Does the freelancer have experience in your industry? This is not a must have but it certainly helps. Remember you are not just entering into a one-time contract with your freelancer. You are looking for a long term strategic outsourcing partner. So the more your freelancer understands your industry the more likely it is that the partnership will be successful. 2. Values, Personality and Integrity: Is there a natural fit in terms of values, personality and integrity? You may think you c

1. Who Should Use Strategic Out Sourcing?

2. What kind of business should use strategic out sourcing? Who will benefit most fromgoing outside the business to handle some projects? In this article we will look at 5 ways inwhich strategic out sourcing can specifically benefit the small business.

3. 1. OverheadAll small businesses struggle with overhead. But how can strategic out sourcing help with that?Let’s look at what goes into the overhead of any business no matter your size. This will includerent, furnishings, employee benefits including health care and pensions, utilities, supplies, andequipment. Strategic out sourcing can benefit the small business in lowering your overhead byallowing you to rent a smaller space if you have less full time employees and thus reduce yourutility costs as well. Less full time employees means less cash set aside for benefits and lesspurchasing of equipment, supplies and furniture. This could take a substantial chunk out of youroverhead expense.2. Cash Flow

4. Every small business struggles with cash flow. A major order comes in and you are flush in cash.A month later you are trying to make the payroll until the next big order comes in. Strategic outsourcing is a terrific option for managing cash flow. When outsourcing you can hire as manystaff as you need when you need them. You won’t have staff with full time salaries to pay duringthe downtimes, but you can still ramp up very quickly when the orders come in.3. Manpower

5. As mentioned in number 3, every small business deals with ebbs and flows in the business cycle.With strategic out sourcing you can boost your manpower as you need to without carrying a lotof extra staff when you don’t need them. As a small business you may only need one or twoemployees on a regular basis but you may have a project come in that requires 20 or more.Strategic outsourcing allows you to react quickly in staffing your projects as needed.“Business needs and demands change and evolve constantly. Yesterday you needed a marketingplan, today you need a website created, and tomorrow you will need your books balanced. Fewpeople have the time or the skills needed to handle all of these demands on their own.”4. Changing Priorities

6. Every small business has to deal with changing priorities. In this situation the benefits ofstrategic out sourcing are many.

7. As mentioned before a small business cannot afford to haveenough staff to cover every function and every project that needs to be done. With strategic outsourcing you can get the work done when it needs to be done and if priorities change tomorrow,you are able to change with them.

8. So you accepted a project today from your best client and the timeline is not feasible with yourcurrent staff. You can’t afford to go out and hire additional staff just to meet the timeline on thisproject.

9. The answer to your challenge is strategic out sourcing. Hire as many freelancers as youneed to bring the project in on time without disturbing your “routine projects” that your full timestaff are completing. In this way you can accept those high reward short term projects and stillmaintain your normal business routine.

10. http://www.freelancerselite.com/who-should-use-strategic-outsourcing/, for more info