There’s not enough time in a day for business owners to accomplish everything on their “To Do List” when working in a business. When you add friends, a family, social lives, and social responsibilities, you’re exhausted when you finish each week, wondering if your work is worth it. Today, we live in a period where you can use “Outsourcing” in almost every aspect of your life. Outsourcing doesn’t just apply to the business world, but it can be applied to all-day routine tasks.
Are you not interested in cleaning your home? Employ a housekeeper or a cleaning service.
Are you tired of cutting your lawn or doing yard work? Hire a landscaping company.
Are you too busy to walk your dog? Find an animal walker.
Women, do you not wish to have a baby and undergo the expansion of their bodies due to birth? Hire a surrogate.
I’m not laughing at the last one as that’s an important decision in life. However, you get the idea!
The same rules apply to business!
How can you tell when it’s time to outsource tasks for your company
The first step to knowing is to record the activities you do each day, including input vs. output, for one week. List them on a piece of paper or an electronic note. Bonus points if you note how the tasks made you feel happy, proud and happy, exhausted, and anxious. When the week has ended, and you’ve compiled your to-do list, you should take 15 minutes to evaluate the job on a 1-to-4 scale:
You are awed by the job. It’s easy and enjoyable, and you feel rejuvenated as you complete it.
If you enjoy the work, it’s simple to complete quickly because it’s within your expertise.
You are committed to the job. You don’t like it, but you’re happy doing it because you know it will be completed and help move the company ahead.
You hate this task and cringe when you look it up on your calendar. If you don’t, then go for that extra food item, you don’t need and join social media whenever you are thinking about completing it.
Once you’ve evaluated your work, you’ll immediately know what you’d like to outsource at first… The entire fours! It’s easy to put aside any task that’s not within your realm of genius that you’re compelled to complete. It’s exhausting and time-consuming to make these tasks a part of the calendar and on your “To Do List.” When you’ve made a list, you’ve begun the job descriptions and will be able to determine the role(s) you’ll have to outsource.
Look at the three tasks you’ve listed, and add these tasks to the outsourcing list and the job description. If you can spare time to devote to your 2 and 1 tasks, your company and you will be better off. The output will correspond to the input, and you’ll get more for your energy.
You could take this rating further and assign a dollar amount to the tasks.
Is it a $10hr, $20hr, $50, $150, $300hr plus job?
$10 is a market research and data entry. service email, file organization, and market research
20hr graphic design is a good amount, and social media content curation virtual assistant
Between $50 and $150hr for the bookkeeping or accounting tasks, implementation IT-related work
$300 per hour plus a sales, coaching staff copywriter, fractional director of copywriting post-CMO, and CTO. CFO
The hourly rate varies depending on your experience level and your outsourcing location.
Applying a dollar value to the work you’re performing will help give a sense of how you’re using your time and the value you’re getting from your efforts. If one task you scored as one or two and is a mere 10-hour job, include it on your outsourcing list.
What is the cost of outsourcing
There are always trade-offs in outsourcing. Most important is paying someone else to complete these jobs while you know you can complete the task yourself. As a business owner, this is the main problem to overcome. We’ve heard over and over repeatedly… “I’ve grown to like Canva and can get all of my social media posts done for the month in a weekend,” or “I like designing my course handouts now” after working many hours. When you think about the cost you could have incurred during your time off with your family or friends, or the 20 hours, it took to create and format your documents… Did it make the most efficient decision you could have made? It’s not.
However you decide to spin it, you can’t stop. You can outsource a design task to someone on Fiverr, UpWork, or Design Pickle for about $500 a month and earn 20 hours or a weekend back. UpWork and Fiverr together have a worldwide group of contractors who are willing to assist you in almost any work related to business.
While outsourcing can be great, there are negative trade-offs when you work with workers outsourced from across the globe.
Here are some of the issues you might face:
Cultural and language differences could result in extra time spent on corrections.
Time zone logistics. Working with a person from another country can require you to work during the early morning hours or later in the evening for instant communication. Communication is reduced.
Security. You should be cautious about hiring anyone into your business. Background checks will help you identify anyone unsuitable in the US; however, hiring from overseas could be problematic. Utilizing a third-party service that lets you see the past work and review work done in the past is the best option for locating someone trustworthy and dependable.
Onboarding and training. This is a must regardless of how skilled the person you’ve hired is. You’ll need to give them clear instructions and directions about how and what you’d prefer to accomplish the task.