3 Reasons to Exclusively Use Freelancers for All Business Projects

With the rise of the freelance economy, the traditional model of hiring long-term employees has been disrupted. While some might argue that in house employees can have their benefits, these do not stack up compared to making intense use of freelancers. Freelancers are an underutilized resource and come with significant advantages. 

#1 - Less Red Tape

One of the benefits of using freelancers is that you can hire them for short-term contracts. This means that you don’t have to go through all the hassle of interviewing a potential employee. Sites such as UpWork showcases the skills of freelancers who will have a long list of reviews and will be given a rating score by the platform. You can filter for the quality of a freelancer and pay exactly what you want to get the job done. Using freelancers is a very easy and safe process, with the typical payment escrow system in place. There is no need to take care of employee insurance, payroll, insurance, or legal issues. The freelancing platform takes care of it all and you are not the employer of the freelancers. 

#2 - Find The Exact Skills You Need

When you hire a permanent employee, you are hiring one person with a generic skill set. But an online business often changes and needs different tasks completed. For example, you can find a freelance writer with experience in writing about search engine optimization or short term loans. Or a software developer that specializes in WordPress. You simply hire them for the job that they are proven to be effective at. They do the job, and both parties go their separate ways upon completion.

#3 - Far More Cost Effective

For a number of reasons, using freelancers is more cost effective. The money you pay is going to get you exactly what you want. If not, mediation services are provided for issues in dispute and negative feedback is a serious consequence for freelancers who do not complete the task as specified in the initial contract. Because you are only hiring the freelancers for a one-time project, you do not have to take care of additional expenses. You also don’t have to hire them for a whole year with a fixed wage, regardless of the income of your business. Another benefit is that the freelancer can work on the project while you sleep, as they are located in different time zones across the world. All in all, freelancers are simply a cheaper and more efficient way of getting business projects completed.

5 of the Strongest Online Business Models to Ensure Success

The choice of online business model can have a huge impact on future success. So be careful when starting out that you select a model that matches your lifestyle. The following are 5 of the best online business models you can make use of to secure financial freedom.

#1 - Blogging

Blogging is still one of the best ways to make money online. Blogging takes consistency to work, and the results can take a while to materialize. But blogging is still essential. Even if it is not going to be used as the primary form of income, having a blog is a good way to promote your other business or to bolster your reputation. Once a blog generates enough traffic, it can be monetized using affiliate links or paid advertising.

#2 - YouTube

In many ways, videos are taking over from written content. Customers like videos more than written content and video content has the potential to go viral. YouTube is the biggest video streaming platform and it is easier to create a video than is commonly believed. You can use YouTube to build up a following and then market to them. This method is far quicker than blogging in most instances.

#3 - Physical Products and Amazon FBA

It is also possible to sell physical products online with the help of other services. With the Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) service, you simply ship your goods to Amazon. The sale and processing occur through the Amazon platform, as does delivery of the product itself. Amazon even takes care of the customer service. In other words, Amazon does a lot to complete the business. However, they do take a large share. Other methods of selling physical products online include drop shipping and third-party logistics companies.

#4 - Create an Online Course

If you are an expert on a particular topic, then you should consider creating your own online course. This is not as difficult as it sounds, but you will still be responsible for marketing and promoting your course. Udemy is one of the most well-known online course platforms. With the increase in the price of third level education, more people than ever are turning to online courses for instruction.

#5 - Freelancing

Freelancing is a great way to earn money on the side. You can work from anywhere and leverage your existing skills for compensation. You can also use freelancers to enhance your business and quality of life. Virtual assistants are available and can complete menial tasks such as data entry or email management for as little as $5 per hour.

5 Powerful Ways to Promote Your Business

Marketing and promotion are vital for the success of an online business. Without a strong marketing strategy, then nobody will know about your brand. Make sure to try out at least one of these ways to promote your business so that you can direct traffic to your site.

Google Ads

Google advertising is one of the most well-known forms of paid advertising. Marketers bid on keywords and these ads show up on Google when a user searches for a particular search term. The advertiser will pay Google when a user clicks on one of the sponsored ads. This is a great way to promote your business. It also works far more quickly compared to typical SEO methods, though it requires a little more expertise to pull it off.

Facebook Ads

Facebook is becoming more and more like a search engine, and people are listing their products and services on this site. Facebook offers a large variety of advertising types to suit every business model. It also offers something called sponsored stories. These stories are a kind of organic marketing technique where advertisers can highlight what users are saying about the brand.

