5 ways to offload work and free up your time
Doing everything yourself only gets you so far. Here are 5 ways to offload work and free up time to grow your business.
As a small business owner, you know the pressures and demands of running a business. You also know that if you want more growth and revenue, you can’t keep doing everything yourself. That only gets you so far…
You have to learn how to transition from working in your business, to working on it. That means delegating tasks and responsibilities onto others, spreading the load, so that your business can grow without you doing all the work.
Easier said than done, right? I agree, but it is getting easier to do. Today, we have more ways of offloading work than ever before, thanks to cloud computing, a global talent pool and the rise of remote and hybrid work. So if you’ve been waiting to make a full-time hire, you can stop waiting.
There are (at least) 5 ways you can offload work in your business, starting with a small cost and commitment. Let’s look at the pros and cons of each and you can decide which path to choose:
Outsourcing
Outsourcing is hiring another company to perform certain tasks on your behalf. The two main benefits of outsourcing are lower costs and increased flexibility. But there are some drawbacks. Quality control can be more challenging. If you’re outsourcing internationally, differences in the time zone and local context can make communication harder.
If you’re manufacturing a product, it makes sense to outsource from the beginning. When you’re in the startup phase, you may not have the equipment or experience or capital needed for full-scale production. I’ve seen coffee roasters do this well, starting with another roaster's equipment before acquiring their own. Likewise with breweries. Outsourcing can reduce the capital risks of starting your business. Even big companies outsource. Apple employs an extensive list of outsourcing partners to supply and manufacture components used in the iPhone.
For a professional business, outsourcing makes sense for filling your knowledge-worker gaps without having to commit to a full-time payroll. Take for example, a Virtual Assistant (VA) who can work part time and remotely. Accounting is another good example. A small business likely doesn’t need a CPA in-house. Tax preparation and advice can be outsourced to a local accounting firm. Because outsourcing is B2B (business to business), you can focus on managing the scope of work, deliverables and relationships, instead of worrying about the day-to-day details of staffing and operations.
Partnerships
Business partnerships come in many forms. You can partner with another business to access new markets and audiences, collaborate on work, or simplify refer work between businesses, based on a mutual agreement.
Partnerships are all about strategic synergy. You want to partner with people who have complementary values, strengths and resources. Partnerships can be informal, but they work best when formalised and there’s mutual respect and commitment.
So how can partnerships help you reduce your workload? One way is to streamline and share your products and services.
For example, you’re a marketing business that specialises in website design. Clients love working with you, and they’re now asking you to help with their SEO, rebrand and social media efforts. The problem is, you don’t have the time or expertise to offer all those services. You could say yes (“why leave money on the table?”) but that would distract you from your main thing: making great websites for a profit. If you say no, that means a competitor might enter the mix. But there’s a third option – connecting your client to a strategic partner. Now imagine this partner collaborated with you and your client, spoke well of you, referred work back, and even identified opportunities to take your client’s website to the next level. That’s the power of partnerships in action.
Partnering with other businesses brings complimentary skills, but also different perspectives and solutions that benefit everyone. John C Maxwell says, “collaboration is multiplication”. If you’ve been trying to do everything yourself, offering too many products and services, my encouragement is to start looking for businesses to strategically partner with. You’ll find there are more opportunities to multiply growth and win together.
Contractors
Hiring contractors is a good way to access a broader range of skills or expertise in an area, without having to commit to the long-term costs and responsibilities of a permanent employee.
Large businesses subcontract to quickly scale up their workforce temporarily and complete projects. In a small business context, subcontracting refers to engaging independent consultants on a one-off or ongoing basis. Freelancers, a term used in the creative industries, are also contractors. You’ll hear the terms contractor, freelancer, and consultant used interchangeably.
Governments set their own rules and rights to hiring contractors versus employees, so it’s important to understand the difference and misrepresent either relationship which could land you in trouble with the law. The Australian FairWork Ombudsman has clear guidelines you can read about online.
Business coaching, bookkeepers, office cleaners, graphic designers, HR consultants – you can find contractors for almost anything you need. The key to engaging any contractor is to set clear objectives and have a written contract in place before any work commences.
Employees
If you want to build a thriving business, you can’t just rely on contractors. You need employees working together as a team. Contractors run their own businesses and therefore have other priorities. A core team of employees with supporting contractors is usually the best mix.
Having long-term employees enables you to achieve more together as a team who trust each other and have buy-in to the company mission. You can also share more of the responsibilities of running and growing your business, which frees you from being the bottleneck of your business. Employees, if they are trusted and empowered with the right frameworks, can make more independent decisions to keep things moving forward in the business. More on that later.
There are three main classifications for employing someone: full-time, part-time, or a casual position. Each type has its own commitments and responsibilities. It’s wise to engage a HR professional to ensure you understand the basics of human resources, hire the right people and meet your legal obligations and responsibilities as an employer.
Hiring your first employee can be daunting at first, but it’s nothing to shy away from. Think about what’s holding you back. Is it meeting payroll requirements? Hiring an accountant can resolve that problem.
Whatever it is that’s keeping you on the fence, don’t stay there. Get expert help to take the next best step. Sure, mistakes can and will be made along the way, yet it’s worth it. There’s nothing like having a great team to win together.
I often see small business owners who’ve had a bad experience with hiring their first employee give up all too soon with hiring. I always encourage them to keep trying and learn from any mistakes. It always works out better when they do!
Software
Cloud computing has changed everything. Software as a Service, known as SaaS businesses, are services provided over the internet for a fee. Think Dropbox, Docusign, Hubspot, Slack – just to name a few.
There’s software to solve almost any problem you have in business. You can even create your own software now using no-code tools. And with advancements and access to Artificial Intelligence, there’s no telling how much computers could be doing for us in the future.
Software alone can’t do everything, but almost everything can be improved with it. For example, a job management software like ServiceM8 can help a team of technicians organise their schedules and fulfil their jobs in an efficient way. Likewise, a CRM can help manage and improve interactions with customers at scale.
Then there’s the automation component of software. I’ve always been a bit of a geek when it comes to automating things. Why do something twice when you can create a IF/THEN rule and get a computer to do it, right? Did you hear the story of the husband who automated an SMS to his wife everyday at 5pm to say “I love you, be home soon xo”? The problem was, one day he was sick and his wife received the SMS sitting next to him in bed! I digress… Through my own business, I’ve helped lots of small businesses automate repetitive tasks using software such as Zapier, to save them money and free them up to do important work.
—
These are just 5 of the most common ways that you can offload work in your business. My encouragement is to decide a path and take action. Perfection is the enemy of progress. Make a decision, move forward and adjust as you grow.
Coming up next in this series: The 4 rules of delegation.
