Running a nightclub, either as the owner or the marketing director, is a big challenge. Being efficient is essential, especially because you probably wear many hats. And in the case of the business owner, this is probably not your only business. One way business owners deal with “efficiency” is by contemplating outsourcing their work to others. You can outsource a TON of your work (accounting, business plan development, staffing, etc.), but we want to focus specifically on outsourcing your digital work. It could be anything from design work, front-end development, back-end development, search engine marketing marketing, to anything else that needs to be done digitally.
There are some very strong reasons for outsourcing, and likewise the are some equally strong reasons against outsourcing. In the blog post below, I’ll take you through the pros and cons, which will hopefully prove to be helpful to those businesses who are trying to decide on whether or not to outsource.
Pros of Outsourcing
1. Stop Doing Designs Yourself!
Sometimes marketing directors or business owners think that they are graphic designers. This might get you by for a short period of time, but you can’t be messing around with this stuff when the pedal hits the metal and your business is picking up steam. One of the principles that is key to growing your business is that you need to be able to leverage your time and efforts. You need to outsource your design work so you can focus on working ON the business, not IN the business.
2. Potential for Higher Income
While outsourcing work to others may increase your expenses, it also frees up more time for you to do other things, which should allow you to increase your income. Maybe the time that you save can be used to work on marketing your services, other client projects or developing new products and services. Personally, my time is worth $300/hr. So I look at every task in terms of “is this worth my time or is it worth paying someone else to do it.”
3. Increased Efficiency
Like any business owner, you will never have the time to do everything that you want or need for your business. However, outsourcing some work can help to free up time that will allow you to focus on the things that you determine are most important. The increase in efficiency comes when you are able to spend a little bit of money (comparatively) that will free you up to do work that will help you to make a lot of money (comparatively).
4. Allows You to Focus on Your Strengths
I’m going to use a typical nightclub as an example since the nightlife is what my company focuses on. One of the downsides to being a business owner or marketing director of a nightclub is that that you have to do everything for your business, whether it is an area of personal strength or weakness. Ultimately, your strength as a nightclub needs to create events and operate the nightclub to provide the best experience possible for your patrons. By outsourcing some work that is not in your strongest areas (graphic design) you can free up more time to work on what your company is strong at. Even if outsourcing doesn’t increase your income, if it helps to make your work more enjoyable by eliminating or reducing some of the things you dislike, it may be worth doing.
5. Transition from Outsourcing to In-House
If you are currently outsourcing and you would like to run a full-time graphic & web department with employees at some point in the future, outsourcing to an agency for now could be a good transition. Very few businesses have the financial capability to take on an employee with a set salary and benefits without funding, but outsourcing work is much more feasible. While outsourcing you can get a feel for who you might like to hire as an employee when the time comes, and you can work to increase revenues and build the business to a point where you could hire an employee.
Cons of Outsourcing
1. Your Reputation Depends on the Quality of Others’ Work
When you are outsourcing, you’re trusting someone outside of your office with your brand. Your reputation is at stake. One of the most significant reasons businesses choose not to outsource is because of concerns over the quality. Finding the right agency with is not always easy
If you outsource to a freelance designer and he’s gone on vacation or late on the project, your reputation can take a hit. This is a main reason why you should outsource to a design shop, and not a freelance designer.
2. More Administration and Oversight Work
We all hate babysitting. While outsourcing can help to free up some of your time, it also means that you’ll have more administrative and oversight responsibilities. Ideally you can find a design shop who needs very little supervision whom you can trust to do quality work, but those relationships usually take some time to develop.
3. Dealing with the Middleman
In some cases you’ll hire a freelance designer or agency and they are actually outsourcing work themselves to other freelancers or agencies. This can clog up communication and things can get sticky. If you find out you’re dealing with a middle man, just make sure the communication flows so that you don’t even notice.
4. Reduced Control Over Meeting Deadlines
Being able to meet deadlines is a critical to keeping your your business running. As you outsource parts of your design, or the whole thing, you will have less control over when the work is complete, as you will be relying on the agency that you have hired. This is just one of the reasons why you need to be very careful about hiring the right agency. Also, it’s a good idea to build in some time for unexpected delays by setting a deadline for the service provider that is at least a few days prior to the real deadline of the client. That gives you time to review the work and to deal with any setbacks.
5. It Takes Time and Effort to Find the Right People
Unfortunately, finding the right person (or people) can be a real challenge, and you may go through some bad experiences along the way. During this time it means that you’ll be dedicating extra time for finding the right people and evaluating their work.
You Must Decide for Yourself
As with just about anything in life, the pros and cons mean that there is no absolute right or wrong decision when it comes to outsourcing. You’ll need to weight the pros and cons and see how they fit with your goals, your process, and your way of doing business. If you have words of wisdom from your own experience, please feel free to share in the comments.
