Being a Solo Entrepreneur Doesn’t Mean You Have To Work Alone
Russ Henneberry | Sep 16, 2009 | Comments 0
I own a tiny business - and I am DANG proud of it.
I don’t have any employees to worry about and no partners to appease. However, this can sometimes be a problem. Working alone has its privileges, but it is also frought with danger — not to mention loneliness. 
When business picks up for me it can become a problem because I only have two hands and 24 hours in a day. It is difficult to scale up my operation without getting some help.
Does this mean employees? Partners?
Heck no! Outsource it.
What To Outsource
When your business is ramping up, you should consider outsourcing those business processes that are not core competencies.
- Do you really need to be entering all of those receipts and balancing your Quickbooks every week? Outsource It!
- Should you be fumbling around with Photoshop trying to resize images from your last presentation? Outsource It!
- Couldn’t someone else type the 400 names and addresses from your last conference into your contacts database? Outsource It!
My rule of thumb has been that the closer that something is to my clients, the less likely I am to outsource it. I certainly don’t outsource any of my customer service. I also rarely outsource the actual development work that I do for clients. It is just too important and (in my opinion) contractors are not to be trusted with client work.
I do know lots of people that do the exact same work that I do and they outsource quite a bit of the client work and it seems to work for them. To each his own.
How To Outsource
Firstly, if you have friends or colleagues using outsourced resources, consult them and ask them if they recommend anyone for the tasks you are looking to outsource. If you can get a solid recommendation from someone, you will be ahead of the game.
When I am looking for a new long term contractor, I will send a very small project out to 3 or 4 different contractors that I have researched carefully. The project is the same for each of them. Although this will be more costly than just sending it to one contractor, I strongly believe that it saves me money and headaches in the long-run.
When I get the results from this small project, it makes my decision much easier as to whom I am going to settle in with for a long term relationship.
These are the qualities that I judge my contracting firms on:
- Responsiveness (this is a big one for me)
- Ability to Follow Instructions
- Quality of Work
- Cost
When you create the description of the work that you need accomplished you will need to be as descriptive as possible. This is another reason that I start with a small job — if they can’t get a small job right, what is going to happen when I send large, complicated projects over?
Where To Outsource
These are just a few of the places you can find contract workers online:
Using these websites is fairly simple. You will need to create an account and then create a job posting. Once you have created the posting, you will start getting emails from people and firms all over the world that are bidding to win the job.
Another place to look for outsourced help is at networking events. If you are the sort of business person that likes to meet your vendors for coffee and shake hands on a deal, this is a far superior method. There will be no shaking hands with a firm that is on the other side of the globe.
I’m not going to lie to you — outsourcing work is difficult. You can end up doing twice the work you would have done if you would have just done it yourself if you aren’t careful. However, if you can find the right fit, you can exponentially increase your productivity.
Related Tiny Business Marketing Posts:
Filed Under: Marketing Articles • Networking
