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.
Tweet
Totally agree Bernadette.
I often recommend outsourcing to my clients as a way of freeing up more time and allowing them to be more productive. Even as a one person business outsourcing the day to day leaves you more time to spend on money earning tasks.
There’s a variety of support available at different levels so you can hand over as much or as little as you want.
Clare
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by karendemmery: RT @bernadettedoyle: The Top Five Reasons To Outsource http://short.to/14lro...
Absolutely agree with this. We provide an outsourced service but we also outsource a lot of our non-core stuff to others. Way to go!
Hello Bernadette…
Can I outsource lead creation for an affiliate business?
Totally agree. I have been outsourcing for two years and my people get so much more done for me.
how can I garner accounting outsourcing clients when I struggle with this as well. Excellent post… been sharing with anyone and everyone that will listen to me.
keep them coming.
Well said and pointed out. Growth, Cost-Efficiency, Effectiveness and Fast TAT, all of these contribute to the much wanted optimum results, giving a much more ample time to develop more business for more profitability and excellence. More time, more ideas.
Bernadette
Great article and totally agree with you. I have just taken the decision to outsource more as part of my 2010 business plan and can already see the benefits.
Duncan Brodie
Yes, you can, David. The key to outsourcing is finding competent help, someone who is skilled in whatever it is you’d like them to take over, or someone who can easily be trained to do things the way you want them done. Of course, you should always keep an open mind for suggestions from your virtual assistants.
Bernadette