Making Your Business Thrive in a Tight Economy
If it wasn’t tough to outsource before COVID, it’s a great deal harder now for many small businesses struggling to stay afloat. But it isn’t impossible. You just have to get creative. If nothing else, there are plenty of YouTube how-to videos to help you learn on your own, but it’s wise to pick things that don’t require you to start at square one, or you’ll burn time that’s probably better spent on areas of your business that come more easily.
The first thing to do is decide which tasks that aren’t absolutely essential to your day-to-day operations, yet are still critical in the general scheme of things you are at least somewhat familiar with. Once you’ve knocked a few things off your list, remove the ones you absolutely hate to the point of preferring a root canal over sitting down to do them. Trust me when I say, unless you are someone who regularly pushes through the pain to reach a goal, you’ll never stick with self-study long enough to make those tasks less onerous, especially as you can’t drop everything while doing it.
What you’re left with are things you might spend time learning if only to make them easier and faster to get through on your own. Of those, there’s likely one or two you’d truly enjoy learning. That’s the best place to start. There’s a lot to be said for tackling a new skill that actually interests you so learning is fun instead of torture.
Outsource or Offload?
As for the rest, there are as many options as you have creativity. Examples might be:
- A low-cost DIY option
- A family member or friend who loves doing something you hate, but lacks the expertise, and will welcome the opportunity to have a guinea pig to practice on while they’re learning
- Low-cost sources like Fiverrr (though I have to say, it wouldn’t be my choice as I haven’t had great experiences. You really do need to vet whoever you hire carefully and set clear expectations).
- Swapping services. (Again, you have to be careful. One party or the other could end up giving more than they’re getting so make sure there’s a clear statement of value for both sides of the equation, and an option to compensate one side if they give more value than the other).
Worst case scenario, you rank the critical activities, and come up with a budget and game plan for how you’ll bring your business up to speed in each area.
Putting it Off Isn’t an Option
The one thing I don’t recommend is allowing critical things like tech support, accounting, web design, or content creation to slip through the cracks as one way or another, you’ll pay a high price in the long run, and not just financially. It’s far easier to put these things in place before you need them than to have to play catch-up when something goes wrong, or you’re lacking a critical piece of information.
Think about how stressed you get when things aren’t working as you think they should. It doesn’t matter whether it’s technology, client attraction, order processing, financial reporting so you can make informed business decisions, or anything else that keeps your business moving and thriving. When it’s not available at the moment in time you need it, everything has to stop until you get what you need to continue.
Both my father and grandfather had small electrical contracting businesses. Neither ever had office staff other than their wives who did the billing, bookkeeping, and other administrative tasks. When my grandmother passed away, my grandfather closed his business within a short time. He simply couldn’t keep things going without someone to manage the tasks my grandmother took off his hands. In my dad’s case, I think a lot of his fights with my mom were over getting office work done, mostly because she hated doing it, and though she was a great secretary, she wasn’t great with money. I offered to take it over on more than one occasion, and though he expressed an interest, he claimed it would make my mother angry. In reality, I don’t think he wanted his daughter knowing too much about how well or poorly his business was doing.
Deciding When to Employ Family vs Looking Outside
I share these examples as I’ve seen too many cases where a family member wasn’t the best 
choice, either because they lacked the desire or the expertise, and sometimes both. I’ve known others who used one of their children for a task, but failed to set expectations. When social life interfered, or the teenager simply got bored, the task languished, and the business suffered for it. In many cases, it strained the parent-child relationship as well.
That isn’t to say family members can’t be a good source of support if they recognize their importance in the process, and take responsibility for doing the best job they can, including asking for help when they get stuck. Frankly, I’ve seen teenagers who run circles around me when it comes to anything technical, and who enjoy doing it. I put one of my daughters to work doing data entry, and some of the simpler accounting tasks at a young age. She was good at organizing things, and her attention to detail was better than mine until she got involved with a boy who undermined many of her better qualities. Thankfully, his influence was temporary, but it did a lot of damage in the short-term.
Overall, I still believe bringing your kids into the business where feasible is valuable on a lot of levels:
- Their unique point of view may see opportunities or problems you missed
- Their skill set compliments yours
- They not only learn to make a valuable contribution, but benefit from it as well
- Learning the business gives them a chance to gain many valuable skills, but more, it gives them a chance to decide whether they want to continue your legacy
Though there’s no one way that works for everyone, the fact remains, you can’t do an extraordinary job at anything if you’re trying to do everything. One way or another, you need to figure out how to move some of the many cogs in the wheel of your business to someone else so you’ll get to enjoy not only what you’ve built, but the parts you built it for.
About the Author
Sheri Conaway is a Holistic Ghostwriter, and an advocate for cats and mental health. Sheri 
believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income.
If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her Hire Me page for more information. You can also find her on Facebook Sheri Levenstein-Conaway Author. And check out her new group, Putting Your Whole Heart Forward.
Be sure to watch this space for news of the upcoming releases of ” Rebuilding After Suicide” and “Sasha’s Journey”.
