How to Outsource to Free Up Your Time and Increase Your Income

How many tasks do you take on in your business? Do you pride yourself on doing the bookkeeping, reacting to email, preparing your own proposals and presentations, attending networking events, making appointments, keeping on top of the paperwork, providing your service, packaging and delivering your products, running around doing all your errands, looking after children, taking the dog for a walk...and then fitting in time to take care of yourself? How about marketing and developing your business? Where does that fit in?

If you're doing everything yourself, you'll never have the time or make the money you want while you take control of it all. You may think you can do it better, faster and more effectively than anyone else, however you'll eventually drive yourself into the ground.

It's very sad to see many entrepreneurs and small business owners run themselves ragged and constantly struggle trying to make their business a success. And yet, one of the easiest ways for them to remove the pressures is by outsourcing.

Before coming to me for coaching, a client of mine was so sick and tired of the long hours she had been working she just wanted to give up. Sarah was a one-woman business. She'd struggled needlessly because she could not see how she could change her situation without hiring an employee, which she was loathe to do (and said she couldn't afford to).

We found she was spending 20 hours a week on general paperwork that could easily be done by an administrative assistant in a quarter of the time. Sarah was snowed under in administrative tasks. Instead of doing what she enjoyed which was designing clothes, she had become an office worker. Not only that she went into business so she could have time with her children yet because of the pressures of doing everything herself, every spare minute was spent in the business.

Even when Sarah was 'with' her children, she wasn't 'present'. Sarah was trying to 'have it all' but in actual fact she was getting more miserable by the day.

That all changed when she asked for help.

In Sarah's case that help came in the form of a virtual assistant who handled the majority of the paperwork for a few hours a week, a bookkeeper who came in once a fortnight for the afte
oon, a friend who minded her children 2 mornings a week.

She also had some additional childcare from her family so she could spend time looking after herself.

A cleaner and gardener were hired to come in and help as well. Sure it cost Sarah money, but because of the time she freed up she was able to use her talents and triple her profits while working a whole lot less. Plus she had a much happier home life.

The Final Word

So what can you do to change your situation? The new year is fast approaching and if you want to achieve different results in your business, you need to do something else.