Outsourcing is nothing new. Manufacturing, support, accounting, marketing, and more have all been outsourced for decades to save time and money (although modern outsourcing only really started with IBM).

After all, why bring on an accountant full time when you can outsource your taxes once a year?

Outsourced services have doubled in value since 2000, and with benefits like saving time and money.

Weighing the outsourcing pros and cons, however, shows that it isn’t some magic pill which will make difficult work disappear.

Not only that, but everyone has a different opinion of the types of outsourcing – how the hell do we weigh the pros and cons when nobody agrees on what it even is?

So, to make things easy, we here at Process Street have summed up the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing vs insourcing, and (if the former) tips on some different kinds of outsourcing you can use.

It’s time to outsource the work you don’t need to do and focus on getting done what really matters.

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Ever had to listen to yourself repeating the same instructions to coworkers?

Are you struggling to remember how to complete a task you last tackled a month ago?

Remember feeling frustrated by the time and effort wasted?

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Picture this:

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In this episode of Business Systems Explored, we talk to Dmitry Dragilev about the systems behind the marketing successes he’s engineered for startups like Polar and JustReachOut.io.

For startups, failure to get traction quickly can mean the difference between a multi-million dollar exit and another Silicon Valley tombstone.

Since it’s so vital to get exposure from the outset, you need to get the press, early adopters, and Google on your side.

This episode is all about how to do that: an interview with the growth hacker and startup PR expert Dmitry Dragilev.

Listen to the episode to find out where to start with an audit of your marketing site, how to write content that will force Google to pay attention, and Dmitry’s best hack for startup SEO.

Links to listen

• Listen on iTunes (iOS)
• Stitcher (Android)
• Listen on Business Systems Explored website

And remember, if you like the show, please leave us a review and rating.

Click below to subscribe on iTunes:

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Most companies turn to Gmail or Outlook to manage their workplace email. 13% of public companies use Office 365 or G-Suite (formerly Google Apps). The remaining 87% use a combination of the two, or a private email setup.

Some companies choose Google or Microsoft because they prefer one’s cloud office suite—which includes calendars, and collaboration on spreadsheets and documents—over the other. (We compared Office 365 with G-Suite in another post.)

But if you use other productivity tools and are deciding between Gmail or Outlook solely for email, you want to choose one that helps you speed up your workflow. Gmail set its initial bar high, and Microsoft clearly took notice. Given Outlook’s 2016 update, it is now more equipped to compete than ever.

Here are five game-changing differences between Gmail vs. Outlook.

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Over the last year working remotely at Process Street, I’ve been researching as I go. I survived on dumb luck and baseline writing skills.

However, in the last 30 days I’ve built a system to teach myself how to read more. I’ve built up a library of articles, authors, quotes, books, tips, and ideas I can draw upon whenever I need to write or find the motivation to keep going.

The best part is that I spent next to no extra time outside of work in order to do this, and it all boils down to five elements:

• Filling dead air with podcasts
• Setting up an RSS feed
• Always having a book on the go
• Productively procrastinating
• Following 50 people on Twitter

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Running a business is complex, especially when it’s unclear who is responsible for what.

To move your business from an informal organization to a well oiled machine, you need processes. There’s no getting around them.

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In this episode of Business Systems Explored, we talk to Doyle Albee, host of PR is Dead and president of PR firm ‎Metzger Albee.

Public relations expert Doyle Albee shares his stories, tips, and processes on building a PR strategy for your business.

We chat about everything from building relationships with reporters to knowing the perfect time to strike with your story. And, the myth that ‘all news is good news’ is debunked!

Get inside the world of reporters and their motivations with these unique insights from the president of Metzger Albee PR firm, and host of the Rainmaker.fm podcast PR is Dead.

Links to listen

• Listen on iTunes (iOS)
• Stitcher (Android)
• Listen on Business Systems Explored website

And remember, if you like the show, please leave us a review and rating.

Click below to subscribe on iTunes:

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Aside from the raw product you’re selling, company culture is everything.

It’s made up of your work environment, ethics, mission, expectations, and goals. You can have a great product, but without a solid culture to back it up, its development can fall apart.

Buffer, for example, has a notable culture of transparency. All employee salaries are published for co-workers and the public to see. They emphasize working out loud and being receptive to one another.

On the other hand, Amazon is noted for its toxic culture that exhausts employees and holds “unreasonably high” expectations.

Which side of the spectrum are you on?

In software companies, it’s important to promote a culture of communication and transparency. What would an issue tracking system look like for a company with poor culture? Pretty desolate.

In this article, I’m going to give examples of how different software companies bolster their QA efforts with a strong culture, and why that’s so important.

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In this episode of Business Systems Explored, I explain how to manage your tasks, delegate work, and build systems that help your business keep costs down, and work more productively.

At Process Street, I manage several different teams and assign hundreds of tasks every month.

You’d think that when you have to explain, upload, and send information to so many people so regularly, you’d have no time to do anything else…

You’d be wrong.

Managing a busy startup means you need to take a lot of shortcuts. So, thankfully I’ve found and documented a way to assign tasks to anyone from any device without switching between apps, sending emails, or messing around.

In this episode, I break down the system I use so you can re-create it and start delegating tasks successfully and efficiently.

Links to listen

• Listen on iTunes (iOS)
• Stitcher (Android)
• Listen on Business Systems Explored website

And remember, if you like the show, please leave us a review and rating.

Click below to subscribe on iTunes:

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There’s a big difference between successful software companies and those shoddy unverified apps you get off the app store:

Quality assurance.

While small-time apps aren’t heavily used, and the creator won’t receive many complaints or bad press if anything breaks, Google and Facebook are used by billions of people worldwide.

If a bug affects 0.01% of the user base in a small app, it’s not worth the energy. If it affects 0.01% for Google and Facebook, that’s thousands of complaints, and possible media scandal to deal with. And we all know what the price of that can be.

So, when it comes to studying quality assurance there’s no better examples than two of the biggest Internet companies in the world.

I’ve deliberately not chosen to give Microsoft the time of day in this post, because I’d say their QA is pretty damn weak for their size.

…However, read on to pick up tips from Facebook and Google on how to make software that doesn’t break down, cost you more money, and cause frustration for your customers.

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