For many, the idea of offloading work onto others, especially people we don’t really know, is a difficult idea. The thought of entrusting a stranger with any part of our business seems like a disaster waiting to happen. But even the biggest and best find ways to delegate their workload, often to employees who may not have the motivation to get the job done well.
Often we are bogged down under deadlines, huge reports, and marketing pushes to really take a look at the bigger picture. We get used to the idea of working under pressure, and it’s common knowledge that stress and poor time management can lead to sometimes costly mistakes. Escaping from this mindset enables us to take a long view at how we delegate our tasks, and that actually, outsourcing is a vital tool to freeing us to concentrate on the core business.
Control
No sensible business leader wants to give away control. It opens our business to all kinds of difficulty and can be distressing to stakeholders and clients. But at the same time, micro-managing a business can be exhausting and time-consuming.
On any given working day our to-do lists can grow monumentally, filling up gradually with menial tasks that get in the way of our core mission. It’s always tempting to delegate the minute to office juniors, but this can lead to demotivation and resentment. The good news is that there are people out there who are chomping at the bit to get their hands on these tasks.
“Freelancers know that if they don’t work to your specifications they ruin their own business. It is a simple, timely process to go out and find these people, and often you won’t have to look for very long to find the right fit. As freelancing becomes more popular, freelancing websites are getting incrementally better at helping you discover talented workers who are also actively looking for you,” says John Hammonds, content manager at Researchpapersuk.
Time
Time is the greatest resource one can have in business, and all too often we find that there is too little of it. Relinquishing control means that we can get some of that valuable time back. But a difficulty that some businesses face is that keeping everything in-house means just shifting the workload around endlessly.
Outsourcing can be used as a valuable resource in this respect. You want your core staff to concentrate on the big stuff rather than get burdened with inbound calls, data entry, or lead generation. All of these jobs can be done through outsourcing, allowing your team to claim back time better spent.
With a global community of freelancers, you can have people working literally around the clock to get all the menial tasks done. Once you’ve found a decent individual who fits your business, you can trust the autonomous nature of freelancing to work away in the background. This will give you more time to get to the tasks you actually excel at.
Finance
A lot of businesses worry that employing freelancers can muddy up the waters when it comes to finances. Due to the variable nature of the freelancing world that we might be under the impression that we’ll end up paying a lot more for work we cannot control. But freelancing is an incredibly competitive industry, and independent workers strive to offer value along with good work.
“You can dictate not only the terms of the tasks you set but also the budget. If you’ve been doing a particularly time-consuming task, you are best placed to know the monetary value of it. Some of these tasks are low yield and you can justify a lower budget to suit them,” adds Donald Mitchell, freelance writer for Draftbeyondand Writinity.
Skill
For high yield tasks that require a professional touch it is a bad idea to rely on employees that have no professional experience of the field. A charter accountant wouldn’t want to take on digital marketing, for instance, and you wouldn’t expect a professional engineer to spend their time on lead generation. This is a field where outsourcing truly shines.
Often, those who have spent years in a particular field like to strike out on their own by freelancing. With fewer overheads and red tape than using your own employees, outsourcing to a freelancer can offer high-quality work for a lot less pay. Ultimately, outsourcing can enable your core staff to concentrate on what they are best at.
