If you’re anything like me, you spend a good portion of each day arguing with yourself. Not out loud—at least not unless the argument is particularly heated!—just inside your own head.
“Should I post that photo to Insta now or later?”
“Don’t just wing it. Look up your optimum posting times, you goose!”
“Oh, right. Looks like I should schedule it for evening.”
And on and on. Some of the arguments are over minor issues like which shoes to wear (comfort or style?), but others are more weighty (invest in a new laptop or hold out with the old clunker?) But here’s one argument I’ll never wage with myself again: I will NOT attempt to talk myself out of outsourcing portions of my work to capable freelancers.
I learned long ago that I shouldn’t even attempt to do everything myself, and I value my time too much to hem and haw about delegation.
However, I know that a handful of you are still in the hemming and hawing phase yourselves, so I want to give you three solid reasons why you absolutely can justify the costs of outsourcing to contractors.
Outsourcing Justification #1: You Can Earn More
Consider your current project backlog. How much more could you earn if you could make a serious dent in that list? Or even better, how much more could you earn if some of those projects could be delegated to skilled team members so YOU could focus on your highest-earning work?
Yes, you’ll have to pay out money up front to hire great contractors, but doing so will enable you to bring in more revenue. You won’t have to spend as much time “in the weeds” fretting over details and can dedicate yourself to big-picture, big-earning tasks.
Outsourcing Justification #2: You Can Use Your Time Better
Running your own business is time-consuming, especially if you’re attempting to manage every process entirely on your own. Going it alone often means letting long-term goals or strategic tasks slide in favor of handling the day-to-day work. It also means that you’re spending your valuable and limited time doing low-earning or maintenance tasks.
If you can earn $197/hour coaching clients, why spend that hour doing tasks you can outsource to a freelancer for $30/hour?
Entrusting those $30/hour tasks to a fleet of reliable team members means you’ll have more hours in each day to tackle the work that is most valuable to your business. Even if you have to spend some time training your freelancers at first, you’ll still gain back precious time once they’re all up to speed.
Outsourcing Justification #3: It’s an Investment in Your Business
Wait! I’m not just blowing smoke, here! I know that the whole “invest in your business” line is something that entrepreneurs hear an awful lot, but consider the return-on-investment: Say you pay $300 to a freelance writer to craft a report for you.
When you turn that report into a product you sell for $3,000, that’s a 10X return!
Even if you only sell if for $600, that’s still double! And since you’re likely to sell more than one of these products, you’ll continue to earn revenue off of that one-time investment of $300.
When you outsource work that has a high ROI, it’s easy to justify the costs of paying your team members. (This earlier post gives detailed instructions for calculating outsourcing ROI as it relates to time management and task sets. Related, but slightly different!)
I totally get it: Outsourcing can feel like paying someone else to do work that YOU could tackle by yourself. I hope these three justifications have shown you that delegating actually enables you to do more, earn more, and grow more!
