As a small business owner, you already have so much work. Trying to do everything on your own can be overwhelming. It also prevents you from spending your precious time doing more valuable work that can better grow your business.
To solve this problem, you can consider outsourcing, or giving your work to someone else outside of your main business. Outsourcing can bring many benefits to your business: cut costs, increase efficiency, reduce risks, speed up processes, etc. Read on for some tips to outsource work while keeping quality work.
First, understand why you want to outsource work
Why do you want to outsource work? To save money, add value for clients, gain expertise, help your business grow or simply convenience?
Having a clear motivation and a goal is helpful to keep track of the quality and measure success.
Second, identify tasks you’re not good at
If you spend too much time doing something that you do not excel at, finding an expert to do it would save you a lot of time.
Additionally, an expert would do the job well, so they will likely bring positive results. In other words, you don’t have to do it or allocate it to an employee and worrying about messing up.
You will also be able to do the tasks with an economy of scale. For example, if you need help with building a website, you can hire a web agency to help design, build and optimise the website. This will be much more cost-efficient than hiring a new full-time employee or a team on a part-time basis that have all the skills you need to build a website.
Third, choose the right service provider
Whether you are looking for someone to complete one job or for a long period, you should handle the hiring process the same way you do for a permanent employee.
To ensure you get a good quality of work, look for companies or contractors that are highly rated. You should look at their previous experience and achievements, work portfolio/samples, case studies and ratings.
You should require a paid test project from at least three people/companies. It can be expensive to pay people just for a test, but you will be able to know if they can handle your project before trusting them with real, important work.
Finally, interview them. If you can, do a face-to-face meeting with them, or conduct a video chat if you can’t. This will help you get to know them individually, make sure you get along and help with a better working relationship.
Communicate, communicate, communicate
Now that you’ve chosen the right contractor, you will need to make sure they are aligned with your goals. Communicating regularly is super important to make sure that the contractor is on the right track.
When the contractor starts the job, you should communicate your expectations and the steps included in the job.
You should also ask them to update you frequently about the work process. If they don’t do this, follow up.
Providing detailed feedback would also be effective to ensure that the work is going in the right direction.
What about data security?
You will have to give the contractor access to the data that they need. This means that they may need to access to your IT system and confidential data.
To prevent data theft, you should put necessary security measures and review their compliance certificates in handling client data if they have any.
You should only provide the contractor with the absolute minimum data necessary for the provider to do the work.
Conclusion
Outsourcing work is a good solution to help you get more done in less time. If you prepare well, do research and use the right techniques, outsourcing work will be beneficial for you and your company.
NEXT STEPS:
If you need help, don’t hesitate to contact us! Give us a call or book a consultation on 07 3367 0852.
You can also check out some of our articles:
What the 2020 Federal Budget means for you
How to improve wellbeing in the workplace
Xero Document Packs are here for easy, quick and secure e-signing
Tips to advertise your small business for free