3 Ways To Tell If It’s Time To Outsource In Your Small Business
Whether it’s email, IT, web design, or marketing, every business owner has thought about outsourcing their work. But does outsourcing always make sense? After all, training a contractor can take a lot of time, and you still need to pay them!
Here’s a quick guide to help you tell if it’s time to buckle down and DIY or if you can make outsourcing work.
Tip #1: DIY in the beginning
Sorry, but if you’re just starting out, you probably don’t have the funds to afford to outsource. It’s hard to grow if you’re blowing $500 a week on a virtual assistant!
Even if you despise accounting, hate IT, and feel nauseous at the thought of coding your website, now’s the time to do it anyway. When you’re small, you have an excess of time but very limited money.
Please don’t take funds out of your business before it’s able to support itself. That approach can work out, but it’s risky. You need to keep cash in your business, at least in the beginning.
Plus, learning how to do the things you hate early on will make you more informed and empowered. Instead of putting your entire future in an accountant’s hands, you have the knowledge and experience to double-check their work.
And guess what? The bootstrapping phase doesn’t last forever. Once you start earning more money and the business can support itself, you can start to outsource comfortably.
Tip #2: Ask “Am I the best person for this?”
But even if you can afford outside help, it doesn’t mean you should outsource everything. Unless you’re really raking in the dough, you probably only need to outsource 1-3 things right now.
So, how can you tell if a task is ripe for outsourcing?
Ask if you’re truly the best person for the task at hand. For example, if you’re creating a legal entity for your business, do you feel confident doing that? Are you afraid of breaking something?
Sometimes we aren’t the best person for a job. If taxes, marketing, customer support, or IT seems like too much for you to handle, outsource what scares you the most.
Tip #3: Ask “Is this task taking up too much of my time? Do I hate it?”
But maybe you feel perfectly comfortable tracking your finances. Maybe you just hate doing it! If you abhor doing a task, that’s a prime candidate for outsourcing.
When you went into business for yourself, you probably did it to enjoy your work more, right? Why would you let yourself get bogged down with work you really don’t like? If you hate a certain task or it’s taking up way too much space in your brain, consider outsourcing it.
Outsourcing and hiring a contractor gets expensive, so that’s why every small biz owner should approach this carefully. Bootstrap and DIY everything when you’re small, and carefully outsource from there. Choose finicky or less-fun tasks for outsourcing first, but don’t get too crazy! You still need to be empowered and actively involved in your business to succeed.