Effective Outsourcing Strategy

Lorna Ross had an epiphany during a yoga retreat in Bali in 2012 that resulted in a career change: she became a business owner later that year. Her epiphany did not include details on how she would oversee her business’s finances, however.

Thankfully for Ross, there wasn’t much of a decision needed once she signed on as a ShelfGenie franchise owner. During a training week at corporate headquarters, she was given information about Remote Quality Bookkeeping (RQB), and she never looked back.

“What drew me to RQB is exactly what drew me to opening a franchise: the system is there, it’s developed,” Ross said. “I looked at the whole list of what they do, and I said, ‘I don’t want to do any of this.’ Bookkeeping is not what I want to spend my time on.”

An attorney who worked for five years as a Judge Advocate General (JAG) in the Air Force and more than a decade as a project manager for Honeywell, Ross opened her franchise in Southern California three years ago this fall. She has known only one system for bookkeeping, and that’s the cloud services of RQB.

Ross has been laser-focused on seeking the maximum level of efficiency in running her business; outsourcing certain functions – especially those in which she isn’t particularly experienced, such as bookkeeping – plays a crucial role in achieving such efficiency.

Ross is certainly not alone. A recent Entrepreneur.com story, “How to Build a Better Business with Outsourcing,” showed how and why small businesses are increasingly noticing a positive impact on growth, productivity and the bottom line through an outsourcing strategy. Advances in technology, in particular, have allowed business owners like Ross to easily work with a company like RQB, based in the Boston area.

“Progressive entrepreneurs realize the unstoppable power of outsourcing to handle aspects of their business that are essential but simply don’t make sense for them to deal with personally,” said David Walsh, an entrepreneur and author on topics related to outsourcing. “Small business, augmented by a global pool of human capital, can compete directly with the biggest players in their space, and win.”

Ross said she spends approximately one hour each week on bookkeeping-related tasks, far fewer than if she was required to handle all bookkeeping matters herself. She said she has never calculated exactly how much time and money she has saved by outsourcing bookkeeping, but it’s clear that the investment has paid off.

“I don’t know how many hours it really takes them, because they know what they’re doing and have probably figured out the most expeditious process to do it all,” says Ross, whose ShelfGenie location covers Los Angeles and Orange counties and doubled its gross sales from 2013 (its first full year) to 2014. “It would require so much more effort for me to balance our books because it’s simply not an area of the business that I have the wherewithal or time to handle.

“And I really value their responsiveness. If I have an inquiry about a specific invoice, they get back to me the same day. I run my business the same way, because I don’t like open, unresolved items. So it’s a very positive working relationship.”

When you find an outsourcing partner you trust, the payoff is immeasurable.

RQB recently partnered with a human resource consulting firm to add more value to its clients. Read more about how this partnership can help your business.