How to Leverage Affordable (or Even Free) Labor to Grow Your Business

By: Michael | Published: August 19, 2010 | Filed under: Entrepreneurs, Small business mistakes

Owning a small business is far from easy, especially when you are a one-man-show. The cost of taking on a new hire is often the prohibiting factor. However, this does not mean that you have to disregard the idea of expansion altogether. There are numerous other options to take on hired help that is more affordable. Let’s look over some of your options.Looking for more sales?There are a few different ways to take on people that will generate sales for your company. One of the easiest, and most obvious ways to do this is to hire people on a commission-only basis. However, keep in mind that people who will have the ability to close sales for your company are going to demand two things: high commission and a product that can be sold. While the latter sounds obvious, if your product has a limited target audience, even the best sales person won’t be sticking around for too long if they can’t keep selling it.Another way to help you generate more sales is with an affiliate (or referral) program. This is where you pay affiliates to advertise your site and you only have to pay them a small percentage of every sale they send. You can also use this type of payment structure to generate sales leads that you can have your sales person close.Looking for an Assistant?Paying a full time assistant can be expensive, but there are numerous options that can get your cost down lower than you can expect. One option is to recruit an intern from a college in your area. Offer it to students who are studying business management. You can sometimes get students who need to complete internships for class credit. These interns do not need to be paid, but must be working on something relevant to their field of study. If this is something that your business can implement, it is often well worth it.Another option is to work with virtual assistants. Virtual assistants can be domestic, or overseas, and exist to help you manage your business tasks. Obviously, hiring one from the US will be more expensive, but if your business needs someone who will be able to communicate well it is worth it. Note that while US virtual assistants may not come cheap, they are using all of their own resources. You won’t need office space for them, supplies, a computer, etc.Looking for Skilled Labor?As small business owners, sometimes we need a skilled worker to help with tasks like graphic design. You can get very talented labor using outsourcing sites such as Elance, Guru, and Freelancer. The trick is to do the best you can to determine the quality of the labor as quickly as possible. Ideally, always start a new freelancer out with a small chunk of work to gauge the quality before letting them handle anything larger. This helps ensure you are not out an abundance of money and left with low quality work.