Just because you have a small business and are not ready to employ people doesn’t mean that you have to do everything yourself.
Running your own business can seem a bit like juggling. As a technician, you can do what you do well – just keeping that one ball in the air. Then perhaps you have a VAT return to complete and submit – just about keeping two balls in the air now. Then you need to get some marketing done and, struggling to keep three balls in the air, you drop one.
The question is, which one do you drop. Stopping doing what you do best means that you stop earning, which will affect the cash flow down the line. Don’t file that VAT return on time and you could be hit with surcharges and interest. Delay sending out the marketing and you will not have sufficient work coming in.
Juggling is an illusion. In reality, the balls are being independently caught and thrown in rapid succession. What you are really doing is task-switching. When you multitask, or manage multiple projects at once, you can experience a 40 percent drop in productivity.
What should you outsource? By definition, it should be all of the tasks that you are not competent to undertake. That means those tasks that you don’t have the ability to do as they should be done. However, even if you are the best bookkeeper in town, you should still outsource it because it frees up your time to earn more doing what you do best.
The easiest tasks to outsource first are bookkeeping and payroll because they can provide immediate and continuing benefits to the business. In addition to the tangible financial benefits of outsourcing bookkeeping and payroll are real and tangible.The less obvious benefits are peace of mind; more time to spend with family and friends; more time to spend on your leisure activities – more “me” time!
