When looking to outsource, how do you know whether you should be delegating work to an individual or to a team of assistants? Of course, there are pros and cons to both, and quite often it will depend on your personal preference, and on how you want your business to work.
When you're starting to outsource don't think that you should be able to hire one person who can do it all.
Not only is this an unrealistic expectation, but you'll be making yourself dependent on one person.
That is not a position from which your business can thrive.
This doesn't mean that you can't delegate some of your business to individuals.
In fact there are some great opportunities in the virtual assistant market to hire self-employed people who have specialist skills in certain areas.
You want to start thinking about activities and then match those up to the right individual or organisation to take over for you.
So when should you look for a team to assist you, and when should you look for an individual? Here are some advantages and disadvantages for you to consider: Working With Teams: As working with virtual assistants becomes more and more popular, companies offering teams of people who could work on your behalf are starting to spring up.
The immediate benefit of this is that you aren't reliant on one person to get the work done.
If the person who usually does your account is on holidays, someone else will get the work done for you.
Teams are great at handling routine tasks, such as data entry, transcription, or proof reading.
It's very clear what the outcome is, and it's very obvious when it's being done successfully.
Your assistants don't need specialised knowledge to get the job done, and you don't need to spend as much time training them about your business systems.
It's often a case of handing over the task and waiting for it to be completed for you.
One of the downsides to working with teams is that sometimes you can end up paying slightly more.
If a team has a manager and an office, they've got more overheads that need to be recouped and therefore they tend to charge more.
In cases such as this, some of the benefits of outsourcing can be lost when you go down the team route.
But this is certainly not the case with all teams.
You should definitely shop around before you make a decision about who to use.
Working With Individuals: While my business has lots of routine tasks, there are other activities that are more specialised or require more judgment or company knowledge.
And for those, I prefer to work with an individual.
For example, one of my assistants has handled my customer service for sometime now.
One of the things that I really like about working with her is that in the time that we've worked together she has built up an intuitive understanding of how we do things here at Client Magnets.
I prefer to work with an individual who, over time, becomes more and more valuable to the business because they get to know your business better.
Just remember, it's not a mutually exclusive situation.
Many people outsource to both individuals and teams, and get enormous benefit from both.
As with everything else, the key is to know what suits your business best.
After all, no one knows your business the way that you do.