Quora

Quora is a question and answer site that is extremely popular. It is a great way to get your brand out there. All you need to do is answer questions on this site in relation to the topic at hand. So if you have a blog about personal finance, then you could answer questions surrounding this area. Aside from people seeing your logo and brand, you can put in affiliate links or links to your blog.

Collaborations

Collaborating with other businesses is still as important as ever. This is a technique that freelancers and small online business owners do not use often enough. For example, it would be much easier for 5 independent bloggers to examine ways they could collaborate together than for every person to do it all alone.

Meeting Face to Face

Meeting people face to face is also a key aspect of online success. It brings an increased level of trust and authenticity to the business relationship. You can get to know people on a personal level. While hiring freelancers is great for efficiency, you are going to need a few people to interact with on a tangible level. It can also make the whole process of achieving financial freedom far more enjoyable as you can talk with people face to face instead of messaging platforms.

7 Reasons to Choose an Online Business Model

Setting up and online business is becoming known as the best way to achieve success quickly. Using other models often involves more risk with longer time horizons. There are numerous advantages that an online business has over other models, and here are seven of them.

#1 - It’s Cheaper

By setting up an online business, you have almost no upfront costs. It is free to create a website using a service such as Wix, and all that you pay for is hosting. In contrast, setting up a physical business requires significant expense and possibly even a loan.

#2 - It’s Easier

With online businesses, you can make heavy use of automation and software tools to make your life a whole lot easier. You can automate email responses, social media posts, and marketing efforts. You can also let freelancers do the work for you.

#3 - It’s Open 24/7

Unlike physical businesses, online outlets are open 24/7. This means that customers can purchase from your site or read your blog at all times. You can also work whenever you want, on your schedule.  The site is never closed. The people you hire to complete projects can also work while you are asleep or relaxing.

#4 - The Audience is Global

With an online business, people can look at your site from anywhere in the world. According to all the latest statistics, more and more people are going online for purchases. This means that you have a massive audience and many ways to reach them.

#5 - It’s Easier to Scale

Online companies are often far easier to scale compared to physical outlets. The site capacity can be easily increased to accommodate increased traffic. You can also use paid search methods to gain traffic. And with eBooks, courses, and software products, it does not cost anything to duplicate them and keep selling.

#6 - Speed

Online businesses can grow very rapidly with the right marketing methods. Once, it would take decades to become a millionaire or years to simply acquire a good income. But it is possible to earn a good income using the online model is a respectable time frame.

#7 - Freedom and Flexibility

Online businesses are so much easier to manage as there are more options available. Brick and mortar companies are limited to the people in the immediate vicinity in terms of customers. And they are limited to the skills of the employees that they hire. With online businesses, there is more that you can do to expand the business and it is possible to hire freelancers on short term contracts.

Why Being a Perfectionist Will Kill Your Productivity

If you tend to set high bars for yourself and always try to put your best foot forward to achieve your goals, your perfectionism could be killing your productivity. While striving for perfection can help you achieve great results, it can also prevent you from being your best and can foster a lack of productivity. Here are several ways the being a perfectionist will quickly kill your productivity.

Perfectionism Makes You Less Efficient

When you strive for perfection in the tasks that you do, even when you've completed the task, you will linger on to find new ways that you can improve. This lingering process might start off as a quick ten-minute process but can quickly escalate until you find yourself spending an hour or more looking for things to improve. This causes you to spend way too much time on a task that required and puts you behind schedule.

You Become Less Effective

As a perfectionist, you probably do little things because they seem like a good addition. However, you fail to consciously think whether those additions are necessary. Sometimes, those additions not only fail to add value but might even ruin things.

You Tend to Procrastinate

When you have perfectionist tendencies, you often wait for the perfect moment, which tends to overcomplicate a project. What is a simple task, might get blown out of proportion, to the extent that it then becomes intimidating subconsciously. This causes you to procrastinate on working on it because you are waiting for the ever "perfect" moment before you begin. Unfortunately, this perfect moment never happens until it's too late.

You Miss the Bigger Picture

Since you are too hung up on the little details, you tend to forget about the bigger picture and the end goal. It isn't uncommon to see better jobs in pruning the trees than the growth of the forest.

You Fuss Over Unfounded Problems

Most perfectionists tend to anticipate problems before then crop up and develop solutions to address the issues. It ends up becoming an obsession to pre-empt potential problems. Unfortunately, most of the problems that you envision never surface or they don’t really matter as much as you thought they would.

While striving to aim for higher standards isn’t a bad thing, when the quest for perfection turns into an obsession, it will quickly kill your productivity. The answer isn’t to stop striving for perfection, but rather to be conscious of your perfectionist tendencies and manage them accordingly.

