How Outsourcing is Good for You and Your Business

As an entrepreneur, intrapreneur, solopreneur and everything in between, outsourcing is the most effective way to become successful in your field. Sure, you might want to do everything yourself but as your business grows that becomes less and less realistic.

Everyone wants to believe they can do everything themselves but the reality is that no one is amazing at everything. Say you create your own business that involves a bricks and mortar business, be that a service or a store, and attached to that business you also run an online store, a blog, social media sites, an app, a newsletter and a YouTube channel. Not only this, but holding events, meet ups and live chats are great ways to further boost your business and success. Nowadays, all these things are absolutely necessary to become a successful entrepreneur.

For a while, doing everything yourself, or with the help of your friends and family may work but eventually everyone in that small group will become burnt out. Outsourcing helps completely avoid this.

Outsourcing can be achieved in a wide variety of ways, becoming increasingly easy with the age of the Internet. Outsourcing can be a one off event, wherein you pay different people to do different tasks all the time. Alternatively, hiring staff to outsource work to when necessary is another great way to create business connections and create continuity within your business.

Depending on your business, you can outsource just about anything. As the brains behind the entrepreneurial venture, you should be outsourcing anything that is not directly your area of expertise, and even then you can outsource those tasks. If we use the example from above, everything has at least one area that can be outsourced.

So, in your bricks and mortar business you can outsource the management of that business. This means that you don’t have to directly deal with the staff of the business, the roster, the schedule or the customers of the business, all of which are extremely time consuming. When setting up and establishing the store you can outsource the logo design, the design of the interior space, the building work and set up of the store.  You can outsource the running of the online business to another manager, you can outsource the updates, content upgrades and physical running of the online store, including packing and shipping of stock. You can outsource the running and writing of the blog, social media, newsletter and app to a small team that work together on a full time basis. And finally, you can outsource the filming, editing, scheduling and uploading of YouTube videos to another person to manage.

It is important to note that outsourcing does not mean that you are giving up your business. In the examples of outsourcing above it is still of utmost importance that these areas are managed and your presence is felt across all areas of the entrepreneurial venture.

Outsourcing can be done online or in person as well, with online outsourcing focusing on computer-related tasks. Some outsourcing sites and applications with a range of outsourcing services include Upwork.com, Guru.com and PeoplePerHour.com.

Outsourcing can be done one a large scale, such as the example provided, or on a smaller, more local scale, when you only need a few tasks done but don’t have the time. As an entrepreneur, it is essential to remember that time is money and more often than not your time is more expensive than that of an outsourced employee.

Outsourcing is also a great way to save your health. As mentioned above, outsourcing is a great way to elevate stress, time constraints and pressure that may be felt in your business. Having someone else take care of something that does not need your direct attention is a great way to maintain your personal health and the health of your business.