In a recent roundtable discussion I had with some entrepreneurs about their successes (and sometimes their failures), the conversation headed down an interesting path. As I do with a lot of entrepreneurs, we started to talk about what the hardest part of being a business owner was. As usual, everyone had a different idea about what was difficult.
The ones I hear often, which I heard again around the table were…
- Sales
- Cold calling
- Administrative work
- Dealing with customers who complain
- Pricing my products
- Time management
- People management
But then the conversation took an interesting twist: someone asked, “So what do you do about it?”
People shuffled around a bit. Some said they avoided it (whatever “it” was for them) as long as they could, others said they just gritted their teeth and bore through because business depended on it.
But maybe there's another way. I've been looking at a lot of outsourcing lately and I really think it's a trend that's picking up steam. What surprised me as I thought about it was that the problems mentioned above — and the more I think about it, the more I think that just about ANY business problem — can be solved through outsourcing.
I'm not suggesting that you start outsourcing everything to lose control of your business… but I think that our business should excite us (in fact, I think that's a major factor in entrepreneurial success) so if you can avoid doing the things you don't like to do, you should!
