10 Things To Be Outsourced
You have looming deadlines, and there is more work than there are hours in the day for you to get it all done. Have you ever thought that what you really need is help that applies directly to the job at hand? There are thousands of specialized applications and services that can help you be more productive. I am sure you have heard about people hiring telemarketers and assistants in other countries to help them with their work, but there are many other services available. I have listed ten services and applications that you may not know about now, but they could become invaluable to you in the future.
1. Scheduling/To-Do Lists and Tasks – RememberTheMilk.com
RememberTheMilk is an online scheduling and task management service application. Its main selling point is that it integrates with all of your personal electronic devices: Android phones, iPhones, Blackberry and other PDAs, Twitter, MS Outlook, Gmail/Google Calendar, and many more. From your phone you can access your calendar and tasks that you have entered on your home computer. With this app you can even remotely manage your employees. While basic functions on RememberTheMilk are free, you can use the more advanced options for only $25. These might include iPod touch interface add-ons or synching RTM with Windows Mobile devices.
2. Domain Naming and Branding – PickyDomains.com
Need a new domain name or product slogan? PickyDomains.com is a domain naming and marketing service that offers you original ideas with no obligation or risk. When you place an order for a new name, you pay only $50 and you will start receiving suggestions. If you want to use one of the names PickyDomains pays a portion of the fee to the person who came up with the suggestion. If you don’t like any of the suggestions, you can have your fee refunded, with no obligation. Here are some of the over 1500 sites they have helped develop: Xutta.Com, NadaPay.com, Simplytics.Com, DiskScout.Com Coderria.Com, Nogeno.Com, and GymGenius.Com.
3. Web and Graphic Design – 99Designs.Com
In 2010, 99Designs won a Webby award and they have since been featured in many tech magazines and blogs with good reviews. 99Designs is a service that specializes in graphics such as logos, templates, icons and many other types of design. They have a huge membership of graphic designers who charge much less than traditional design firms would. You can purchase an original logo for approximately $99. Most graphic design firms would charge you at minimum, $295.
4. Sales and Marketing – oDesk.Com
Like 99Designs.com, Odesk is similar but they offer a wider range of outsourcing services. It is particularly good for sales lead generation and business prospecting. For example, if you are a doctor who works with law firms, preparing expert testimony for personal injury cases, you need to contact lawyers in that field. Through oDesk, you can employ competent marketers from Thailand, Russia, or India for a very low hourly fee. You can write your job description to be extremely task specific, even telling them exactly where to find the leads and what to do with them. You could, for instance, offer .10 cents for each lead generated and email sent. Contacting 1000 prospects that would have taken you weeks, could instead now cost only $100 and can be done by several remote employees in a matter of hours.
5. Competitive SEO/PPC – iSpionage.Com
If you run an internet business and want to keep tabs on what your competition is doing with their SEO, iSpionage will be invaluable. All you have to do is search your competition’s URL and you can see which keywords they are using, their position and if they are buying PPC ads. You will find out approximately how much money they have spent and can even access the text for their AdWords ads, and how much traffic they are generating from their SEO. Their free service lets you search up to 10 domains or keywords per day, but for a fee of $59 to $129 you can have full access to all the information.
6. Corporate Intranets – BitrixSoft.com
This service is your one-stop shop for corporate intranets. You may not have heard of them, but almost 60,000 sites in Russia for media, government and corporations use it. With Bitrix, a competent programmer would be able to get corporate intranet, including employee pages, forums, messaging, blogs, video conferencing, and e-mail, in place very quickly. Their fees vary, depending on the size of the intranet service you need.
7. Social Network Building – Microworkers.Com
Feeling sad that you have no followers? Does no one ‘like’ you on your business Facebook page? This can be a real problem when you launch a new corporate Facebook page. At Microworkers for under $100 your social networking page will have hundreds of members right from the beginning. Now you won’t have to spend your own time trying to get a few ‘friends’ and Twitter followers. At Microworkers.com you can pay as little as .10 to .15 cents apiece for people to ‘like’ you on Facebook or ‘follow’ you on Twitter.
8. Invoicing and Business Processes – SideJobTrack.Com
The economy is bad and everyone is moonlighting, so how do you keep track of all your extra jobs? You can find quite a few online services that can perform invoicing and other business services. SideJobTrack.com is specifically designed for part-time contractors or people who do work on a variable basis, which is what sets it apart. You can create your own invoices and estimates from many different templates. You don’t want to pay for a standard invoicing/billing service if you only do these jobs a few times a year. Especially since SideJobTrack is absolutely free!
9. Software Translation – Transifex.net
If you are a software developer and want to market your program abroad, you might need to have your application translated into as many as 15 different languages. Often, programmers ask their users to translate the application in their native language or they may hire separate translators for every language. Transifex was originally created for open source translation projects but now offers its services for commercial applications as well. They have done translations for Firefox, Meego, fedora, GNOME, and django. At $30 EU per month, it’s very inexpensive. In comparison to other companies such as eLance the quality and speed is much higher and the fee much lower.
10. Legal Services– BatesExpress.com
Unless you work for a law firm, it is probably a good thing if you don’t what the Bates numbering system is. Lawyers, paralegals and clerks have to manually add Bates numbering, also known as ‘stamping Bates,’ to every single document in order to have courts accept them. BatesExpress provides a service that will automatically apply Bates stamps to any legal document, Word file, e-mail, image, or PDF file. BatesExpress has a free version as well as a paid version with more functionality.