Top Tips for Minimizing Distractions to Get More Done

Increasing your productivity doesn’t take a magic wand or require you to get an advanced degree in statistics. If you are struggling with a lack of productivity, you need to take a closer look at your daily habits. Being unproductive is nobody’s fault but your own. Here are some of the top tips that you can incorporate into your daily life to minimize distractions and get more done.

Tip #1 – Learn to Anticipate Yourself

When it comes to productivity, you’re your own worst enemy. According to a study by the University of California Irvine, office workers are only able to focus on a task for an average of three minutes and five seconds before they become distracted. Surprisingly, 44 percent of those distractions are internal. The good news is that internal disturbances are the only kind that you can control. Learn to know your patterns and plan for these distractions.

Tip #2 – Send Out Busy Signals

More than half of your distractions are external distractions that come in the form of email, people, phone calls, and chatter from other offices. If you want to stop these external distractions before they start you have to give out the right signals. If you utilize instant messenger, set yourself too busy and wear headphones, even if you aren't listening to music. Providing subtle queues may seem passive aggressive, but they will also save you from annoying distractions.

Tip #3 – Make Technology Work for You

At times, technology may seem like an enemy, but technology can be your anti-distraction buddy. Turn off your email alerts, create an auto-response to text messages, and set your phone to go to voicemail. Block out chunks of time on your calendar as "busy." Unless you are dealing with life and death situations at work, your coworkers will be able to manage without you for a few hours.

Tip #4 – Learn to Say No

If you are already overloaded with work and you feel like you never get anything accomplished, then you need to learn to say no to new requests and projects. You can nicely let people know that you would love to help, but your plate is currently full.

If you are starting to have more and more unproductive days, it’s time for you to determine your distractions and put a stop to them. By being proactive, silencing technology, and learning to say no, you will find that you will start to become more productive.

Top 5 Productivity Hacks for Procrastinators

No one is immune to falling victim to procrastination. Everyone puts things off from time to time, so there is always room to increase our productivity once we know how to deal with our tendencies to procrastinate properly. To help you combat procrastination and become more productive, here are the top five productivity hacks for procrastinators.

Name It

The first thing that you need to do is notice that you are procrastinating and acknowledge it. It is essential that you do this without judging yourself and without getting overly stressed that you don't have enough time. The next time you notice you're procrastinating, just say to yourself "procrastinating," or "moving on." This allows you to acknowledge your procrastination so you can move on.

Figure Out Where Your Time Goes

When we're procrastinating, we all use different props to fill our time. To improve your productivity, you'll need to identify what these are for you. Digital distractions are extremely powerful procrastination temptations that we need to try to resist consciously. To figure out where your time goes, start to write down exactly where your time goes.

Make Time Your Best Friend

Most procrastinators frequently fool themselves when it comes to the passage of time. You might often get to the end of the day and not understand where the day went. If this is something that happens to you, then you need to shift your relationship with time. You’ll need to become aware of how long each task takes you, rather than making a guess.

Improve Your Time Estimates

Often, as a procrastinator, you may tend to estimate how long a task will take without factoring in any time for your procrastination. This causes you to take much longer than expected to finish a task. If you know that you tend to procrastinate, factor this into your estimation, so you're not always falling behind.

Meet More Deadlines

Often, the only time we manage to get around to focusing properly on your tasks is when you have a looming deadline. So, if you want to improve your focus and increase your productivity, you might want to start giving yourself more deadlines. The best way to do this is to get in the habit of promising to deliver certain things by a specific time/date.

Even self-professed procrastinators can improve their productivity. With these five productivity hacks, you can start to decrease the amount of time you spend procrastinating and get more done.

The Best Strategies to Increase Your Productivity

Everybody would like to be able to accomplish more throughout their day, but increasing your productivity can often seem impossible. The following strategies, if followed, can double, and even triple your productivity. Here are the best strategies to develop if you want to increase your productivity substantially.

Set Goals and Productivity Targets

When you set goals, you end up focusing your energy on the things that you want to achieve. These are things that you wouldn't be able to accomplish by default. This will automatically make you more productive. It is essential that you are clear on exactly what you want to achieve.

Maintain Your Work Environment

Your work environment is what sets the stage for your workflow, and ultimately your productivity. If you are self-employed, this means finding a place that allows you to focus without distractions. If you are employed, this involves modifying your desk to make it conducive to productivity.

Put Important Things First

Since there are only 24 hours in a day, it is essential that you put your most important tasks first. If you want to be more productive and reach your goals, then you have to work on the critical tasks first and deprioritize anything that doesn't get you closer to your goals.

