OUTSOURCING: GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR VIRTUAL TEAM

www.scalablemagazine.com24 When you are a one-person or micro-sized business you not only have to create the product or do the income-producing service, you also need to market the business, answer calls from customers, make sales calls, get a website set up, get active in social media, send out invoices, do the bookkeeping, and do a whole lot of other things, too. To keep up with it all you could easily work 12 to 14 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week. Hiring employees to do specific tasks may not be practical or efficient - particularly in the early years of your business. Your funds may be limited and you may be concerned about adding a permanent expense before you are sure you’ll have enough work to keep the employee busy and steady income to pay the employee. Or there may be too many varied tasks that need to be done, making it difficult

to find one person who can do them all well. If your small business is home-based, you may not want employees coming to your house.

You can solve many of these problems by outsourcing work to freelancers or other small companies. Outsourcing your work can help you save time, money and frustration as you start and build your business is to outsource as much work as possible to skilled, but cost-effective, external service providers.

THINK AHEAD

When you attend local business meetings and industry events, keep your eye out for individuals or companies who might be able to do some of your work. Get their business cards and any company literature and check out their websites. When you’ve found people you think you could work with, check their references, and then start them out with a small project to see how well they perform.

CLEARLY DEFINE THE PROJECTS

Service providers need accurate, complete information to present you with realistic proposals and to quote you a reasonable price. Be specific about the deliverables you expect the vendor to provide. Give vendors as much information as you can about what you need delivered and the way in which you need the work done. Also, be clear and realistic about your schedule requirements.

START SMALL

When engaging with a service provider for the first time, start with a project that is relatively small and simple in scope. This will give you a better idea of the provider’s style and capabilities before you entrust a “mission critical” project to them.

GET IT IN WRITING

During the course of a service engagement, the scope of the project, deliverables or even the agreed upon price may change. Make sure that you clearly communicate any schedule, scope or payment changes to your service provider and get confirmation from them - in writing - that they understand and agree to the changes. Similarly, keep a record of any agreement changes requested by the service provider and whether you accept or reject those modifications. Save copies of any email exchanges that you have.

TRUST

You can’t make an excellent product if you don’t trust who you’re working with. Micromanaging their actions, secondguessing their approach and constantly suggesting changes, of course, could impact your design and create a weak product. The ideal thing to do is choose the best-fitting partner you can find — and then trust them.

FLEXIBILITY

When your outsourcing partner tells you something is not optimal or feasible, consider their feedback. In my experience, they want to do what’s best for you, and they want to create something that is beautiful and functional. Their reputation depends on it. This is why flexibility is crucial in outsourcing.

For any type of outsourced project, make sure that you are clear about who owns the resulting work product and any important components of that product. Make sure the service provider understands how you intend to use the deliverables that they are agreeing to provide.

LANGUAGE BARRIER

Firms that outsource work often do so in other countries with native employees who may not speak English as a first language. The workers may be highly skilled in their areas, but if communication barriers are a problem, getting the work done correctly can be a complicated process.

Make sure you enunciate and speak slowly to help listeners understand clearly. Avoid using jargon, repeat difficult concepts when you can and use technology to help you translate phrases you don’t know.