Because I suspected the somewhat volatile commenting community might just shoot it down in flames and hurl personal insults at me. But with the exception of just one commenter who noted…

“The author sounds like a complete idiot who hasn’t done any real research on this matter.” LOL!

…the rest of the community had an intelligent, sensible discussion about an important topic. As for “real research”, I wonder if the fact that I outsource to two different people (one in the Philippines, one in the US) counts as real???

Some of the commenters had some valid points – outsourcing isn’t for everyone and I for one had always wondered just how a control freak (like myself) could bring oneself to let go of the reins and start letting other people do some important stuff in our business.

Here is what we outsource:

• Market research tasks like identifying and gathering potential prospects for the different solutions we offer.
• Technical build of some of the blogs we design for clients.
• Personal and LIP-related tasks like initial research for flights, hotel and other accommodation.
• More complex technical tasks we’re asked to do that we could figure out ourselves but it’d be time-consuming and not the best use of our time to do so.

The point is, we outsource a combination of things we can’t do ourselves (therefore enabling us to offer a better, more comprehensive service to our clients) and things we can do ourselves but choose not to (therefore enabling us to spend time on the things we’d rather do and the things we’re better at).

And for me, that’s the key to outsourcing for control freaks…identifying the *right* things to outsource that:

• You find boring
• You can’t actually do yourself
• You can just about live with not having to do yourself

I have been keen to embrace the strategy of outsourcing for a while – specifically, hiring a VA (Virtual Assistant) – and now I’m even more keen. In fact, it’s top of my priority list and I’m waiting to hear from 2 different companies to see which might suit me best.

I’ve done my bit of research about hiring one, managing one and how to get the best out of your VA relationship, so I think I’m ‘ready’ – although at the moment, it’s only going to be a 3 month experiment to see what kind of impact they actually have on my bottom line (the business one, not my rapidly-expanding-because-of-all-the-food one).

One thing that I am super aware of is the experience many of my ‘clients’ had way back when I worked as a Mgt. Consultant. The ‘big boys’ and super corporates embraced outsourcing years ago and were lured by the massive cost cutting they could achieve by offsore outsourcing to India. Many are still doing it because, of course, it can make very good business sense.

A large number were burned however, faced a massive customer backlash and got it totally wrong.

Why?

Because they outsourced some of their core competencies & functions.

Small business outsourcing is no different…whilst the draw of getting more stuff done, leaving you more time to get more customers & more business (or go to the beach, in my case) and more time to do the things you enjoy and less of the things you don’t…beware of falling into the trap of outsourcing the very things that drive your business or upon which your business & reputation is built.