Earn money early by developing a means of getting more work done than you can alone. People do not open businesses to work eighteen (18) hours a day; give up the benefits they had when working; or to earn less money than they earned at a job. However, if you don’t plan how you’ll make money, it’s easy to get caught up in a situation where you may be working alone and nearly kill yourself trying to make something happen.
Even if you’re an accountant, you shouldn’t expect to return to your home or office to do your own bookkeeping, financial statement analysis, market research, and other administrative tasks that all businesses must perform. A great first step is to understand that you can’t make a lot of money on your own. Once you understand that philosophy, you need to plan what you’re willing to do and what things make the most sense to hire a professional to do for you.
These facts should become critical parts of your business plan. Because as soon as possible, ideally before you open for business, you should have an idea of what your workday will look like. Make no mistake, no matter how well you plan, you’re in for surprises. In many cases, addressing those surprises can add extra tasks to your day that you hadn’t planned for. And this could cause you to have to work more than you had planned just to make a living.
Regardless of the type of profession you choose to build a business, it will take more than just practicing your profession to make the business work.
It goes without saying that you will need to practice the profession around which you started your business. But in addition, all businesses have administrative tasks that need to be performed, such as accounting, strategy development, website maintenance, tax planning, and compliance. None of these things earn you a dime, but they must be done for your business to run efficiently, or at all. And that is just the beginning. You need to market for new customers and you need to take steps to stay in constant contact with existing customers. Neither of these actions pays you anything and in situations where small amounts of money can be earned in promotions, they never pay what you could have earned in hourly rates for doing the work you set up the business for. When you open any type of service business, using subcontractors can be a good way to start.
Along with all the other tips we’ve tried to offer, using subcontractors may just be the sign you’ve been looking for. However, its use will change any ideas you may have had about going all out to try to earn your small fortune on your own. It may require you to spend more time selling your service and less time buried under a pile of work you’ve been able to get. If you have professional credentials, you may have convinced yourself that you don’t need help. But, without it, you create a ceiling on your earning capacity. Many people believe that they can overcome this problem by spending large sums of money to get started. I absolutely disagree with that approach.
You should be able to start your business for a few hundred dollars or no more than a few thousand. When you work alone, you may find yourself pouring money into your business just to keep it open. This is a situation where you have to put your ego aside. Your goal should be more than just making your business self-sufficient. Your goal should be to win enough to make handsome profits, with a strategy to increase profits frequently.
Outsourcing can offer you that possibility. Few people would question the reality that getting your first customers is hard. If you’re marketing correctly, you’ll find that some of the business you couldn’t accept was because they were out of your area. Some jobs may require more labor than you could provide on your own. In other cases, you may have to turn down a job simply because you can no longer handle any more work alone. And this is where outsourcing can make a difference for you.
Outsourcing will help your business do what you set it up to do
Many business owners believe that the only way to grow or expand is to hire employees or open another location. Any of these options would require additional expenses. The last thing you need is to incur additional expenses for a new business. Or, to dramatically increase expenses for an existing business, especially if it means having to pay less. An even worse option would be to try to participate in any of these options before your company is profitable. In situations where you work alone, the business model requires the business owner to do everything. Since you can’t be in two places simultaneously, your management or fee-generating work must suffer. This can lead to working long hours to get everything done. Either creating a profit ceiling, or worse yet, borrowing to get your business up and running and keep it going.
Outsourcing will help your business do what you set it up for. To produce substantial profits and give you more free time than you would have in a 40-hour-a-week job. And remember, if you’re working in the professions, you’ll rarely work just 40 hours. And if you work as a salaried employee, you will likely have to work part-time to make ends meet. So you never have much free time. To make the best use of outsourcing, you need to determine how powerful it is to make your business a success. Your strength could be the ability to focus on pending tasks, making sure they get done. Some people are great at reviewing work and defining ways to improve it. Others may be able to sell successfully. Any of these skills and more can make you a great candidate to use outsourcing.
What your business plan should include to prepare for outsourcing
Having decided on your force(s), you must determine how you will use them. First you have to design or have designed subcontracting agreements. Many of these deals can be found online for free or at a very low cost. If you have a lot of money to work with, it is sometimes best to use a lawyer to design your agreements. Accomplishing these tasks should come down to writing in your business plan. Next, you need to identify several potential subcontractors that you would like to approach. No matter what your field is, you’ll find that most people just want to get the job done. Marketing for most of them is a necessary and expensive evil. So if you approach them with the possibility of bringing in additional work, most will be receptive.
Your agreements and the results of your meetings with them should clearly state that you plan to document their services. Which means it will represent that this is your company’s job. Since they will receive business above what they had to market and would not have to package the final product, they should be willing to offer you a discount on the job. This discount is what you would earn on any work done for you by subcontractors. Now they would pay him just for bringing them a new job.
At the same time, he would pick some of the higher-paying jobs he spawned and keep them. This would keep him informed if he plans to review the work of his subcontractors. If his strength is in his to-dos, he shouldn’t mind packaging the work of his subcontractors, in his packaging, and being able to discuss it with clients who believe this work was done by his company. If his strong point is sales, I don’t think I need to tell you how well he could do it. The use of subcontractors gives your company an in-depth look. Although you may initially be working at your kitchen table, this can put you on a faster path to working at the boardroom table of your successful company.