Getting The Work Done - Outsourcing Trends
by Leeia Ladipoh on March 18th, 2008
At some point in your career as a small business owner, you will realize that you can’t do it all yourself. There is a limited amount of profit you can make when you’re responsible for every piece of the puzzle that is your business. It may be time to outsource.
Outsourcing is finding someone else to do parts of your job, so you can spend more time moving your business forward.
Let’s take a look at what happens in a business day.
A Day in the Life
You may start the day by dealing with customer questions in e-mails. You check the phone messages at the office. Next, you may go through the regular mail that arrived the afternoon before. Is it the end of the month? Then it’s paperwork time, dealing with all the accounts billable and payable.
Once the doors open, you may be the one dealing with all the customers who come into your business, as well as the one making all the purchasing and supply phone calls and pickups.
Add these little jobs together, and you are not getting a lot of time to think about taking your business to the next level.
Outsourcing - What’s In It for Me?
The key to doing outsourcing the right way is to find someone who can do the job you need done at a price that will be more profitable by you not doing it, freeing up your time to focus on higher-level tasks.
If you have a retail location, these jobs may have to be done by someone who can physically be in the store. But if you have a company that is run out of your home or a virtual office, you can have employees that are virtual as well.
Many online websites specialize in outsourcing parts of your business or personal life.
* Elance.com - Elance is known as a freelancer’s website. Many people do not equate freelancing with outsourcing. The words may be different, but they mean virtually the same thing.
Freelancers who are experts in accounting, customer relations, appointment setting, website design, ghostwriting and many other skills can take on some of the jobs you need to have done.
* Guru.com - This is another site where you can find a number of freelancers who are able to take on the tasks you have at hand.
By posting the project to be completed, a number of professionals will bid for the chance to do the job for you.
* Craigslist.org - While many people think of craigslist.org as a site for getting rid of junk or finding a roommate, this is also a great place to look for professionals, especially if you want someone in your area to do a job.
You can post your needs on a Craigslist regional forum.
When you are ready to take your small business to the next level, it is time to get out from under the piles of minutia and turn those jobs over to outsourced employees. Then you can do what you do best - taking your company into a more profitable future.