Use the 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 rule refers to the phenomenon where 80 percent of your output is brought about by 20 percent of your efforts. This means that the remaining 20 percent of the production can only be achieved with 80 percent effort. This means that you have to let go of the little details that no one but you notices. The key is to focus your time and energy on producing the 80 percent of everything you do.

Have a Separate List for Incoming Tasks

Throughout your day, you will probably receive a stream of random and miscellaneous tasks. Rather than immediately giving them attention add them to a separate list so you can focus on your daily goals. At the end of the day, allocate a block of time to clear the list out.

Know your Motivation Triggers

When you become aware of your motivational triggers, you can better connect with them and dramatically increase your productivity. Figure out what inspires you and determine how you can integrate these triggers into your daily life to help you reinforce your motivation.

If you find that you lack productivity, consider incorporating these strategies into your daily life can help you to increase your productivity dramatically.

The Best Habits to Develop to Increase Productivity and Get More Done

If you find often find yourself wishing you could get more done, you’re not alone. Whether you want to do more in the same amount of time, need more motivation for getting stuff done, or are looking to reduce the amount of time you waste in a day, these simple habits can help you improve your productivity.

Keep Your Desk Decluttered

While creativity can arise from chaos, a litter-strewn office probably isn’t helping your productivity. When you have visible files lying about your office, it reminds you of an unfinished task, while an unread book is an invitation to procrastination. Keeping your desk organized and free of clutter can help you stick with a task for more than one and a half times longer.

Schedule Time to Read Email

Instead of checking your email every time a new one arrives in your inbox, schedule a time at the end of the day to focus on this task. Monitoring and responding to emails right away is not only a great way to waste your precious time, but it has also been linked to lower memory function, depression, anxiety, and lower performance. Set up an auto-responder that lets people know that you check emails at 10 a.m., 12 p.m., and 3 p.m. and that you’ll respond during those times.

Rise Early

If you want to improve your productivity, then you need to get up early. When you get up early, you have the opportunity to establish a good morning routine that will help you improve your productivity. Rising early allows you to have the time in the morning to prepare for the day ahead without being late or rushing to get to work.

Focus on What’s Important

Take five minutes in the morning and read over your goals and remind yourself what you’re working toward. Not only will this help you to focus on what's important, but it will also give you a gauge to measure your to-do-list Doing this will allow you to look at your to-do-list with a renewed focus to make sure that you have at least one daily action that works toward your broader goals.

Increasing your productivity doesn't take a lot of extra work or more extended hours. By incorporating these habits into your daily routine, you can start to get more done in less time.

Increase Productivity with These 6 Time Management Tools

Technology has become a double-edged sword. While it allows us to connect, improve, perform, and leverage resources better than ever, it is often responsible for our decrease in productivity. The good news is that with the right apps and tools, you can use technology to your advantage and increase your productivity. Here are six, time management tools that can help to improve your productivity.

Rescue Time

One of the biggest reasons we lack productivity is because we aren't able to accurately keep track of the time our tasks take. If you have doubts that you’re using your time wisely, this app will provide you with a weekly report that shows you what things are stealing your time.

Remember the Milk

If you find that you struggle with managing everything your massive to-do-list, Remember the Milk is just the app for you. It's a free tool that is compatible with your computer, mobile device, Gmail, Outlook, and others. It helps you to manage all your tasks efficiently and reminds you of them no matter where you're at.

Focus Booster

Based on the Pomodoro Technique, this app is aimed at those who procrastinate and feel overwhelmed by their tasks. The app is designed to enhance your focus and helps to remove any anxiety you have with time pressures.

Toggl

With Toggl you can keep better track of the time you spend working on projects and tasks and is an excellent alternative to time-sheets. Effective time management starts with being clear on how much time you are actually spending on your projects and tasks, and then through careful analysis, working out how you can better manage them. 

Evernote

Evernote is a free productivity tool that lets you capture your thoughts, ideas, and images in a variety of ways. It allows you to record your meetings, ideas, and speeches, interviews, create lists, add text and voice attachments, and share files with your friends. To really optimize your time, you can also sync Remember the Milk with Evernote.  

Mind42

Focus on your tasks at hand with mind mapping. Mind42 is a free mind mapping app that will help you become more organized by focusing your thoughts. When you can better focus your thoughts, you gain more clarity on what you need to get done.

If you find your productivity is lacking, consider adding these six useful time management tools to your daily routine. Stop letting technology kill your productivity, instead use it to your advantage.