Once upon a time, not so long ago, the mark of the successful business was upsizing. The need to invest in new premises in order to accommodate your growing team meant that you were doing really rather well.

Never mind that you were having to spend thousands – potentially hundreds of thousands – in order to further your success, eating into profits that could have been better spent elsewhere; you were growing; that’s what mattered. And until relatively recently that is what mattered.

To a certain extent it still matters now; growth in business always will be a mark of success, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that that growth needs to be tangible. Who wants to pay for expensive, larger premises when you can achieve exactly the same thing right where you are? The answer is, obviously, outsourcing.

Thanks to the advances of digital tech it’s becoming easier, practically by the day, to run a successful, financially viable, growing business, without any staff.

As is often the case, entrepreneurs were the first to spot the freelance potential; launching small businesses they soon discovered that while they could, in theory, do everything themselves, it would take an awful lot longer to do so. By hiring niche experts to handle fixed jobs, on either a one-off or on-going basis, they were able to achieve their goals and turn a profit more quickly.

Freelancers are flexible, affordable and ready to work

It’s obvious, but not everyone can see it – freelance or contract staff, deliver all of the expertise and none of the overheads. Well, ok, not quite none – you do still need to pay them – but none of the ancillary overheads.

You don’t need to provide somewhere for them to work; you don’t have to pay for the electricity and other utilities they use; they don’t need paid tea breaks and you only need to pay them when you need them. It’s possible, with careful management, to build up an entire company with freelance, contract and virtual employees; manning an office with staff who aren’t really there.

So what do I mean by ‘careful management’? To begin with, outsourcing can be time-consuming, particularly if you don’t know where to look. Obviously, at this point, I’m going to direct you towards my own company, PeoplePerHour, where you can find just about every kind of freelancer you might need, as well as our freelance management system PPH Enterprise Accounts, but that phrase, ‘careful management’ extends to more than just finding the right people.

Finding the right freelancer is like finding the right employee – check out their work, look at their references (or their ‘reviews’ on platforms like ours) and talk to them; ask questions; make sure that they can do the job before you part with your money. So far, so simple.

Once you’ve found the right contractor you’re then faced with finding ways of getting the best out of them. To do that you need to be able to communicate: tell them exactly what you’re looking for; how they should deliver it; and when they should deliver it by. If you do that, most of your bases are covered.

Pick your freelancer then agree to terms - simple

Outsourcing is something of a scary prospect, because it’s something new. However, the chances are that if you’re a small, or even a big business owner, you’ll already be outsourcing something without even realising it.

You might bring in an accountant on an annual basis; you might be using an external payroll system; or perhaps a company to carry out customer service tasks using e-commerce customer support software; hiring a freelance copywriter, web designer, graphic artist or telesales specialist works on exactly the same basis; they all have a job to do and they all know how to do it.

Because the of the nature of freelancing, freelancers are also keen to ensure they do a good job in order to convince you to  return to them in the future. Nothing in business is entirely risk-free, but if the benefits of outsourcing outweigh the costs – they won’t always, but they often do – it’s worth at least giving it a try.

If I were starting out now, I’d not hesitate in using contractors, freelancers, and other virtual staff. But I wouldn’t just leap in. Start off small; see if it works for you. If it does, you could well find that you’ve boosted productivity in the most economical way possible. Not every business has the potential to go virtual, but where you can there are big benefits to reap.