You’re better than me at Adwords. I’m better than you at list-building. Harry Potter’s better than both of us at magic. The point is, no-one can be perfect at everything and if your business is to grow beyond a mere “mom & pop store” then at some point you’ll need to start delegating responsibility and delve confidently into the world of EMPLOYING people. Someone creates your content. Someone else your website. Another markets. And you? Well you’re scooping up the profits and repeating the whole process with another project. And then another.
For the internet business entrepreneur, by far the best way of hiring is through OUTSOURCING. Here’s a small sample of the type of work that can be outsourced:
– Development of custom-built software & content.
– Customer support.
– Internet marketing.
– Site development.
– Graphic design.
– Creation of business plans/forecasts/research reports.
– Accounting.
I could go on for pages but you get the idea. While outsourcing tends to be associated mostly with huge companies it’s every bit as important to the small internet business entrepreneur. Consider these advantages of implementing outsourcing into your business:
– “Saving time”. Are you trying to do *everything* yourself? This may seem noble to you, and undoubtedly you ought to gain as much practical experience into how things need to be done in your business in case of emergencies. But after a time, if you’re doing a lot of menial tasks then you’re cheating yourself out of time you could be using to do the things that a CEO of a company should be doing to grow the business. Do you reckon Bill Gates sits down every week to do his own search engine optimisation? No, his team handles it for him. What about you? If you can identify the parts of your business that are taking up way too much time, you can potentially seek to outsource them.
– “Cost Effective”. With outsourcing, you only pay for services as and when you need them. In a lot of traditional businesses that employ their own staff this is not so. Often, there is over-capacity so old Dave is having a nice cuppa and reading Sports Illustrated and you’re paying him by the hour to do it. Not so with Outsourcing – you pay only for what you need. Further, when you hire staff you have to deal with additional costings such as insurance and taxes. This is simply too much to handle for a small business – again, something that isn’t a factor with outsourcing.
– “Let The Professionals Handle It”. Certain elements of your business need to be handled by the pro’s if you don’t have the required skills or experience to do it yourself. When you outsource to a reliable professional, you’re ensuring that the job is done right by someone who has the know-how.
So how can you get started growing your business by outsourcing? First, you need to take a long hard look at your own business and pin-point those areas that are either taking too long to complete, aren’t being done properly, or aren’t being done at all.
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