Ever thought of hiring somebody to do your job for you?Even for control freaks, getting a job outsourced has become a necessity.
There is only so much you can do on your own.
If tasks related to maintaining your membership website are eating up too much of your time, you might want to consider outsourcing your site maintenance.
Here are things you need to consider: What is outsourcing? Outsourcing is simply the act of hiring a third party to perform certain tasks, processes or procedures that are related to your business.
It has been practiced for many years, particularly by large corporations.
When applied correctly, outsourcing could make your business operations more efficient and save you money.
Is outsourcing for you? Outsourcing may be the furthest from your mind during the initial stages of your website's life.
After all, website maintenance can be relatively easy, at least at first.
However, as business builds up and traffic multiplies, you might begin to feel the pressure of trying to keep up.
Membership sites tend to be a little more demanding than, say, simple content-based sites.
Very often, you need to update information on the website, check the system for membership status, handle payments and other business transactions and still ensure that your site content and services are up to par.
And of course, there are other tasks such as promoting your membership site, building and analyzing traffic.
These tasks will even demand a certain level of technical skill on your part, something that you might not have or have yet to learn.
Outsourcing the website maintenance of your membership site could potentially free up more of your time.
This will allow you to focus on the business side of your membership website so you can improve your bottom line.
What's the risk? Outsourcing the website maintenance of your membership site can have its advantages but it does minimize your control over the results of certain tasks.
It's possible that you may not always have the results you expect.
What to look for Not every third party offering you outsourcing service for your membership site can produce the same results.
When choosing to outsource your website maintenance, consider the following: - Background of the vendor in the industry including reputation - Experience in outsourcing the same or similar types of businesses (in your case, membership sites) - Understanding of the business you are in - Sufficient technical knowledge and skills that will assure you of quality support and service - Capability of the vendor to offer a scalable or graduated service package - Financial benefits to your bottom line - Data security