly descriptions that can easily catch the attention of your customers. They can also help ensure that your product titles and descriptions are mobile friendly.
Product Sourcing
Product sourcing is the heart and soul of an Amazon business. However, it can get pretty time-consuming if you choose to do this by yourself. A freelancer can help you with a lot of things related to product sourcing including creating a game plan to source new products that fit your niche.
They can also help you find trending and popular products domestically as well as internationally to increase your profit margins.
If you want to handle outreach yourself, a freelancer can also just compile a list of product leads for you based on specific details you provide.
Customer Service
Customer service is best left to the professionals. The good news is there are a lot of freelancers out there who have the expertise and experience to improve your relationships with customers.
They can manage and respond to all customer inquiries via email and live chat. They can also handle customer service phone calls.
A higher-level freelancer or a consultant can also help you build out your customer service operations and create onboarding guidelines that future workers can use.
Graphic Design
Graphic design can take your business to the next level. However, not everyone is equipped with the skills to successfully create visually-arresting graphics. A freelancer can help you with a wide range of tasks such as creating product images, creating images for ad campaigns, designing logos and promo banners, and creating infographics for your listings.
The Bottom Line
Outsourcing certain aspects of your business can have a positive impact on your Amazon store. By handing over tasks like product sourcing and listing, customer service, graphic design, order management, and customer service, you can run your store much more efficiently.
Knowing how to effectively outsource critical tasks for your business can help you run your business a little more smoothly. Knowing what tasks you are comfortable letting go of and having an idea of the ideal freelancer you want to work with means you’re already on the right track but it doesn’t end there. When you have a suitable candidate in, proper onboarding and management is crucial.
Taking advantage of the expertise and innovative services of skilled individuals can help you streamline your operations. This effectively gives you more time to focus on the bigger picture allowing you to grow your Amazon business even more.
Guest Post from Connor Gillivan
Connor Gillivan is the CMO and co-owner of FreeeUp.com, a rapidly growing freelance marketplace making hiring online simpler. He has sold over $30 million online, has hired hundreds of freelancers to build his companies, is a published author, and is the owner of ConnorGillivan.com. He currently lives in Denver, CO.
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