Outsourcing management and delegation

Managing an outsourced team requires some planning, clear processes, and tactical delegation.

When I talk to clients, the first thing I realise is that they have far too much on their plate and are not sure how to break down all the items they are working on. The client is continually spinning plates and often the roadblock when it comes to the company growth plans. They feel that there is nobody that can do the job but them, the talent is not there, they have no time to train newbies, and more often than not, they are micromanagers.

Are you holding your company back?

Managers should be Managers and not stuck in the day to day business as usual tasks wasting time working on items that can quickly be done by a competent employee.

We all know that when you are building a business, owners are often at the heart of all steps and multitask to get the job done, while this is great in the early days when you are building your foundation, it is not sustainable in the long run.

Having been through this myself, I know when I look back I wish I had hired additional support staff long ago, but I was reluctant to let go, I did not feel that anyone understood the process as well as me.

It just felt quicker to do it myself and in most cases, I suspect I was a bit of a martyr. I was always complaining about how much work needed to be done and not getting anywhere.

When you focus on the day to day troubleshooting, ops, admin and general issues of your company, you cannot focus on sales, client engagement and long term strategies. Your company is reactive, not proactive. How can you close more deals?

Grow the company, make money, when you are worried about the small things? The enjoyment of what you are building starts to become less of a priority and you end up taking more on your plate. Before long, you an end up with a full list of tasks that never seem to reduce and in fact, keep growing.

Break down the roles and processes

One approach I think helps when it comes to managing your day is to break work items down. Make a list of everything that is taking up your time in the company then make sub-lists named as a department; such as Admin, Finance, Management, Sales, Marketing.

Jot down everything you can think of that takes up your day in the office and then move each item into the relevant department. Is this an admin task? Ops, Managerial? Finance?

Without realising, you will find that you are creating specific positions that are vital to freeing up your time. Now you can look at the company as a whole and see what is needed. I guarantee that if you are doing all the items by yourself, you are not doing them as well as they could be if you had a specialist working full time on the area.

Process identification and delegation

Think about what needs to be done by you? What can be handed over? This is where your processes come into play; a robust method of steps will allow you to hand over the tasks that are taking up your time and onboard your new employee with ease. How do you start your day? Where do you go to find information? How long does it take? What steps are needed to get the result that you desire? Do you have to do it? If so, why?

If you do not have your processes in place, it is far harder to hand things over, check out our blogs on our website for some tips on how to build your processes and map out the plans https://deployedstaff.com/.

Processes limit the risk of one person holding all the keys when it comes to running your company. What if they are off sick? Find another job? have an accident? Who is going to make sure the business keeps running? Get the processes in place, map all steps out no matter how small, make a company manual that covers all the departments and use it for training. It may sound like a big job right now, but you will be grateful to have this in place as you grow.

The processes will constantly evolve, improve and need tweaking, but the foundation will keep your company safe and make an excellent training tool for new employees. Anything from email templates, contacts and steps to managing the company system.

The benefit of delegation

When you break things down, it is far easier to see what is needed long term, building the processes will help you understand every area of your business and make it simple to onboard new employees, being a good manager is trusting those you take on to do their job well and give them the tools that they need to succeed. Using these simple steps will take the pain out of growing your business and let you see the talent that is necessary in-house.

Now is the fun bit of owning a business,  you have just freed up an amount of time that can now be used to grow your business, get back in front of new and old clients, tell them how you are growing and improving your business, get back to what you are best at and enjoy it. Easy!!!!!

Let’s discuss your outsourcing

If you want to book a meeting and discuss how this can work further, just email me at: [email protected]