A friend of mine used the term “outsourcing my coffee needs” for his trips to Starbucks. He doesn’t have a coffeepot, never buys coffee beans, ground coffee, or paraphenalia.

Outsourcing can also help you simplify your life. If it’s not worth paying for, maybe it’s not worth doing in the first place.

Melvin: Read your post and spit coffee on my screen from laughing. You really hit the (nail) on the head. C.

As a litigation/transactional attorney I’ve been emailing dictation to the UK for about 2 years now. It is great. Anything my secretary doesn’t finish by quitting time gets emailed to England. While I am home playing with my kids it all gets processed and when I show up the next morning it is sitting my my secretary’s inbox for processing. I am in the process of changing vendors (possibly to India) and I can’t imagine going back.

www.macsparky.com

Great thread!

Fantastic thread! Thanks, Merlin!

I love that so many of you are sharing names of companies you’ve tried. I find myself checking back for more, and thinking deeply.

What would really improve my life and biz is an inexpensive marketing outsource. I don’t need website services, but if I had someone to design direct mail pieces, tradeshow collateral, write press releases, etc. it would change everything for me.

American companies are WAY too expensive, and I’d be happiest if the materials were in a program I can edit myself such as Publisher or Word. I don’t want to spend $200 on a flyer that I might only use once! So either make them myself (time-consuming) or don’t get around to it. I’ve browsed on eLance before, but found American marketing firms charging full-bloat prices.

Anyone have an overseas marketing/graphic design resource for me?

Check out Team Double-Click at http://www.TeamDoubleClick.com.

This is a virtual staffing agency which matches client needs with virtual assistant’s skills. If you need someone a few hours a week to answer telephones or if you need someone 10 hours a week to run a drip campaign, write your press releases or maintain a shopping cart, Team Double-Click can make that match for you.

Here’s the boilerplate:

Launched in 2000, Team Double-ClickSM is the country’s foremost virtual staffing agency. Maximizing the experience of founder Gayle Buske, a staffing expert and with over 20 years of business experience, the company offers small businesses an economical, but productive alternative to on-site staffing. For more information about Team Double-ClickSM, visit www.teamdoubleclick.com.

Check out the new press release about a fast quiz the company offers on its website entitled, “Do I need a virtual assistant?” It will help you to determine if you really need a VA and if so, how many hours would be suitable. Some clients only need two hours a week while others can contract for 20 hours a week or more.

http://www.openpr.com/news/22979/Do-I-Need-a-Virtual-Assistant.html

The author is a fake - http://www.ivygateblog.com/blog/2007/05/timothy_ferriss_outvaynering_vayner.html

If your income is directly and measurably proportional to the number of hours you spend working, outsourcing tasks that don’t produce income makes sense. I could see it working well for sales people and lawyers. But for salaried workers, an increase in productivity, although broadly helpful, does not directly result in increased pay. This makes it more difficult to measure the value of outsourcing.

Doug - I’ve been thinking the same thing but you’re the first other person I’ve seen comment on it. I listened to an interview with the author and he makes it seem very simple to decide to outsource tasks but for salaried workers, or even commission-based jobs you’d have to make sure you spent that time you saved through outsourcing doing something that would at least generate enough income to cover the cost of the outsourcing. That is if you want outsourcing to be both a cost and time saver as the author seems to suggest it can be.

Melvin, you rock.