A few weeks ago, I shared a post about finding an assistant to outsource to (after sharing about my brilliant assistant, Sarah…who is truly in my opinion one of God’s greatest gifts to my business, and I wish I could share her with all of you so she could enhance your business how she has mine!).  But I haven’t yet shared about why outsourcing has been one of the best decisions I have ever made for my business AND for my life– and I wanted to take a little time to share that today!  I believe that this is one of the touchiest– and hardest– subjects surrounding small creative businesses. On one hand, do we really want to hand over any of our work to someone else? Can we trust anyone else with important parts of our businesses? On the other hand…we are the OWNERS, the managers, of businesses! There are very few businesses on the planet that are truly a one man show- most have SOME employee of some sort doing something!

The control is very hard to let go of, for sure. But the freedom that comes from giving yourself time back that you were spending doing jobs that someone else can do? Freedom that allows you to do things that no one else can do for your business? It is totally TOTALLY worth it.  I wish I would have began outsourcing much earlier, and I started pretty early in comparison to industry standard I think!  A lot of people start with an area like accounting. A lot of creative minded people aren’t the strongest with numbers (I’m so talking about me here), and the tax and financial world can be a bit scary. I am lucky to be married to someone who has skills in this area and has been able to take care of that for us- but that is a first and easy area of outsource. It is also where many small business owners stop! At this point in my business, I am outsourcing editing to an editing company. I still look at every image I take and touch most of them in SOME way or another, but it takes a HUGE part of the job off my shoulders. I haven’t shared much about that specific part of my outsourcing before for quite a few reasons, but more may be coming on it!  I still edit everything for the blog, and edited my own images for 3 years before that outsourcing began.  And then as we know, I have Sarah as a mostly virtual assistant doing many behind the scenes jobs for me in relation to social media, gallery and document prep, and website maintenance.  Having her come on board was as freeing as giving up the bulk of my editing. We also do a little outsourcing in our personal life with a housecleaner who is another God send, some child care (which counts when you are a work at home mom!), and occasionally some other random tasks. But there are so many options for outsourcing based on your comfort level, and I just want to encourage you to give up some of what is keeping you so BUSY and STRESSED so you can live a happier life!  Here are some things to consider about outsourcing:

1). There are so many options. Maybe you really hate the grocery store (that’s not just me, right?!).  You can find a service to pick out and bring groceries to your car (like our local HyVee) or even deliver to your home. Maybe you don’t like meal prep (me again). There are many meal prep outsourcing options that can provide many of your meals.  And house cleaning…we still clean! But we don’t have the pressure of making sure the place is hospitable, and it is amazing.  What about lawn care? That is a great option of something to outsource. And those are just on the personal front.  I think you should consider outsourcing the things that are either the most time consuming, the things you dislike the most, or the things that someone else could most easily do.  That is how we came to our decisions, and it has worked out so well!

2). Yes, outsourcing costs money. You may be in a spot in your life where that just isn’t a possibility, and I totally understand that- we have been there.  For us now, we are in a spot where our time is worth more– more for what is happening in my business because I am not prepping galleries every time I shoot a session and spending all my work time editing, more for us personally because we can play with our kids in our precious hours with them instead of clorox toilets.  It is worth it to us– but you have to figure out what your comfort level is, and what it’s worth for you.

3). Outsourcing isn’t just about taking work off of you…it is about giving it to someone else.  I am able to provide supplemental income to a recently graduated newly married family that I adore through my assistant.   I dream of what this could mean for her in the future when they have a family and she might want more flexibility with her work.  And my house cleaner was hired by 2 other people close to me after I raved about her- and those 3 families are giving her a big chunk of her work and income as well.  You are employing someone else and blessing them as a part of it- and that is just a good feeling all around!

Friends, these are definitely the hard decisions of business. But if you can find outsourcing options that give you more space and time to dream big, I think you will find that it is well worth the work!

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