The game of entrepreneurship or business is a game of efficiently managing your resources. We are all limited by the same two constraints—money and time. A business owner who can figure out how to maximize them both usually wins. But, if you run out of either of these, you can get knocked out of the game pretty quickly. For this reason, businesses have to be extremely intentional when it comes to how they choose their priorities, and more importantly, what they choose to hire. Typically, if you can hire somebody out and spend your time on something that has a higher value, you should. However, there are tasks that you shouldn’t necessarily fully delegate. If it’s something that won’t take away from your other priorities, then you may just opt to do it on your own.
So, how does outsourcing graphic designing comes into all this? Well, when it comes to your brand, being consistent in how you present yourself is non-negotiable. Right branding is the most powerful thing you can do to build a lasting and loyal customer base. And this in turn, skyrocket your revenue. It’s all about creating an emotional connection with people. And since humans are mainly visual creatures, that emotional connection is first established through visuals. That’s why we easily buy into movies as we’re visually drawn to them. When it comes to your business, having a strong visual presence requires that you’ve done the work. Also, it is important to define your brand internally. It requires a capable designer who knows your brand. If you are planning on outsourcing graphic design work to India to grow your business, here are 11 tips.
1. Focus only on important pieces – If you’ve ever tried to establish this on your own, you know what a feat it is. Finding a talented, reliable designer is hard. As a busy entrepreneur, you need to focus only on the important pieces and get the rest off your plate. This, in turn, will help you get the most out of your resources.
2. Decrease involvement to save time – To be involved in every part of the process requires time which means that you can’t afford to be spending time on finding the right designer. You may just do the research and provide a basic outline for the design to be created and have someone else get on board for the task.
3. Take opportunity cost into consideration – Opportunity cost is the cost of what you’re giving up when you say yes to something. Essentially, if we devote our time to a task, we take away that time that we could be spending on something else. Sometimes, we get this right, but often, we choose the wrong thing to focus on. So, take opportunity cost into consideration.
4. Ensure better time management – When it comes to time management, you should constantly be evaluating what you’re choosing to spend time on against your priorities. Fuel the things that move you forward and get rid of the rest
5. Ensure effective communication throughout – Effective communication between you and the graphic designer is critical to ensure you are moving in the right direction and have the same expectations. Current or potential issues can also be resolved in time if there is clear communication between the two parties.
6. Define the activities – If you haven’t taken the time to clearly define what the activities are going to be, you’d never know what you’re truly taking away from yourself. In most cases, we are just responding to what we feel is urgent in the moment and it’s not right. Whether it’s about creating an attractive design for the cover of an e-book or preparing an infographic for your social media handle, clearly define the activities.
7. Avoid Fiverr – When it comes to hiring people and outsourcing graphic designing, Fiverr is typically a cheaper option but very inconsistent at the same time. The quality will usually suffer because it’s a volume game and the designers are generally looking to get through your project as fast as possible so they can get on to the next. That’s how they make their money.
8. Do first things first – Effective executives do first things first and one thing at a time. If we talk in terms of graphic designing, spending your time trying to figure out how to use Photoshop is probably not your best use. Let an expert handle it.
9. Take advantage of geographic arbitrage – Hiring people overseas, especially outsourcing graphic designing in India, allows you to leverage geographic arbitrage. There’s an obvious benefit for you in the states as you get a fantastic addition to your team at a very reasonable price. Also, you are able to keep your overhead low so you can scale fast.
10. Be extra careful when it comes to typography – Though an image is worth a thousand words, typography also plays an extremely important role in graphic designing. In fact, it can make or break a design. You need to make sure that the typography used complements the overall design of your website so it looks cohesive and pleasing. However, with so many options available, selecting the right fonts can be an overwhelming process. This is where hiring a professional graphic designer comes handy. They can provide you with multiple tried and tested combinations to make your website look like anything but ordinary.
11. Use spacing effectively – When it comes to graphic designing, you want to make sure that you are using the spacing correctly. You don’t want to bombard visitors with a lot of information (it’s only going to turn them down). Ensure balanced compositions in terms of margins, shapes, paragraphs, lines and even words. Use white space as much as you can because it increases readability. However, do it smartly as you do not want to have a lot of empty space on your webpage. Always try for a minimalistic design by following the “less is more” approach.
Final Thoughts
Graphic designing is a crucial element of internet marketing and outsourcing this service to an expert can save businesses a significant amount of money and time. Here are 11 tips on outsourcing graphic design work to grow business. As a business owner, you should focus on the things that you do best and let someone else take on the tasks and projects that don’t fall under your company’s core competencies. The quality of work you’ll get from leveraging the expert will far surpass anything you could have put together internally at a lesser cost. You also get to save time as the expert will be able to produce better quality in a shorter amount of time.
There’s usually a stigma associated with graphic design that it’s expensive, which is not always true. You won’t want to work with a designer who you have to constantly go back and forth with or that doesn’t understand your communication. The cost of hiring completely depends on the needs of your project and how well it is managed. Also, if graphic designing is not your competency, you should always delegate it as it will surely allow you to save time and money.
If you’re not convinced that you should be outsourcing your graphic design just yet, you probably need to go back and read the article again. For tips on how to outsource graphic design work, give us a call and talk to an expert from Virtual Employee.
