Entrepreneurs and most small business owners are known for their inability to delegate and the power culture that they practice.
Many reasons such as insufficient funds during the startup stage and potential employees unwilling to take the risk of working in a startup contribute to a one man organization.
Having total control in your business is advantageous at first because it allows you to implement the ideas that you have. However, being ignorant about reasons to outsource or hire will lead to stagnant growth or even the downfall of your business in the long run.
With that, I would like to share with you the 9 Alarming Reasons to Outsource.
Business Reaching A Plateau
Even if you have a seamless business process in place, the best product or service and the best placement within your market, your small business can only achieve a certain level of success if everything is being done by yourself.
When your revenue or profit growth is slowly showing a flat line, it is time to bring in someone to take care of some ancillary functions of your business such as the day-to-day admin tasks.
No Personal Time
Most entrepreneurs, like me and small business owners have little or worse, no personal time. Your venture is important but you need to allocate some extra time for your family and friends.
They deserve your time and they are the best support every time you hit the wall in your business. When business tasks are filling up your schedule, it may be time for you to delegate and let go some of them.
Stress and Depression
Stress naturally comes with a huge workload. No one can save you from it other than yourself. Stress leads to bad decision making and failures because of the decisions made will cause frustrations.
By letting go your tasks through hiring an employee or outsourcing, you are freeing your mind from unnecessary emotional burden. Mind you, when you are stressful, people around you, which includes clients, suppliers and business partners, can feel it and might stay away to avoid the “fire”.
Cash Strapped Business
To recession proof your business, your business needs a considerable amount of cash. However, having too much but not utilizing it to grow your business is not a wise decision to make.
Keeping cash in the bank while your business has the potential of growth and to gain a larger market share is equivalent to leaving money on the table. Use the cash to hire potential talents or outsource business processes to agencies after identifying possible areas for improvements in terms of efficiency and effectiveness within your business.
Declining Learning Rate
As a business owner or an entrepreneur, you must constantly keep yourself up-to-date with the latest management techniques and knowledge on various business functions such as traditional media and social media marketing, branding, leadership, etc.
Stop bogging your learning process with tons of routine operational tasks. New knowledge improves your take on how to run your business better. Look back at the state of your business for the past few years. Does it stay the same all this while? If yes, it is time for you to delegate routine tasks and start learning.
End Results of Work Worsen
Do you notice that there is an increasing number of customer complaints? Do you find yourself redoing some tasks because of some minor errors? If the quality of your work is going down the drain, it is advisable to let others to do it.
Bottom line, you are not a robot and when you do everything by yourself, quality diminishes due to lack of focus. This is especially true for entrepreneurs which most of us are known for having short attention spans.
Business Getting Boring
I don’t know about you but for me, it is the excitement of doing what I should do everyday that keeps me pumped and motivated as an entrepreneur. When the excitement is gone, you get bored about the business and it will get nowhere.
This makes up another reason to outsource or hire. The nature of most businesses or ventures is not boring. Boredom comes when you are doing all the repetitive tasks yourself. Hiring someone also means that you can at least interact with a human while running your business daily.
Deteriorating Relationships with Customers and Suppliers
When was the last time you have a long and insightful chat with a loyal customer or supplier? Do you keep peeking at the time while having a conversation with them? If so, you are getting too busy. Hiring or outsourcing is a must for you.
Personal brand of a business owner is crucial for a small business. This statement concludes that it is important for you to build personal relationships with your customers and suppliers. Do not see such interactions as time wasting.
Incoming Suggestions About Hiring or Outsourcing
You are reading the suggestion here now. If another person, either your business consultant, friend, spouse or close business connection suggests you to hire or outsource, it may be time for you to do so.
Third party can see things from another perspective which we are sometimes blinded from. At times, it is good to evaluate their suggestions, especially when everyone is trying to get the same message across to you. 
Do You Hire, Outsource or Do Everything Yourself?
Are you currently running a one man business? Do you have employees? Do you outsource some of your administrative tasks to virtual assistants or outsourcing agencies?
