One of the things you have to remember when outsourcing is that sometimes things will go wrong with your contractor, and delivery can be delayed. Making sure you don’t miss your own deadlines means being generous with your own time schedule, and having back-up plans in place.

This is particularly important when you are starting out and you don’t yet have specific providers working for you that you know you can trust. Once you have been outsourcing for a while, and have dedicated vendors who consistently provide what you need on time every time, you can accept jobs that have a tighter time frame.

To start, if you can possibly give yourself a month’s deadline with your own clients, that would be ideal. You can probably manage with 14 days, however, if you carefully choose your vendor.