It's incredibly important that you find the right contractors to outsource to, to ensure they are reliable, they produce high quality work and they get the job done when you need it. If you're looking to find the right contractors; here's a few things to consider;

Can you trust outsourcing to someone even if they are thousands of miles away?

Of course you can. You just have to be careful and be smart about it.

Trusting someone that is thousands of miles away is almost the same as outsourcing locally.

In my 5 years of outsourcing I have never had a problem with any of the contractors I have hired to do work for us. On the odd occasion I might have hired someone who didn't complete the work within the deadline I needed, or it might not have been to the highest quality standard that I really wanted but both of those things can happen even if you hire someone locally.

In saying that, outsourcing overseas does have its risks and therefore you need to simply be careful about what you chose to outsource and you should take all necessary precautions to make sure that you have adequately vetted the person you want to hire.

Using any of the online services I outlined above, you can find out about their work history, previous client ratings to see whether other people have had a positive experience with this contractor. Also, be clear about what you're looking for and make sure that applicants respond to every aspect of your ad and don't ignore certain details. If they ignore details then it's highly likely they will do that when you hire them, so only hire people who respond properly to your ads

Here's a quick tip - whenever you post your job description, write something towards the end of the description that they must begin their application with, to ensure they have read your entire description. Sometimes people apply without reading what you actually need, so start your description off with something like this;

When you apply for this position please begin your application with 'Dear Hiring Manager'. This is to ensure that you have read the entire job description and understand what the job entails. Any applications that do not begin with 'Dear Hiring Manager' will be ignored.

Truth is - all you need to do is simply be smart about it, and be careful about what you outsource.

For instance, you would never outsource any tasks that gives them access to any of your financial records unless you trusted the person or company. If you needed them to purchase items on your behalf then you might simply buy a pre paid credit card and put $200 on the card and give them access to that so that you can directly monitor it.

You would never hand over sensitive information - eg. passwords or private business information unless you trusted the person.

You've simply got to be smart here. If someone could do something that could seriously hurt you or damage your business then don't outsource it. Having someone design for you and do research isn't going to hurt you so start with outsourcing these tasks. Then, find someone locally that you trust to handle your sensitive and financial information.

Not trusting someone is a terrible excuse to use, so don't use it. Think about tasks you can outsource that will simply save you time and energy and just start will small jobs, until you build up the confidence to outsource even more tasks.