4 minute read
building a team with
The Outsourcing corner Building a Team with 1099 employees
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By Lorianne Vaughan Speaks
Most small business owners start out
with a simple plan. Usually, that consists of using their expertise to help others and build a company that meets their own financial needs. What they don’t always realize is that they are not good at everything. Some may be awesome salespeople but hate paperwork. Others love the customer interaction but hate dealing with vendors. We all have our strengths – but how much time do we spend on the areas where our strengths lie?
Many small business owners try to be a Jack-ofall trades in order to save money. If negotiating is not your strength, does it make sense to spend hours a day negotiating with vendors? Or, does it make sense for a talented business owner with a certain skillset to spend time booking meetings or organizing the logistics of an event? The start-up mentality many business owners have has manufactured a fear of hiring employees and the costs involved. “Save money, be scrappy” is what many business owners are told. The idea of payroll and hiring scares them into a non-growth mode because, in an attempt to be scrappy, they end up doing administrative tasks that take up a large percentage of their time, and less time focused on what they do best. This leads to them being stagnant and not able to take on more clients because they are too busy doing busy work. In this Gig Economy it is easy to bring in 1099 employees. There are benefits to outsourcing administrative responsibilities.
Flexibility:
Outsourcing gives a business owner the ability to adjust their outsourcing to support a variety of needs. There is no need to keep someone busy if you don’t have legitimate work. By hiring on a project basis, there is a clear ROI when it comes to your project.
Focus:
By outsourcing, you can hire talent to cover a variety of needs starting by focusing on individual skillsets. So, instead of hiring one headcount that may or may not have all the skills you need, you can outsource by the area of focus starting with your highest priority need.
ROI:
You get what you pay for. You don’t need to pay a set amount per month or guarantee hours. You can put together a project plan and project fee and go from there. You can start small with 5-10 hours a week or strictly on a project basis. You need to start somewhere because you won’t ever grow your business if you don’t start somewhere.
Savings:
You don’t need to offer benefits. There is a large talent pool of freelancers that will work for an hourly fee and don’t require or even want benefits. And, you don’t need to create a space for them. Working under a remote model (especially in our new pandemic environment) you don’t have to pay for the costs associated with having an in-house employee. This results in a win/win for you - by giving you the ability of paying for work without paying benefits, associated employee costs or taxes.
Competitive Advantage:
Regardless of what business you are in, you most likely have a competitive market you are competing with and the bottom line is, you can’t afford to do nothing. Your competitors are out there grabbing market share on a daily basis. Why focus on administrative tasks that would cost an hourly rate when you can focus on capturing your share of the market? What is your time worth? Figure out what your hourly rate is and then make a list of what you do during the day. You should be able to quickly weed out the lower end tasks that you shouldn’t be spending your valuable time on.
Stephen R. Covey says in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change “do what you do best and hire others to do the rest”. This simple message is a strong reminder that no matter how small you are, you should focus on what you do best to grow your business. Lorianne Speaks is an expert in the area of Speaker/ Author support. She amplifies the visibility of Authors/ Speakers/Messengers while they do what they love - SPEAK! Lorianne has helped spearhead multiple bestselling book campaigns - editing, proofing, through to launch and social media marketing to help authors create buzz and momentum throughout the social media platforms and increasing their message World-Wide. Lorianne and her team have made it their mission to empower speakers to deliver their message by handling the rest of the details!
