Outsourcing - BPO
Outsourcing: It Pays to Use Experts
Let me introduce you to David. David is an expert. He lives on
a beautiful farm in Spain. David is an expert in many things:
almond growing, sheep herding, and wild boar rustling are just
a few.
But most importantly David is an expert Chumbos harvester.
What's a Chumbos? A Chumbos is more commonly known as a prickly
pear.
The Chumbos tree grows rapidly in the southern parts of Spain,
where it turns waste products (pooh to me and you) into fabulous
fruit.
My husband Marcus and I went to visit David to marvel at his
expertise. Now, David had told us how wonderful this fruit tasted,
and I couldn't wait to try it out.
In my infinite wisdom, I grabbed a prickly pear off the tree.
But here's the problem, it's not called a prickly pear for nothing.
It's prickly! It does what it says on the packet.
There are tiny pricks of excruciating pain - hundreds of them.
They break off when touched and leave their length in your skin.
They are almost impossible to remove as they are so fine.
You have 1000s of nerve endings per square centimetre of flesh
in your finger tips. It felt like every nerve ending on mine was
on fire. I threw the pear to the floor and ran around the farm
screaming - followed by a cacophony of farm yard animals.
Well as you can imagine this attracted the attention of David.
Did I tell you he was an expert?
Well he quickly appraised the situation (as experts do) and calmly
removed the prickles. He then took me by my other hand (the good
one) and introduced me to his tool.
It's a great big stick! About 6 feet long, with 6 inches of drainpipe
lashed to the end to form a kind of "T".
David then proceeded to show me how you use this ingenious tool.
You lean precariously over into the Chumbos trees and balance
on one foot. You shove the stick into the Chumbos and hook a pear
with the drainpipe. Then with a twisting action you detach a pear
and throw it (in one action) onto the ground.
You then roll the pear around on the ground with your foot (obviously
whilst wearing shoes) which has the miraculous effect of removing
all the annoying prickles. You can then pick up the pear and with
a rusty penknife (that appeared from the depths of David's pocket)
you can cut open the fruit and get to the sweet bit - delicious!
David is an expert.
You should always listen to experts. They're the ones who tell
you what can't be done and why and then go ahead and do it anyway.
My husband Marcus tried this not long afterwards…
Unfortunately he isn't an expert!
Learning From Others
So, what can we learn from David & Marcus that helps us understand
why outsourcing is really great?
It can be painful doing it yourself
When you tackle a task that you've never encountered before you
may make mistakes. It's incredibly difficult knowing what's right
for your business if you've never done this before. The pain can
be simply wasting time - but quite often it can be the pain of
wasting money AND losing opportunities. Can you afford to lose
time, money and business opportunities?
You don't always get what you wanted
A poke in the eye with a sharp stick! The skills required to
ensure a successful business are wide and varied. At first you'll
be doing everything yourself, but as your client's requirements
change and you need to adapt to meet their needs, you need to
surround yourself with people who deliver results. When you develop
your business yourself you only have your own resources to call
upon which quite often leads to fewer opportunities for your business.
There are steps in the process
If growing a business is something new to you, you may not be
fully aware of the different steps involved in the process. It's
important that the steps are carried out in the right order at
the right time to ensure success. There are steps in every specialist
skill that a growing business requires. How can you know what
they all are?
There are skills involved
You may have never even heard of some of the skills required
to grow a successful business. The terminology may be strange
or new. Ensuring the availability of the right skill at the right
time will make sure your business will make you money or save
you money.
There are tools involved
The tools may appear strange or arcane - but these are the tools
used by professionals. Tools that ensure the validity of your
web pages so that the whole world can see them; tools that create
pictures that tell a thousand words; tools that measure the effectiveness
of your hard work; and tools that manage your database of prospects,
moving them through the pipeline.
You need expertise AND experience
But most importantly, you need expertise and experience. The
experience to know what tool is needed and at what stage. The
experience to know what strategy will work best without lengthy
trial and error. The experience to know how to move prospects
through your pipeline and ensure they contact you. The experience
that only comes from having been there and done this before.
So, what skills do you have in-house? It's important to understand
where your skills and knowledge can be used to best effect. Will
your time be used at a strategic level - or will you get down
to some hands-on tactics? If you don't have the skills in your
own team, where will you get them from?
This skills gap needs to be thoroughly inspected. You need to
be honest with yourself. This could be a costly mistake if you
get it wrong.
Speak Soon,
'Dangerous' Debbie Jenkins
debs@debbiejenkins.com
(c) Copyright 2005 www.BookShaker.com
SUMMER CAN BE SLOW FOR BUSINESS
But don't let that get in the way of your success.
This is the ideal time to work on your business
rather than in it. Get 2 F'REE eBooks and prepare
for more success with less effort here...
http://www.leanmarketing.co.uk
I'm wondering if... You Know Other People who should be reading
this too? So do us all a favour (they get 2 free books - we get
a new subscriber - you get to look good) when you Pass On This
link... http://www.leanmarketing.co.uk
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
|
