What is outsourcing and why should you care?

Outsourcing is simply getting someone else to do a task or tasks for you. It can be a simple task (e.g. getting someone to stuff envelopes or do a letterbox drop for you) or a skilled task (e.g. hiring a professional web designer, accountant, writer or photographer)

Some of the benefits to you and your business if you outsource are:

• save time as someone else does some of the work
• you gain expert knowledge in many cases
• you can potentially learn from the supplier
• you can gain an outside perspective (great as a sole trader)
• you may get a more professional result which will attract more customers
• the project is likely to be finished sooner than you could do it on top of the other tasks you are performing

Although there is a cost to outsourcing, that is often paid for with the advantages above – for example, Brad designed his own website and it took 9 months before it was ready to launch. Later he realised that he could have paid Jim to design it and it would have been launched within a month, giving Brad an extra 8 months of sales to help pay for Jim’s service.

So if you are feeling overwhelmed in your business or are desperate for another day every week, outsourcing may be your best option.

If you have already done some outsourcing, how did you find the experience?