The notion of outsourcing appeared in the early 2000’s and was immediately welcomed as the ultimate way to do business. Even though nowadays it’s popular, having a fear of outsourcing is pretty understandable.
The good news is that there are many ways to get past this fear.
It is clear that a considerable part of successful people, both online and offline, tend to use outsourcing as an essential part of their business strategy. The other part hires in-house staff because it’s safe.
Outsourcing can be accomplished without fear and effectively if you find the right people for the job. In order to overcome the fear of outsourcing, you have to learn that it is far more about the quality of the work than it is about the location or how the name appears on a paycheck.
Top 3 biggest fears:
It will be more expensive.
Companies tend to have this impression that going for outsourcing will turn more expensive after all and eventually everything could go completely wrong.
Thinking that outsourcing is expensive is the biggest MYTH of all!
On the contrary, you can save enough money, especially if your company has a lack of resources, outsourcing is the way to go! Will be less expensive rather than hiring and maintaining a whole department.
Simple example: You are looking to build a website, but you don’t have any knowledge of coding, SEO, design or copywriting. You will lose so much time learning to do all these and put them into practice (let’s say 2 weeks, the equivalent of 80 hours). If you value your time at $50/hour, you have missed an income opportunity of $4000. An outsourcing team can deliver this task in less time and at a lower cost. So, is it true that outsourcing has saved your time and money? OF COURSE!
The fear of losing control
We are aware that you love your business and no one else can do a job as good as you. It’s a well-known fact that, usually, managers and people who take leading positions in companies tend to be authoritative and want to have everything under control. Also, they need to trust the people they work with.
But if you want to grow your business you’re eventually going to need help!
The best way to build your trust with the outsourcing company you are going to collaborate, is to start with a fixed trial period. If they prove they are good and on the same wavelength, you can move on and set up a long-term commitment.
To ensure your success, choose only outsourcing companies with good reputation and close to your company mindset. If you find the right outsourcing partner, they will get to know you and your business better. Plus, if they share the same values as you, at some point you will both become intuitive to what the other needs.
Our recommendation: if you are a control freak, just set up some regular check-ins and use some workflow tools such as Jira, Slack or GitLab in order to effectively measure progress on your project.
Your business is small or new
Many startups have this idea that they are too undeveloped for using outsourcing. Initially, they tend to do everything by themselves, even to use one employee for several positions at the same time.
However, if your company is quite small and you don’t own that many resources, but you want to grow, you have to find less expensive options. One of them? Working with an outsourcing company!
Understand the benefits of outsourcing and learn how to get past the fear of it!
Keep in mind that:
- The main goal of outsourcing is to help your company. Summarily, to make you and your team more effective, to help you save time and lower your costs.
- Almost anything can be outsourced – from product or service development, sales, business consultancy, IT support, managing social media account, and much more can be done by a team with a particular set of skills.
Be ready and give an ideal profile of the person/team you plan to outsource the task to. This is the best way to find qualified candidates, and to make sure your decision is right in the end.
Interviews can be stressful! Create in advance a list of questions and, if necessary, ask them about strengths and weaknesses, even test their knowledge on the spot.
To conclude
Outsourcing can bring lots of benefits to your business and overcoming your fear of it represents the first step towards making your business as efficient and cost effective as it can be.
Outsourcing can, in the end, create new opportunities, build relationships and take away many time-consuming tasks so you can get on with loving your business.