What to Consider About In-house Management Versus Outsourcing

We most often fail not because we lack ability, but because we can’t use all our abilities at once.

Christyl Rivers, Phd.
Nov 2 · 5 min read
De-clutter your business as you would your home, Christyl Rivers

Many new business endeavors do not bite the dust because they have nothing to offer.

More often, they just tried to take on too much. They lose sight of what they do best, and they try too hard to do too much.

The ability to have a vision, work hard, innovate, and take risks is what allows entrepreneurs to enter into business in the first place, but we often overestimate just how much we can handle. At the same time, we underestimate just how much work is going to present itself.

Most often, you know what your intent is, and it is bolstered with enthusiasm. Still, whatever gift you wish to give the world will become watered down if your focus is spread too far and wide. Your enthusiasm may be toward doing that incredible great thing you love and wish to share with the world, but this means the day to day monotonous parts often get neglected. We usually get it all done, but we seldom get it all done as planned, as effectively, and with no nagging doubts. And, always, there are other people to consider.

All too often, entrepreneurs take on too much and do not invite outside help. This happens for a number of reasons. We are bursting with enthusiasm and confidence that we can do it all, especially at the beginning. We may not feel we have the funds to outsource. We typically underestimate the energy and stress doing it all entails. We do not budget for time, focus, costs, and logistics. We feel our partners, or team will step up to fill in the gaps, when they too, already feel too overbooked. We forget an outside world will make its intrusions and requirements on a daily basis. We trust what we know, and how we do things ourselves — we don’t always feel confident that others do.

Let’s take the example of the most common type of ‘business’ there is. We all manage households. No longer just a realm for harried housewives, managing a home is an endeavor that takes hard work, vision, drive, talent, and out-sourcing. This usually involves both partners and even extended family members.

You have a unique, and cherished household. You may follow the vision of suburban contemporary chic or old-fashioned New England Saltbox. Your yard may be a sprawling lawn or an enchanting woodland trail system. Or maybe, more often, just a compact and efficient condo. Clutter is an on-going enemy. Laundry happens. Who, and what is cooked? Cereal probably happens more than you would like to say for a quick meal. Who cleans the windows? Or gutters? The list of tasks is relentless and grueling. Most people need some amount of help with this.

Help comes in many forms for a household. There are robot vacuums, smart appliances, someone assigned for trash sorting and collection. If you are fortunate, there is a part-time housekeeping service, and/or landscape worker. There are professionals to clean carpets, do car maintenance, provide dry cleaning occasionally. There are many, many jobs outsourced in our modern world. Gone are the arduous days of soap making, quilting circles, and carpet thumping day, (unless that IS your passion, of course).

Even Taco Tuesday and Pizza Friday can be looked upon as a form of outsourcing. Yet, we do not think less of our household management team for taking such shortcuts. It is the same at work.

Use the household metaphor and extend it to your business. Do you really need in-house accounting when someone extremely skilled may be better able to keep your records? Do you need to provide all your marketing materials when all you really want to do is present your passionate vision to investors? Have you groomed a deep bench of potential colleagues when one indispensable member of your team has to take a leave? Let’s say she decided to renovate a home office into a nursery for life changes and chose to do it “in house”, to keep the metaphor going, here.

There is plenty of studies these days to show that our shorter attention spans, our dependence upon technology, and our ever-increasing acceleration of multi-tasking reduces our effectiveness.

Multi-tasking requires inattention to many things and intentional focus on none. Doing one task very well is a greater investment than doing eight tasks to meet bare minimum requirements. Multi-tasking not only decreases our ability, but it is also stressful. Your stress hormones and brain functions cannot help but be impacted by micro-bursts of concern, distraction, risk analysis, and interruption.

This doesn’t mean you can avoid interruption completely, but you can greatly curtail the number of distractions.

The first clue you are taking on too much is that you are not feeling the passion and vital drive that you once felt about your business. You are constantly disrupted by yet another task. Your intended projects are falling by the wayside. You find yourself making excuses more than you want to be. Your colleagues are too busy to step up. You find yourself jumping from one distraction to another without feeling you can devote your best energy to any of them. You may find that clients, partners, investors, or providers are lining up with demands you can’t always get to on time You hear grumbles on all sides. You feel burned out.

Meet and discuss the situation with everyone who may have input. Take the time to really assess whether this is just a glitch that can be tackled with better focus, or whether you need outside help. Listen to others, and if possible, consult with any mentors or associates who have already tried different levels of out-sourcing, and have learned from their experiences.

Out-sourcing may not be an option for a fledgling startup right away, but when it is affordable it has to be thought of as yet another overhead investment. Most importantly, know that you can take it one step at a time. You can sample some help and see what works best. You can try temporary assistance, and/or part-time help. You can confer with others and pick and choose what works, how well, and for how long.

Flexibility is key, and no decision you make has to be engraved in stone forever. As with so many things, experiment until you find the formula that works best to keep your vision alive.

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Christyl Rivers, Phd.

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Writer, Defender of the three dimensional, and Cat Castle Custodian.

The Startup

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