Building Your Business – and Partnerships – through Outsourcing
by SmartSamantha
Are you finding your daily to-do list overwhelming? Are you spending valuable time on bookkeeping, computer maintenance, paper-shuffling and playing phone tag?
It may be time to outsource – and your timing couldn’t be better. Contract and temporary employees have come a long way since the “one skill” temp workers of the past. Today’s contract workers are often seasoned professionals with backgrounds in accounting, advertising, sales, customer service, management, IT and just about every other area you need to cover. And many are choosing a less-than-full-time career path in order to balance work with family or other interests.
According to Essie Escobedo, founder of Office Angels and a SmartSamantha partner, “These educated and experienced professionals want the freedom to accomplish work on their terms, without compromising the quality of the work itself.” Essie, an entrepreneur herself, has built her company by matching the needs of small businesses with an at-home workforce that wishes to keep its professional skills honed.
“Launching a business is no small task and keeping it operating at a profit is an even greater challenge. Thus, flexibility in workforce is a key component for any entrepreneurial company. Utilizing contract and temporary professionals solves the staffing conundrum that plagues small businesses – businesses pay only for what they need, and the contractors value both the income and flexible schedule,” continues Essie.
The benefits for the small business owner are summed up by Peggy Parks, another SmartSamantha partner and founder of Parks Image Group, Inc., “I didn’t need a full-time employee; I needed someone to be on call and to help once in a while. She makes sure that everything that leaves my office is well-written and on message, so I can concentrate on what I do best and keep my energies focused on growing my business.”
Outsourcing some of your operations not only takes a burden off your shoulders, it can make for beneficial partnerships. Contract professionals can step in and tackle a task with little supervision or ramp-up time and often become trusted business advisors as they work with you and develop relationships with your customers.
Working in partnership with small business owners provides many benefits to contract professionals as well. "I knew I had skills that were valued in the workplace along with a sincere desire to return to work, but I was looking for flexibility in my hours…I can see on a regular basis that the tasks I undertake make a difference in the lives of several small business owners," said Betsy Lewis, who has worked with several companies as an Office Angels contractor.
Making the decision to outsource can be difficult. Most entrepreneurs are used to running their own ship, and giving up responsibility to someone else, even someone who’s well-qualified, requires a great deal of trust. But when you consider the time and effort you spend on tasks that could be delegated to someone who can most likely do them more efficiently and inexpensively than you can, the value of outsourcing becomes clear. And with today’s highly-trained pool of contract professionals, a staffing agency—your “matchmaker”—can help identify just the right individual and ease your transition from “do it all yourself” to “make sure it all gets done.”
So if the to-list is daunting, carefully consider which tasks could be shifted to someone else’s list, and focus your energies on growing your business.
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