By Jude 
Expanding a business is an exciting prospect, but it can often mean juggling more work than a founder or a team can realistically handle. And while there is a tendency to view stretching to the limit as some romantic founding story, the reality is that if you want there to be a story at all, sometimes outsourcing is just common sense. But it’s not always that easy to know which jobs to pass on, and which to keep in-house. Get it wrong, and you risk spending money you can ill afford, weaken your workplace culture, or end up with compliance headaches.
A clear, commonsense checklist is necessary for leaders who want to make decisions confidently. By weighing how each function of your business relates to strategy, branding, and cost – as well as expertise – you can design the perfect blend of in-house and external support, fueling growth without losing control.
Keep your core strategy internal
Setting a company direction, values and promise to your customers is something that should automatically be designated as an in-house matter. These elements set the tone for everything else about your business, from hiring to development. Delegating them erodes accountability and means you’re not really running your business at all.
That’s not to say that leaders should be micromanaging daily tasks, of course. However vision, positioning and big picture strategy need and deserve direct oversight. Even when consultants advise, the final decision has to come from someone embedded within the company’s mission and values.
Delegate routine admin and bookkeeping
Work that is repetitive and rules-driven represents a natural starting point for outsourcing. Payroll, invoice processing, bookkeeping and HR record-keeping all consume time while adding little in the way of creative benefit. Using reputable virtual assistants or accountancy services can free your internal teams to focus on growth-driving work. Ensure clarity of access rights and data security, of course, and maintain a single, named point of contact so that tasks don’t disappear into a black hole; once you have this nailed down, routine tasks can be left in their capable hands.
Use experts for technical and marketing tasks
Some jobs do require a level of expertise or network reach that is hard to achieve with a small team. Website development, analytics configuration, complex compliance checking and large-scale content promotion all fall under this umbrella.
Link acquisition is a good example of this kind of task. Securing placements on relevant, high-value sites takes persistence and strong publisher relationships. An agency like fatjoe can take on this specialist work, offering white-label services. This means they carry out outreach and reporting while allowing businesses to present results under their own brand. It’s a very efficient way to add professional gloss without inflating your own payroll.
Whether you need technical SEO fixes or a bunch of well-placed links, outsourcing gives access to mature, market-ready processes and skilled teams. As long as you nail down scopes, timelines and reporting expectations in writing, it’s a smart choice.
Creative services can be outsourced
Design, copywriting and video production can all be farmed out to good effect so long as the briefs provided are clear as crystal. Creative professionals thrive when they understand the intended audience, desired tone, and brand ethics. If your needs are sporadic or varied – such as a product launch video one month, and a series of infographics the next – external talent offers a level of flexibility that you can’t match by hiring staff. It’s worth nominating an internal editor or brand guardian to review this output for consistency and quality.
Customer-facing roles may be handed off, but shouldn’t
It is possible, and tempting, to delegate things like support helpdesks, live chat, and complaint handling. But as much as that may be the case, the temptation should probably be resisted. Outsiders may lack the instinctive knowledge and awareness of tone that comes from operating within your business. It can lead to escalations, and even loss of customers who feel that their concerns have been relegated to an outside hire.
If you must outsource – because you don’t have the capacity to handle things in-house – it is essential to invest in training and give clear guidelines on escalation. A hybrid model, where core team members handle complex or sensitive matters while contractors deal with predictable queries – can allow you to at least farm off scale while keeping the business authenticity where it matters.
Always set criteria when outsourcing
The success of inviting contractors into your business processes depends on both sides understanding the deal. This means laying out what success looks like, with detailed metrics, budgets, and communication policies underlined up front before anything is signed. Look for providers who are transparent in their pricing, who offer service-level agreements and have their own clear data-handling policies. To an extent, you’re handing over a sliver of your business’s reputation here, and you need to be sure that you’re giving it to people who are serious about upholding it.
It’s often worth starting with a short pilot project that allows a partner to show how well they fit – while also learning what is expected of them – before committing to a longer contract. The end goal should be a relationship that expands your capacity without becoming an open door to new headaches. It’s a delicate balance, which is why you look to build in failsafes.
Outsourcing is often seen as a loss of control, but that needs not be the case. Handled thoughtfully, it is more accurate to see it as a route to scalability in a sustainable shape. At all times, it remains important to keep strategy and brand stewardship in hand, release routine work to trusted specialists, and bring in experts where their technical mastery will make the deal a no-brainer.
From admin support to nuanced expertise, the right mix of in-house and outsourced frees founders and leaders to focus on where they can deliver the most value, and where their personal insight makes the biggest difference. In the long-term, it can unlock a whole world of opportunity.