Help - creating a 4HWW business. what can I outsource?

[Free4Family&Community]

Is your business a 4hww business? What have you outsourced?


I am working on creating a graphic design/web & print company. Offering business stationery like business cards, flyers to small-medium businesses. I am to work from home. Want to keep my work time to a minimum to allow me free time for other stuff.

Outsourcing

Graphic design to local freelancers who work from home
Accountant for tax forms
Book keeper for monthly receipts, invoices etc
Trade printing company to print off the designers from freelance graphic designer.



Advertise. Online via local forums. I attend free/cheap networking events carrying flyers & business cards that also have my web site. Could I outsource the selling of business service?

What else can I outsource?

[Sven]

Sorry dude, outsourcing that small stuff will take as much time to outsource as it takes a good designer to design it. But the result will probably be poorer and uglier.

You can outsource print in bulk but that that has been done for decades.
Outsourcing day to day bookkeeping is only viable when you are really busy and expensive.

The way you write about it now seems that you're still in the dream cloud.
I do not think this will work but I'd love for you to prove me wrong!

Good luck

[CameronC]

Sven seemed to hit it right on the nail...

Additionally, Research is something you always want to keep in mind. From what I understand the "Business Stationary" is a very competitive and somewhat supersaturated market. Competition is good, but I unless you find a unique and innovative approach (or find a very particular niche), your going to have a very difficult time.

There is a lot of material available on how to conduct market research (use Google to find this material) and although a lot of people get caught up in the research and never actually launch, you still need to be knowledgeable about the market you are entering.

A quick query using googles traffic estimator showed the following results for the search term "Business Cards"

Average CPC: $9.77 (at a maximum CPC of $20.29)
Estimated clicks per day: 1,088 - 1,248 (at a daily budget of $13,340.00)

That is pretty expensive advertising (if you were thinking of using the Google ppc advertising) and you are up against the likes of: FedEx, vista print, cafe press, got print, staples, the ups store, office max, and literally thousands of other online print sites.

I wish you the best of luck!

[David_D]

I disagree.

I run an online outsourced design and print company. It's designed to work from anywhere in the world which i did when I traveled through Chile and then up to Canada.

I lots my VA recently and had to take the full work load of running the business back..

This is hard work but quiet enjoy it. It has also forced me streamline my businees even more. and think of new ways to outsource my online business. I have also just hired my OWN employee in India (not through a VA company) and I have also rented office space for her. A few final payments and connections and she will work full time for me....

This is gonna cost me £400 a month, but she will work 7hrs a day x 5 days a week...

She'll do the following...

- Take orders & place them with printers.
- communicate with graphic designers to get designs done.
- Keep daily profit loss books
- Answer any emails for the business
- SMS me when I need to make a phone call
- Email me with invoice details to pay supplier so I can play.
- Account management including chasing orders, keepthe customers happy and getting feedback.

My graphic desinger who charges me $10 per job

- administrates my website (small changes products etc)
- does graphic designer work (of course)
- manages my emailing list

This has free'd me up to develope my next project to be released by september. My VA will work on this although I reckon I may need another one towards 3rd or 4th month...

All my advertsing is PPC and organic SEO. I used to do this myself but I now pay another firm to manage it.

I hope that helps

David

[Sven]

Well, I guess that is where the "ugly" I mentioned earlier comes in. I have worked with graphic designers as a suplier (10 years) as well as customer and the kind of design that I concider to be good can not come from $10/job. It can very well be that you have tapped a great market which is a good thing.

There must be a market there so if you want to explore that, go for it!

[David_D]

My graphic designer isn't to bad as it goes.... It did take me quite a long time to find him. He produces work for me that would cost me around £150 for in the UK. But as he is from Pakistan he's very happy with 10$ per job.

As an example.

I released funds of $170 to him for last week. Thats around 6 weeks money for people in Pkistan. Some of the jobs take him 20 secs re-sizing leaflets etc adding a bleed. and some jobs take him a few hours back a forth with the customer ect to get it right.

The only thing is he does all his work with photoshop, but I am looking to send him on a Quark course close to him, wich would mean we could open him up to more than just leafelts, business cards & psters etc

I have just up'd my PPC campaign to be £50 a day so I'm expecting the sales to increase to 10 per day. I'm wondering how he'll cope... but time will tell.

It's quiet interesting the point you make though. I bought the Be-n-lux franchise to an advertising company based in Paris a few years ago and as part of the franchising training I learnt to use Illistrator. It was even back then I thought god they publish this monthly mag' from this geezers living room every month...

It doen't have to be $500 an hour designer. Not by a long shot.

As a nice example of a muse.. the guy would spend 7 days speaking with clients/selling advertsing and 3 days in production. The mag earnt 20k euros profit every month. If it was around St paddys or something the bigger customers like guiness would pay him 20K just for the back cover.

To put this together he used a G/D student who he paid 50 euros a day. and a couple of admin girls.

Anyway.. now I'm waffling.