Planning

As a business owner, you are responsible for the success of your business. In the early days of starting your business this responsibility may look like wearing 21 different hats as you resemble each of the different functions required to succeed. In any one day you may find yourself switching from CEO to accounts, marketing, sales, business development, and back again.

Solopreneuring and being a one-person band can be great in the early days of business ownership. You can keep costs low while also testing your business model, implementing standard procedures and finding your feet in this new venture.

However, when going solo, you may begin to find your growth stagnating. In order to grow and scale your business you will also want to grow and scale your team. This is where outsourcing comes into play. 

How to spot the signs that you need to outsource work

The decision to start outsourcing work doesn’t come easy. If you’re anything like me, you’ll struggle letting go of the reins as you hand over the metaphorical keys to let someone else take the driving seat. Letting other people help you with your business can be scary but, when done right, it can be incredibly rewarding. 

If you want to find success as a business owner, you cannot do it alone. But how do you know when it’s time to outsource work?

Here are some of the surefire signs that you need to start outsourcing work:

• You never get through your daily to-do list
• You are getting seriously stressed out with work
• You are doing too many different job roles at once
• You are spending a lot of time on tasks that you hate
• There are areas of your business that need specialised skills
• You can’t provide the quality of work you want to
• You don’t have time to work on new business development ideas
• An area of your business is suffering
• Work-life balance is a thing of the past and you’ve forgotten what you do outside of work
• You fall behind on deadlines
• Sales are plateauing or falling

If any of the above statements ring true for you, it could be a sign that you need to outsource work. Outsourcing can positively contribute to the health and future success of your business. It can be the difference between business stagnation and business growth.

While outsourcing may seem like an additional business cost at first, the return-on-investment will soon speak for itself when you find business operations thrive as a result of strategic outsourcing.

Types of tasks you can outsource

When it comes to outsourcing, the sky really is the limit. As you begin to grow your business, there are many tasks that you will likely want, or need, to outsource. 

The best place to start when choosing which tasks to outsource is to first consider your answers to the following questions:

• Which tasks take up the most of your time?
• Which tasks do you not enjoy doing?
• Which tasks or areas of business do you lack experience or confidence in?

Your answers to these questions should give you a good indication of the types of tasks you might want to outsource. From here, you can begin to make plans to outsource work effectively.

That being said, below are some tasks that you may find yourself outsourcing as your business grows:

• Customer service
• Administrative duties
• Lead generation
• Marketing and social media management
• Bookkeeping and accounting
• Graphic design
• Sales and business development
• Product design
• Event management
• Human resources
• Data entry
• Research and development
• Calendar Management

The above list is simply just a small selection of some of the tasks you can outsource as a business owner. In reality, the list is limitless. The luxury of owning your own business is that you have the freedom to build your ideal working day and to build the perfect team to support you in achieving your business goals.

If you find that you really dread answering customer service enquiries, outsource it to someone who is a customer services specialist. Similarly, if you are constantly forgetting to schedule meetings, then hire an Executive Assistant to help you keep your diary in shape.

Making sure you are ready to outsource work

Outsourcing work can be a wonderful thing for your business. But it can also be damaging if not done correctly. Because of this, it is important that you do your research and prep work before outsourcing work.

Take time to research the type of person, or partner organisation, that you want to bring on board and how you perceive that relationship working.

Just as you would with onboarding new employees, it is also a good idea to have an onboarding or outsourcing process for bringing subcontractors or partners on board. You can then use this to help make the outsourcing process as streamlined and successful as possible.

The other thing you want to consider when deciding to outsource work is whether you can afford to do so. Be realistic with yourself and make sure that outsourcing various components of your business will not be a financial strain to your business. When calculating whether you can afford to outsource, be sure to also calculate how much money you are currently losing by not outsourcing work (either through lost income or lost time) and how much money you could gain if you do outsource those particular tasks.

Why we believe in upsourcing, not outsourcing

Here at Fika Digital, we believe in upsourcing. By upsourcing, you are reducing the risk-factors associated with outsourcing work. 

One quote that I always love to remind myself of as a business owner is “if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room”.

And that quote rings true for outsourcing. When it comes to your business, it is important that you are not always the smartest person in the room. Otherwise, how will you grow? If you find that you are the smartest person in your business, then it might be time for you to begin inviting smarter people to join you. 

This is essentially where upsourcing differs from outsourcing. Outsourcing refers to the process of handing specific work tasks and processes over to a third part. Upsourcing, on the other hand, means you are handing specific work tasks and processes over to someone who is highly experienced in those particular areas of work.

When you begin to look at outsourcing as upsourcing, you begin to see it as a way to invest in your business and reach your next business milestones or objectives.

Starting your outsourcing journey

Deciding that it’s time to outsource elements of your business is a milestone moment in business ownership. 

Before outsourcing (or upsourcing!) work, first make sure you perform an analysis of your current business performance. Consider which tasks you would benefit most from outsourcing and start with the area of your business that you can easily outsource and that is expected to have the highest performance impact in return.

From here, begin researching the best partner for your outsourcing needs – being sure to choose a person, or company, that is a good fit for your needs, budget, deliverables, and culture. 

The relationship between your business and the person(s) you outsource work to is central to your success so make sure you choose a partner that is the right match for you and your business.

Once you’ve found the ideal partner, it’s time to get handing some tasks over. We always recommend having standard operating procedures (SOPs) – or playbooks as we like to call them – so that you can easily transfer all of your existing processes and expectations for how tasks should be performed.

When upsourcing, you may want to go easy on the SOPs and trust that the person coming on board will be the one to lead on how to implement winning processes for your company.

If you are ready to upsource your social media and content marketing activities to an experience agency, we would love to hear from you. Get in touch to discuss the various ways that we can partner with you to create purposeful social media and content marketing for your business.