Get More Leverage When Outsourcing
Leverage is the ability to expand the results you get with a given amount of effort.
Outsourcing is a perfect example of something designed to provide leverage.
By having some else do work for you, you’re getting greater results with the same amount of effort on your part.
But does outsourcing automatically provide leverage?
No, it doesn’t.
Outsourcing one-time projects, for example, provides very little leverage.
Sometimes you have to do it – for example, when you outsource the design of your website because you just don’t know how to do a website yourself.
Then you have no choice – unless you can spare the time to learn how to build a website yourself, you have to outsource.
But it’s hard to save time or get more done when you have to invest the large amount of effort it typically takes to educate and manage someone who is doing their first project for you. One-time projects are very time-intensive.
Your leverage comes from outsourcing recurring work, where after you invest time in teaching someone else what to do, they can take over the project for you – and do it again and again and again.
You get even more leverage when you outsource a “role” – in other words, when you outsource not just work but responsibility for an area in your business.
At that point you are handing off not just tasks, but mindshare. The other person is thinking through the issues and making decisions for you. That gives you much greater leverage.
But it’s hard to hand off responsibility for an area of your business. It’s not something you can do lightly.
You need to work with someone for long enough that you have confidence that they are ready to act on your behalf and make decisions the way you would want them made.
Are you ready to do that in one area of your business?
Find out with this week’s free template, Ready to Outsource a Role?
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