“It’s no different to how you ensure the quality of work in your local office”

The top 3 processes you can put in place up front to ensure quality:

1. Lines of reporting: make these and your expectations clear up front.
2. Authority and autonomy: if you give someone a task, make sure you give them the authority and the autonomy to do it. If you build a command and control (micromanagement) structure, you’re going to be continuously responding to questions and reviewing work (the work will fall back on you).
3. Equal the playing field: treat your outsourced team exactly as you would adding new staff in your local office.

Apply the same protocols that you have for your local teams. With cloud software, everyone sits on the same systems that you have full visibility over and control of.

If you’re still worried, just like at a local level you can put simple monitoring software in place that take random snapshots of what staff are up to.

From our experience, most security breaches are unintentional. Helping make offshore teams aware of security protocols can prevent any issues down the track.

At Bricoleur Technologies, we ensure all outsourced staff are:

• Trained on national and local security clearances.
• Trained on the Australian privacy act, with yearly top ups.
• Reference checked.

Not at all. Solopreneurs, startups, SME’s: outsourcing can change your game.

The #1 reason why outsourcing is so effective for micro businesses = it allows you to generate more throughput and maximize the value of your time.

Think of it this way, as a small business your time is capped, and your success comes down to how efficient you can be within that cap.

Consider this: if your billable rate is say $100/hour, and you can get invoicing done for say $20 an hour and customer service at say $15 an hour, why would you do it yourself?

Have you worked out your hourly rate? If not do it.

For solopreneurs, we’ve seen a recent trend toward VA’s (virtual assistants). For micro businesses, it can be great to have a resource like this to help with general admin like appointment setting.

Another model we are currently exploring with many businesses is finding a virtual teams offshore. Unlike a VA, this allows you to dial into more specialist skill sets, so you could have someone in accounts, customer service and technical support all at the same time. With outsourced virtual teams, you can set them up so you only pay for what you use.

Just like us they’re raising families, paying off mortgages, putting their kids through college.

Our #1 tip for getting further, quicker with outsourced staff?

If you’re serious about it and can justify the time, go and meet them on the ground. Because we cannot travel right now, a virtual catch up will do.

Our top 3 non negotiables:

1. Make sure they are right sized for you: there are some really big outsourcing companies and some really small ones. Find the one that fits your scale and ethos, but that is also flexible to scale as you scale.
2. Consider how many clients they have: if you go with a company that has 500 and 1000 seat clients, then the level of attention you get will be proportionate.
3. Do they have someone locally? This one is key, it helps when you are getting set up and gives you peace of mind if there is an issue. This also likely means your contract is in local jurisdiction.