There are plenty of reasons why you think you need to wear multiple hats as a small business owner. For the most part you are right, especially when you first start—but the one thing you shouldn’t forget is you CAN’T do everything. Try as hard as you can, but you will find once your business starts to grow that you just can’t. You aren’t an expert at everything, so why would you try to be? Focus on what you know and let others who are qualified handle the rest. With that said, how should you start outsourcing your needs? Begin with asking yourself a few questions:
1. What Do I Know? Make a list of everything you do well. This could be marketing, SEO, accounting whatever it is make a list. These are things you shouldn’t outsource. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is a must for small business owners, so decide what your strengths are and do them.
2. What Don’t I Know? Again, these are things that you don’t know how to do as well, but also may be things you want to start implementing. You have to know when to let go—and visualizing the tasks can make it easier to decide what needs to stay and what needs to go.
3. Who Do I Know? Business owners usually know other business owners. Think of anyone you know who you could outsource your tasks to—you might even get a better rate doing it this way. After a little planning you need to draw up a budget. How much revenue will each task bring in? Calculating ROI will (or should) make you feel better about letting go of a few tasks. Sites like Elance, gu#mce_temp_url# and Freelancer.com are all good places to start. You can post an ad for free, and figure out who the best candidate will be. More and more people are turning to freelance work because they can’t find jobs. Take advantage of this being you both will benefit from it.
Benefits of Outsourcing
Besides freeing up your time to focus on important things, outsourcing is usually a cheaper option than hiring on a full time person. If you can hire them on as a 1099 then you don’t have to worry about, “health and life insurance, as well as make contributions to retirement plans,” according to Wise Geek.
The OutsourceBlog goes on to say, “the United States Bureau of Labor determined the “true cost” for an experienced in-house administrative employee is currently $45.54 per hour. On average, the Virtual Assistant industry estimates the starting rate for a Virtual Assistant is $40.00 per hour. Five hours of in-house administrative labor will cost a company $212.70 versus $175.00 for retaining an Independent Virtual Assistant for the same time period.” Figuring out ways to keep your business growing without losing revenue is a must for start-ups. Outsourcing is a great option that more small business owners are taking advantage of. Being able to think ahead and realize you can’t do everything is a great step in the right direction.
Shannon Suetos is an expert writer on phone systems based in San Diego, California. She writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs such as VoIP service at Resource Nation
Image thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/24662369@N07/4386822005/
