When your business starts to grow, hiring more employees or outsourcing some of your work might seem like an attractive idea. However, this isn’t always the best course of action. If you outsource too much, you could lose control over important aspects of your business, including the quality of its services and products and the reliability of its employees and vendors. To decide what parts of your business should be outsourced, ask yourself the following questions: Are the services I’m outsourcing critical to my company’s success?
Which Tasks Should Not Be Outsourced
Many entrepreneurs will outsource nearly everything. They figure it’s quicker and cheaper to let someone else take care of things like customer service, product development, or online marketing than try to do them themselves. If you want your business to grow fast, outsourcing every task that doesn’t directly add value may make sense. But if you want your business to grow big—which is entirely different—you’ll need a broad network of loyal customers who see your company as central in its field.
Where Can You Find Good Help?
Use LinkedIn if you’re looking for help with marketing, web design, writing, accounting, and other business services. It’s a great place to network with professionals you might want to hire on an ongoing basis. Keep your profile up-to-date; let people know what types of positions you’re hiring for; look at profiles from others in your industry, and reach out to potential partners. There are plenty of other websites that offer similar services, but I have found the most success networking on LinkedIn.
How Do I Start Delegating?
Start small. Don’t start by hiring someone full-time (if you don’t have enough work for that yet). Instead, try outsourcing one part-time job. For example, you might outsource your customer service and then monitor their responses while they do it. If everything goes well, move on to delegating other parts of your business. When choosing what jobs to delegate, consider what activities drain your time or energy without adding much value to your business. This could include administrative tasks like data entry or creating sales reports, email management, bookkeeping, or social media management. Delegating these activities can free up time in your schedule to focus on more important tasks like sales calls or product development.
How Do I Hand Over My Work?
When you grow a company from its inception, it can feel like your baby. Letting someone take on tasks for the first time can be nerve-wracking. But don’t worry. If you do your research, the handoff should go smoothly. It’s all about finding competent workers and contractors who can come through when needed. It will be a constant struggle, so you have to continually research. But in the end, the process is what makes all of this fun.
