I am self-taught and would like to apply for Graphics Art work. Where should I start and what are some tips for success?

You'll find that to be the case on any outsourcing site. Focus on the reviews and comments left on a designer's profile. This will give you an idea of the quality of their work before contacting them. Further, check out LinkedIn and search for "freelance designer" or "freelance graphic design" and sift through the results. Good luck! They're out there!

You don't. Research the company and hiring manager or would be manager/leader to such things like their needs, recent prior events (& whom else would have been there), near future company goals, products and find a place within that need structure where you would add material value. Then craft what is called a Speculative Application. Get yourself into a position in which travel might be an option as part of your roles.

Growing up from 1+subs to a team like you're saying is a classic problem in consulting. The financial math is not in your favor until you get a consistent team. Here's an article of mine detailing the issues and also detailing solutions: http://blog.asmartbear.com/consulting-company-accounting.html Having said that, I would also say you're trying to do too many things at once with not enough resources, which means the chance of being successful with each one is diminished. For example, you could focus on consulting revenue so you can build up your bench, so that you truly can self-fund the development of a product without distraction. Or you could focus on product, investing time/money there with consulting only to pay for that, even using subs for that, until the revenue there gets to the point that it's scaling (which will be hard, as you can already see). Building a product or a successful consultancy is individually very hard -- most fail. So trying to do both at the same time means you'll almost certainly fail. Which is a shame, because that's "failure due to time-management / strategy" as opposed to actual market forces. i.e. something fixable! I hope some of this helps, although I agree with you that talking through the details would probably be more helpful. The specific details of your situation matter.

I'd recommend RecruiterBox as long as you can focus on filing one position at a time. It let's you accept up to 200 applicants for 1 position for free. http://recruiterbox.com/recruitment-software-pricing-with-free-signup/ Also, There are quite a few others out there most of which offer free 30 day trials or free access to their platforms with feature limits on them vs the company's paid offerings. Based on the way you phrased the question, this app should do the trick! Side note - if you're making use off Google apps - just create a form for submissions. It's always free.

I agree it really depends on what you are trying to achieve. It can take sometime to source the right person to do the job. I disagree that you should only outsource to a freelancer if you have a one off project. My designer is a freelancer and I have been using her for several years because I like her style and she is very fast and efficient so I end up paying a lot less for the work and there is usually very few edits. I think that for any business it is worthwhile investing in creating a good relationship with any member of your team. If the work you required isn't a full time role, then hiring a freelancer makes a lot of sense because you can build a loyal and trusting relationship with them and therefore depend on them to deliver.