Notice that there are only 9 reasons to outsource or hire above? What do you think should be the 10th?
Share with me your thoughts and experience on hiring and outsourcing in the comments section below. Hearing from you is priceless.
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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
I share the same sentiments as you on outsourcing, thats why I always recommend entrepreneurs and small business owners to totally outsource their marketing and creative needs to people like us.
We always see business owners getting so busy with daily operations, yet still having to meet daily challenges like coming up with an advertisement, brochure, flyer, updating their website (or not even having time to build their online presence!) and the list goes on. Its time that outsourcing or barter trading make some sense…treating it like an investment for more returns.
Great post on this
Yes, there are a lot of business functions that a small business owner has to focus on other than those day-to-day routine tasks. This is one of the many reasons to outsource.
I do outsource and delegate my task to people that can do the work or even better than me. Then, i can focus in what i am doing like business management
Yup, it is a wise choice for you to make. Doing things that you are not good at will only reduces the efficiency of your small business. Kudos to you for choosing the path of outsourcing.
Interesting Post! Well written.
I think this is the best time to outsource since we’ll be getting work done for a much cheaper price now – than then – when the economy will rise up and start flourishing
Just bookmarked your blog
(will get in touch with you one day …now a little bit busy with exams ….)
Outsourcing is the way for the future, if your wish to stay in the market and have an competitive edge. Outsourcing can seriously work wonders if you get it right but there are associated problems as well which people do not consider while making their decision. So its necessary that once decide to outsource you have outsource the right kind of work, to the right kind of provider taking in to account the importance of the work as well as the cost factor.
Good point. Outsourcing is hard when you just got started. Remember to ask
for previous RECENT work done because common sense tells that when
requested, providers will definitely provide their best work. Previous
recent work will give you a better idea of their quality. Also, start using
providers that you are comfortable working with. There are a lot of talks
about offshore outsourcing. However, if you are more comfortable working
with people from your own country, go ahead.
When you're just starting out with your business, it's best to save as much money as you can and do everything yourself.
You have to invest your own time and resources as long as you don't have any funds.
Once you have gathered experience in your business and you've collected some capital… only then can you start to let your money work for you.
From then on, other people will invest their time and energy to grow your business. Not you!
That is very true. A lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners actually
use the excuse of not having enough money to take actions, which I think is
a lame excuse sometimes. They are just being lazy and not willing to sweat
themselves in order to get the work done.
we otusource some of work and we would like to mention that from our experience you need to detail everything you reuqest for the job to be done correctly.
Damn straight. You need to be sitting behind your computer, cranking out one article after another if you want to jumpstart yourself and get yourself going in this biz.
The beginning is the hardest part. Beyond that, the fruits of your labor await you.
Just to add on to the list is lack of expertise in the field. OR if you are new in business it can help your to reduce your cost by concentrating on the core part of the business.
Indeed, outsourcing is the way to go for companies whether it is positively expanding on its operations or it is encountering problems such as the ones you mentioned on the post. Companies that are into providing an outsource product development doesn't only entail giving the product or service of their client company needs but also its product and market research for the latter to arrive at output innovations.
Thanks for this very detailed post about outsourcing; you touched every point very well. Outsourcing is a very smart business strategy, especially for start-up or small businesses who have no financial means to hire additional employees, and whose time is better spent on coming up with ways to help their businesses' growth and development.
Small enterprises and small businesses needs to outsource for company growth. I agree with the reasons that you cited in your article. Especially in instances of expansion when there is too many things to do at a very short time, outsourcing for business processes is essential to be able to perform other business functions.
Today, the demand for outsourcing payrolll is dramatically increasing. Businesses, regardless of size sees outsourcing as a good business strategy. Through payroll (Las Vegas) firms, they do not have to waste time entering date and making reports to know the costs incurred by their company. An account consultant and sophisticated software can do the trending report at a very short period of time. Also, employee concerns regarding remuneration are adequately answered through the system that payroll firms establishes in a certain company. All in all, a good service provider can make the company very responsive to internal inquiries pertaining to payroll.
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