1. Scheduling/To-Do Lists and Tasks – RememberTheMilk.com
RememberTheMilk is an online scheduling and task management service application. Its main selling point is that it integrates with all of your personal electronic devices: Android phones, iPhones, Blackberry and other PDAs, Twitter, MS Outlook, Gmail/Google Calendar, and many more. From your phone you can access your calendar and tasks that you have entered on your home computer. With this app you can even remotely manage your employees. While basic functions on RememberTheMilk are free, you can use the more advanced options for only $25. These might include iPod touch interface add-ons or synching RTM with Windows Mobile devices.
2. Domain Naming and Branding – PickyDomains.com
Need a new domain name or product slogan? PickyDomains.com is a domain naming and marketing service that offers you original ideas with no obligation or risk. When you place an order for a new name, you pay only $50 and you will start receiving suggestions. If you want to use one of the names PickyDomains pays a portion of the fee to the person who came up with the suggestion. If you don’t like any of the suggestions, you can have your fee refunded, with no obligation. Here are some of the over 1500 sites they have helped develop: Xutta.Com, NadaPay.com, Simplytics.Com, DiskScout.Com Coderria.Com, Nogeno.Com, and GymGenius.Com.
3. Web and Graphic Design – 99Designs.Com
In 2010, 99Designs won a Webby award and they have since been featured in many tech magazines and blogs with good reviews. 99Designs is a service that specializes in graphics such as logos, templates, icons and many other types of design. They have a huge membership of graphic designers who charge much less than traditional design firms would. You can purchase an original logo for approximately $99. Most graphic design firms would charge you at minimum, $295.
4. Sales and Marketing – oDesk.Com
Like 99Designs.com, Odesk is similar but they offer a wider range of outsourcing services. It is particularly good for sales lead generation and business prospecting. For example, if you are a doctor who works with law firms, preparing expert testimony for personal injury cases, you need to contact lawyers in that field. Through oDesk, you can employ competent marketers from Thailand, Russia, or India for a very low hourly fee. You can write your job description to be extremely task specific, even telling them exactly where to find the leads and what to do with them. You could, for instance, offer .10 cents for each lead generated and email sent. Contacting 1000 prospects that would have taken you weeks, could instead now cost only $100 and can be done by several remote employees in a matter of hours.
5. Competitive SEO/PPC – iSpionage.Com
If you run an internet business and want to keep tabs on what your competition is doing with their SEO, iSpionage will be invaluable. All you have to do is search your competition’s URL and you can see which keywords they are using, their position and if they are buying PPC ads. You will find out approximately how much money they have spent and can even access the text for their AdWords ads, and how much traffic they are generating from their SEO. Their free service lets you search up to 10 domains or keywords per day, but for a fee of $59 to $129 you can have full access to all the information.
6. Corporate Intranets – BitrixSoft.com
This service is your one-stop shop for corporate intranets. You may not have heard of them, but almost 60,000 sites in Russia for media, government and corporations use it. With Bitrix, a competent programmer would be able to get corporate intranet, including employee pages, forums, messaging, blogs, video conferencing, and e-mail, in place very quickly. Their fees vary, depending on the size of the intranet service you need.
7. Social Network Building – Microworkers.Com
Feeling sad that you have no followers? Does no one ‘like’ you on your business Facebook page? This can be a real problem when you launch a new corporate Facebook page. At Microworkers for under $100 your social networking page will have hundreds of members right from the beginning. Now you won’t have to spend your own time trying to get a few ‘friends’ and Twitter followers. At Microworkers.com you can pay as little as .10 to .15 cents apiece for people to ‘like’ you on Facebook or ‘follow’ you on Twitter.
8. Invoicing and Business Processes – SideJobTrack.Com
The economy is bad and everyone is moonlighting, so how do you keep track of all your extra jobs? You can find quite a few online services that can perform invoicing and other business services. SideJobTrack.com is specifically designed for part-time contractors or people who do work on a variable basis, which is what sets it apart. You can create your own invoices and estimates from many different templates. You don’t want to pay for a standard invoicing/billing service if you only do these jobs a few times a year. Especially since SideJobTrack is absolutely free!
9. Software Translation – Transifex.net
If you are a software developer and want to market your program abroad, you might need to have your application translated into as many as 15 different languages. Often, programmers ask their users to translate the application in their native language or they may hire separate translators for every language. Transifex was originally created for open source translation projects but now offers its services for commercial applications as well. They have done translations for Firefox, Meego, fedora, GNOME, and django. At $30 EU per month, it’s very inexpensive. In comparison to other companies such as eLance the quality and speed is much higher and the fee much lower.
10. Legal Services– BatesExpress.com
Unless you work for a law firm, it is probably a good thing if you don’t what the Bates numbering system is. Lawyers, paralegals and clerks have to manually add Bates numbering, also known as ‘stamping Bates,’ to every single document in order to have courts accept them. BatesExpress provides a service that will automatically apply Bates stamps to any legal document, Word file, e-mail, image, or PDF file. BatesExpress has a free version as well as a paid version with more functionality.
posted by UncommonBusiness at 12:05 AM
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