Outsourcing Gives You The Freedom to Do What You Love While Growing Your Business
Here at FocusWP, we know how easy it is to get overwhelmed with client demands. As a small agency owner, you have to wear multiple hats and you can get so far behind that you feel you’ll never catch up. That’s no way to run a business, much less grow a business.
Stephanie Hudson, one of the founders of FocusWP, was interviewed on Empowering Productivity about how outsourcing can help entrepreneurs do less, while getting more done.
Listen to the full podcast episode: Overcoming Overwhelm By Hiring Out Work
The Top Reasons Entrepreneurs Can’t Keep Up
Most entrepreneurs start their business to do one thing…the thing they love! But as their business grows, that thing that got them into the business can end up on the back burner. Maybe they intentionally avoid parts of the business, as well. For example, the techie person might avoid client communication and sales calls, while the social butterfly may let the ball drop when it comes to admin tasks.
How Being a Lone Wolf In Business is Holding You Back
Many people that are in business for themselves are a lone wolf…meaning, they are doing everything that is needed to fill orders and keep the business running. This can easily lead a solo-entrepreneur to hit overwhelm, or even a total burnout.
When you get to the point where you haven’t had a vacation in who knows how long and you’re working every weekend, you’ve limited yourself. You can’t possibly grow the business any more than where it is. Not only that, handling all of the tasks that you hate steals your ability to be creative. Freeing up headspace is an important aspect of growing your business.
Hitting Burnout Can Be Costly For Your Business
Not only will you limit yourself by trying to manage everything in your business on you own, it can actually become costly to your business. We’ve seen this happen to entrepreneurs…they end up becoming so overwhelmed and overworked that they drop tasks. Dropping tasks and not filling orders on time can damage your reputation and making it even harder to get the next project.
Outsourcing Is The First Step in Growing Your Income
Don’t buy into the excuse that you don’t have the money to outsource parts of your business. The truth is, you almost can’t afford to keep all of the work and manage it yourself. Even if you increase your prices, that will eventually hit a cap. Regardless of your price point, there are only 24 hours in a day — a finite limit.
The Order of Priorities For Outsourcing
One of the biggest reasons that people don’t want to outsource is that the very idea of handing off tasks is overwhelming. They don’t know who to hire or what to give them. Here are the top priorities of things you should work towards outsourcing:
1. Admin Tasks
An easy thing to start with is to hire out admin related tasks like checking emails or help with project management. There are a lot of virtual assistant resources that can help you clear out your inbox, client communication, and any other small tasks that could be easily be managed by others.
2. Skilled Work
A great way to increase your business is to find people that have skills you don’t possess. For example, if you are a web developer, why not find someone to handle design work for you. Instead of asking the client to provide their logo, outsource that work to a graphic designer. Same with content creation, ongoing maintenance, SEO, or any other service that pairs well with websites.
3. Duplicate Yourself
Eventually, you’ll want to hire out work that you already know how to do. This is quite possibly the hardest type of work to outsource, because it is hard to trust someone else to do the work you do best. However, when you teach others to do the work you offer, you can take on even more than before. It’s one of the fastest ways to grow your business.
Empowering Productivity is a podcast that helps small business owners and entrepreneurs to break the mental chains that keep them from producing. Learn what habits you have that are contributing to feelings of guilt and overwhelm that keep you from getting more done.
At FocusWP, we love helping agency owners to get things off their plate, expand their offerings, and make more money. If this article was describing you or your business, check out our On-Demand Copywriting and Development service stat!
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