Outsourcing to Grow your Business

Let me paint a picture for you: you started your own business, kinda DIY’ed things from the beginning and took care of all parts of your biz. But now you’re GROWING because you’re amazing and people want what you offer. Business is getting busier and taking more of your time, and you’re starting to feel a little stressed out. Once you get to this point, it might be a good time to outsource. Let’s talk about it.

Stick to your Zone of Genius

I work with a lot of creative entrepreneurs. Copywriters, photographers, brand designers, etc. Creatives have a lot of strengths, and often numbers aren’t one of them 😉 The same goes for me. I’m a numbers girl, and copywriting is NOT my strength. If you outsource, you’re able to eliminate what’s stressful or overwhelming for you and focus on what you love and what you’re an expert at.

When you let other experts take on the aspects of your business that are not your strengths, you get to develop YOUR strengths and expertise. It frees up your time and energy for more of what you love. You might think you need to do it all, or that you have the time to do it all. At some point, especially at the beginning, that might work just fine. But eventually you get to a point where you have to outsource to be able to scale.

I started my business with just myself, as many of us do, and now have a team of five. I brought on my first team member when I was pregnant with my second baby. From being pregnant and postpartum before, I knew I was going to need more support. Without that extra support and help, I wouldn’t be able to serve my clients at the level I want! 

How Do I Know if I Can Afford to Outsource?

There are so many ways you can outsource, and it doesn't necessarily have to be in your business. Earlier I mentioned my housekeeper. She comes every other week and if she doesn't come one week, that's now 3 hours that I'm going to want to spend cleaning my house instead of working in my business. So the first question to ask yourself is: if I outsource will it be billable time or add value to my business? Using myself as an example, if you decided to outsource and have me do your bookkeeping, that wouldn't be billable time and I wouldn't be client-facing in your business. BUT I'd be adding value for your business to grow AND saving you the time of doing it yourself.

Let's talk billable time, whether you hire someone hourly or flat-rate. If you have a client-facing project where, for example, they're paying you $2000 but you want to outsource. You could hire someone to help on that project for $700 and you'll maybe have a couple hours of back and forth communication with the client and contractor, and other work here and there. But you've still made $1300 and bringing in income and profit, and only worked a few hours.

Another example is with marketing - if you outsource marketing, it's not billable time. BUT with a solid strategy and branding in place they're going to help you increase leads, traffic, conversions and in turn, sales. Ultimately take a good look at what a potential outsource will give you or your business, and what value it will bring.

Outsourcing a Tax Accountant vs. a Bookkeeper 

One of the first things you might outsource is a tax accountant to actually file your taxes for you. That's definitely a smart choice. What ALSO might be helpful for you is to outsource your bookkeeping (more on the difference between the two and why you need both here). When I first hired a housekeeper to come every other week I was so embarrassed about it. But then I realized... I'm literally paying her to clean up my mess. She's going to expect a mess, and she wasn't going to expect me to have picked up beforehand. The same is true for YOUR books! You don't need to be embarrassed about your books not being up to date or not having things reconciled. The whole point of outsourcing bookkeeping is to have some help cleaning up the "mess".

Knowing HOW much you can afford goes back to knowing your numbers and having that as a foundation. Ask me if I think bookkeeping is a great place to start with outsourcing 😉 All jokes aside if you want to get started working with a bookkeeper, you can either have someone help you set up your books and get a good foundation, get a template to DIY your books, or have your bookkeeping done for you so you don't have to stress about it at all.

Ultimately, outsourcing will give you the flexibility you need to grow your business and increase your profits. By having a solid financial foundation and understanding, you'll be able to make the best decisions on what you can outsource, how much, and when. Connect with us on Instagram and send a DM if you have any questions!