The Top Five Reasons To Outsource

January 25th, 2010

I’m a huge fan of outsourcing. I think every business owner should outsource as much as possible.

I’ve been outsourcing for a number of years. I now have a team of virtual assistants located around the world, and I can’t imagine doing business without them. It doesn’t matter if you outsource to one person or to one hundred. Making the decision to outsource will have such a profound impact on your business that you won’t ever look back.

Today, I’ll give you my top five reasons to outsource.

1. It will grow your business.
Outsourcing will help you free up more time, which you can devote to the business. This seems pretty obvious, but sometimes it can happen in surprising ways. I’ve mentioned before a client of mine who came to me, asking for help in attracting new clients. However, she was so bogged down in administrative work that the last thing she actually wanted was new clients because that meant more paperwork. But as soon as she started to outsource her administrative work, her business started to take off. Wouldn’t you like to hand over the mundane parts of your business to someone else to deal with?

2. It helps you decrease costs.
Sometimes you need to play mind games with yourself, and start to quantify every cost that’s going on in your business all the time. You are the greatest asset that your business has. You are the hardest worker, and you come up with new ideas and new products and new plans. Your time is worth so much to your business. But if you find yourself doing routine tasks instead of earning money for your business, you are costing yourself money. You’re completing the accounts or updating the website when you could be meeting with a client. These tasks could be carried out by someone external to your company, and would cost a fraction of the amount that you could otherwise be earning. Outsourcing should not be an expense, but rather a cost saving exercise.

3. It increases your productivity.
By outsourcing routine tasks that aren’t part of your unique ability, it will free up your time and allow you to focus more on what you do best. The whole purpose of your business is to build a business around your unique strengths and your unique talents. You don’t want to be stuck doing jobs that you dislike and which could be done by someone else. Whenever I let go of a part of my business that’s been draining my time and energy, I get an instant boost in productivity.

4. It will help you move faster.
This will have a huge impact on your business. It’s quite interesting the number of people who have told me that it can sometimes be frustrating to attend a seminar or buy a new product to do with building the business. This is because it gives you more ideas, but if you’ve already got a backlog of ideas that haven’t yet been actioned, the last thing you want is more ideas. You need help getting things done, and outsourcing your work can give this to you. When you get someone else to do your routine tasks, you will free up time and energy to move on ideas that you haven’t had the capacity to action. You’ll be able to respond more quickly to clients, both new and old.

5. It builds scalability.
If your business is built purely around one person doing all the work, sooner or later you’re going to run out of time. And normally that’s sooner rather than later. But when you start to outsource, you will start to build scalability because it makes it easier for you to multiply and duplicate your business. You can put systems in place that make it easy for tasks to be duplicated, which make it easier for your business to grow. Building an online business is about helping you reach more people. You’ll be able to deliver more value to more people more often, so you make more money. You’re in a position to do more because you have more time and energy.

Many people think that they can’t afford to outsource. But I guarantee that you’ll be amazed at how much of an impact outsourcing just one task will have on your business. It will free up so much time and mental energy that you can devote to core aspects of your business.

The Top Five Reasons To Outsource

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How Outsourcing Will Help You Reach Your Vision

December 5th, 2009

Are these routine tasks part of your usual work day?

Email correspondence – 1-2 hours
Record keeping – 1 hour
Sales (phone calls, proposals, appointments) – 2-3 hours
Web site maintenance – 1 hour

If you devote this kind of time to your working day on a regular basis, you are not spending your time doing what it is that you set out to do.

Doing all of these things is not why you went into business in the first place. If you don’t stop doing them – or at least stop doing some of them – you won’t have the time to actually do what it is that you truly love and set out to do.

Remember why you started your own business to begin with – it is where your passion and talent lie. Of course there are a number of required tasks associated with running a business, but that doesn’t mean that you are the only one who can do them.

This is why you need to outsource – delegate tasks to others so that you can focus on what it is that you do best.

There are two compelling reasons for you to consider outsourcing some of what you do for your own business:

• You don’t have to spend time doing things that you just loathe
• You can spend more of your time doing the things you really excel at.

So, when you think about it, outsourcing is really all about you. Which might seem strange, since it’s also mostly about handing things over to other people.

And, thanks to the Internet and technology, the emerging industry of virtual assistants makes it easier for you to outsource your work. There has never been a better time to outsource. People who work from their own home offices are at the ready to provide services for every need on an hourly basis.

Before these virtual assistants came into the work force, options were much more limited. Hiring an assistant meant having to actually have an office,
a premises, a desk for that employee to sit behind, and a computer. Very
expensive.

The beauty about the opportunities available today is that you can outsource on an hourly basis, paying for people as and when you need them without having to put up a huge capital investment.

When you do decide to hire help, don’t just look around and say, “Okay, what’s on my plate right now that I want to get off my plate? Where do I find someone who can take it off?”  That is reactive and short-term.

I want you to think bigger. Think about the long-term view. Act in accordance with where you’re heading as opposed to where you are. It’s about your space and your confidence. “My business is growing. I’m going to need help. I’m going to need additional resources. I’m moving in this direction.”

Outsourcing is most successful when you recognize your own part in the process. Let assistants handle the things that you don’t excel at, that weigh on you. This will allow you to focus on what you love and what you do best.

That’s what’s going to help you reach your vision of what your business should be. That’s what will make you the most money and bring you the most happiness and satisfaction.

Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com

How Outsourcing Will Help You Reach Your Vision

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Posted in Business Plans, Business Success, Freelance Work, Marketing, Personal Productivity, Success Secrets, outsourcing | 2 Comments »