Outsourcing has a bad rap these days. Most people think of it as sending jobs overseas, seeking out cheap labor by hiring remote workers who will work for less money. The result of this type of outsourcing is a common scenario in which, for example, when you try to call the phone company for tech support, you are connected to someone located in a call center in Bombay, who reads from a script in such a thick accent that even if you understood the technical questions, you wouldn’t be able to decipher the words. For small businesses who wouldn’t even consider hiring international workers, outsourcing can still be a useful tool.
For our purposes, outsourcing can simply mean hiring someone else to do a specific task. If you’ve ever hired a company to take care of your lawn, or even hired a babysitter, you’ve used a form of outsourcing. In a small business, the owner and often very small staff struggle to get everything done. Sometimes there is too much work, and sometimes not enough, so many small businesses can’t afford to hire new employees on the if come.
Sometimes, you’ll end up spending less money and a lot less time by hiring people to complete tasks for your business, either on a one-time or continual basis. Outsourcing can mean calling on a family member that’s good at photography to help with advertising materials, or hiring a nephew to help with a landscaping project for your business. At the same time as you’re relieving yourself of the burden of too many tasks and a shallow pool of labor, you’re offering work to people who will appreciate it and do a good job. To boot, you can hire newbies who will work harder and for less money than seasoned professionals in exchange for referrals and resume material.
Sometimes, insourcing is the answer. Insourcing means assigning new tasks to existing employees of your company. Ask your employees about their other interests. Find out what they’re good at. You might find that you have a salesperson who’s also a good painter or who knows a lot about computers. Part of the charm of small businesses is the feeling of working as a team. You can increase this team mentality by embracing the talents of your employees in multiple ways. You’ll get more done, and your employees will feel more fulfilled.
Small business owners sometimes hurt themselves by refusing to give up tasks, even if doing it themselves isn’t really working out. Case in point, I have a close friend who works for a small business in which the owner is in charge of e-mail marketing. They have a huge subscriber list and the idea is a good one, but it’s so poorly executed that it does more harm than good. For a little bit of money, the owner could hire someone who knows what they’re doing, see more return on the investment, and free up a lot of his time. But he’s so married to the task, he won’t consider giving it up.
Don’t get stuck like this in your own business. Be open to the idea of letting tasks out of your direct control, and finding someone you trust who can do a better job. In the end, it’ll be worth it.
For most small business owners, the bottom line is money. I’ve coined the term “smart-sourcing” to mean finding the smartest way to get tasks done, and one consideration is cost. You’d be surprised to learn that it’s not always cheaper (and it’s definitely not best) to do everything yourself. Particularly if you take into account your time, you’ll find that assigning tasks to someone else clears your plate for more important jobs, and in the long run saves you money. Insourcing and outsourcing, used effectively, can be a small business owner’s best friends.
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