Automating & Outsourcing Your Way to Scale
Do you want to scale your business? Have you hit a wall? Maybe you are ready to create and launch a new product or service. Maybe you just got VC funding and you are ready to move faster and further.
OK then. You need to figure out how to leverage your time and your team's time and talents. I have talked about how delegation is the key to unlock your growth power.
The other piece of the puzzle is automating and outsourcing (a form of delegation). A 2004 study, found that 90% of firms cite outsourcing as crucial to their growth.
"Do what you do best and outsource the rest!" Peter Drucker
Work Your Core
Start by identifying your core business? What part of your business is revenue generating? What are the drivers of that revenue? What are the activities that create that revenue?
Then ask yourself, "what are the functions or tasks that are critical to that core business?" Those you keep in-house, generally. The rest, those that are tangential or the back-office stuff, you automate and outsource.
You want to be focused, and your team to be focused, on the core business rather than competing priorities that do have to get done as well. They are important too. If they fall through the cracks that poses its own problem. For example, it creates risk! (Says the lawyer in me... I know it creeps up!).
We all know time management is the foundation for succesful leadership and that means prioritizing. We also know only so many hours in the day and you only have so much energy that you need to take some things off your list.
The Human Touch
Now layer into the analysis, when and how much of a human element you need for a task or project?
Automation is great for the repetitive, time-intensive, process-oriented tasks. Particularly, automation is great where technology can speed things up. It is great for those tasks for which a human adds no real value. In fact, automation can eliminate human error and provide greater consistency.
These tend to be internal facing operations: invoicing, payroll, inbox management, parts of your sales funnel, inventory management, accounting, etc.
Automating doesn't eliminate the human element entirely as you will want someone to understand the process behind the automation, monitor its efficiency and update as needed, and teach new members of your team (or, better yet, as part of automating onboarding include how certain systems work).
When it comes to the external facing functions, you should still automate what you can before you jump to outsourcing. It's cheaper. (Well, sometimes the implementation has upfront fixed costs but it's worth it in the long run. Your time is valuable).
When you consider automating any of these external facing tasks, ask yourself how does this impact the customer experience/journey? If it's a positive, great.
If you have a time-intensive, resource heavy tasks that requires a certain level of quality that can't be automated, or required a high touch, you may want to outsource it.
For example, to scale it makes sense for most companies to outsource customer service. Here quality matters and it is resource intensive, so outsourcing makes sense, or a hybrid approach, a mix of technology and people (we all end up hitting "0" for that representative, then again, some chat boxes are very effective!).
Call on the Experts
Finally, layer into the analysis the skills and experience needed to scale a task or function. When it comes to outsourcing, ask yourself, do you have the expertise needed in-house to do something well? If yes, is it the best use of their time and talents? Remember, you want your team focused on the core business.
You can use freelancers and independent contractors to fill your skills gaps. When you are going through a growth spurt you may not have the time to recruit, onboard, and train a new team or coach someone internally to upskill them for a new function. You also may not have the cash yet for a full-time employee.
And, back to quality, you should rely on the experts rather than spread yourself so thin or operate in areas you have no experience.
I listened to a great podcast recently, "Promote Yourself to CEO" hosted by Racheal Cook. She talked about prioritizing CEO level work. It sparked my interest as I spend much of my time coaching founders on making the transition to CEO successfully. To do that, you have to understand what the role of the CEO is and what she/he should focus on . She had this great framework she called a "CEO Scorecard". She assigned tasks $10, $100, $1,000, and $10,000 values. If you want to scale you need most of your time spent on the $10,000 tasks. Check it out. https://apple.co/3jEZ4Pq
