Smart Outsourcing: Getting Full Value from Your Freelance Copywriter
Once upon a time I received a bid request from a business owner in need of website content. I suggested my Small Website Package as the most cost-efficient and time-efficient way of making that happen. I heard nothing back from the business owner for some time. When I finally inquired, she told me that she had been roughing out a draft herself, figuring that she could save money by simply letting me edit it.
No such luck. The content I received was so rough that it took me many hours of editing to get it into acceptable shape — more hours, in fact, than writing it from scratch would have taken. As a result, my client ended up paying more for editing than she would have paid for the full writing package. And that doesn’t even include all the valuable billable time she dumped into that rough draft!
I bring this up because an increasing number of business owners have discovered the power of outsourcing, thanks in part to Timothy Ferriss’s popular book on the subject, The 4-Hour Workweek. Ferriss has carved out a remarkably efficient life for himself by outsourcing time-consuming daily activities to third parties. It makes perfect sense — hand over a time-consuming/tedious/specialized job (such as copywriting) over to someone who can do it really well and fairly quickly (such as a professional copywriter). (And I mean a real pro, by the way, not some $2-an-hour hack, because you’ll just end up hiring the pro to fix the hack’s initial efforts anyway.) By having that third party work while you do other things, you’re free to focus your own energies on money-making activities.
But like so many other things in life, outsourcing only works if you work it. The client I mentioned didn’t save herself any time or money because she did most of the heavy lifting and then outsourced it to be fixed. Yes, there are times when editing is all a client needs. If the draft’s already done and reasonably competent, then a revision can get it to the finish line quickly and affordably. But if you’re starting from scratch, take advantage of your copywriter’s willingness to take the whole thing off your plate. You’ll breathe easier, you can go back to doing what you do best, and you’ll be getting more for your money. That’s smart outsourcing!
For more about my writing services and current package deals, check out my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.
