Just like Mrs Doubtfire picked up the housekeeping tasks in the 1993 movie of the same name, wouldn’t it be great if outsourcing could take care of some of your time-consuming business tasks.
If you’re mulling over whether or not to outsource tasks that could be completed by someone external to your start-up or established trade business, ask yourself the following questions:
- Is this task(s) wasting my time and energy?
- Is this task(s) outside of my core business activities and skillset?
- Would it provide better value to outsource than keep it in-house?
- Is this draining resources that could be better used elsewhere?
After asking ourselves these questions, we made the decision to build the capabilities within our team through outsourcing. In this article, we outline 4 ways to outsource in your trade business.
Outsourcing a project
You’re wearing many hats – and you can’t move the needle forward on important profit-making projects because your to-do list is growing ridiculously longer every day. Recruit a freelancer to step in.
It may be a one-off or longer-term project to be completed. In the trade business, project examples could include development of a new logo and website, creation of marketing material or generating content.
Outsourcing a role
You may identify entire roles in your business, which require outsourcing. This is a long-term arrangement where you’d partner with an external business that can provide specific, complementary services.
For example, the role of bookkeeping is perfect to outsource. This is an income-producing role, and more likely than not, outside of your skillset. It makes sense to hand bookkeeping over to the experts.
Hiring a virtual assistant (VA)
A VA is someone who undertakes a role in your business, from their own home, using own resources. Get started by building rapport and respect with your potential VA via Skype, or similar.
You’ll have greater control over their performance if you train your VA. With this arrangement, mutual trust is important, as you can’t be 100% certain of your VA’s productivity. Keeping a timesheet may help.
Offshoring
Offshoring involves basing some of your business’s operations overseas, for the purposes of cost-effectiveness. You’ll either own or rent an office space in the location. This team is an extension of your local team.
We have a team in the Philippines, who works from a state-of-the-art office space. Trained in all of our business systems, we keep in regular contact through Skype and visit for team building a few times a year.
As you wrangle another day of chaos in your trade business, what could you outsource to free up your time to focus on profit-making activities?
- Answer after-hour phones
- Data entry
- Social media management
- Lead generation
- Graphic design
- Email distribution management
- Live chat
- Website updates and management.
While we’d all like a Mrs Doubtfire in our lives to look after the home front, outsourcing tasks in your trade business will help you play a starring role in improving your profits. It’s up to you to write the script.
