Why Outsourcing Is Critical!
We just lost our internet and phones this morning. Being that this office provides the sales and support for our whole company, saying that we rely on internet and phones would be an understatement. We were frozen, leading to dozens of hours of unproductive time and probably dozens of frustrated clients who couldn’t reach us on the phones. Fortunately, all we had to do is call our networking support vendor, Bardissi Enterprises (covers Eastern PA and NJ)- and George Bardissi came out, found the problem, and fixed it. All part of our monthly fee. And later today, i expect my monthly report from our outsourced Accountant, Accounting Plus, who handles all of our books and billing.
There are some facets of business that i don’t know very well, including networking and accounting,and frankly, don’t think i want to become an expert in them. My business is best served by me doing what i do best (marketing, strategy, management, etc.) which shoud lead to growth in my company, and letting other companies focus on their areas of expertise and maintaining the business.
How can you determine what you should outsource? Here are some quick questions to ask yourself:
- What are your priorities that will help your business grow that you have expertise in?
- What is an hourly rate that your time is worth to you? $50 and hour? $250 an hour?
- What obstacles interfere or prevent you from executing the answers to #1?
- How much time do you spend on these obstacles?
- Can you delegate any of these obstacles, or outsource them to an outside firm?
After analysis, you’ll probably find that if you are spending 5 hours per week on payroll, another 10 hours on accounts receivable and payable, then you may not be using your time wisely. Hiring someone full time may not make sense, so research and see if you can find an accounting firm that specializes in managing small business accounting.
Here are some additional tips to researching and hiring appropriate vendors:
- Try to find at least 3 vendors before you make a decision.
- A reference from another trusted business source is always helpful in making a decision.
- Don’t just look at price. Get a feel for personality, reputation, length of term in business, expertise, availability and testimonials.
- Try to negotiate a flat monthly fee that fully covers the service, rather than an hourly service. This will help you budget and set everyone’s expectations better. This is especially helpful for computer networking, which will force the vendor to prepare to prevent a catastrophe rather than reap the huge reward of spending dozens of hours on a big issue.
There is no question in my mind that outsourcing certain components of our business like payroll, accounting services and networking services have been some of the smartest decisions we’ve made.
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