How Much Money Will You Save By Outsourcing?

Listen to that. Someone just started a lawnmower in my backyard. As I write this article, I’m listening to the sound of someone besides me mowing my lawn. You could also call it "the sound of outsourcing." Instead of cutting the grass myself, I’ve contracted a local lawn care company to come do it for me once every couple of weeks.

Now, I am perfectly capable of mowing the lawn myself. I even enjoy mowing the lawn... sometimes. The thing is, I outsource my lawn mowing because doing so saves me a lot of money. Here’s how I calculated my savings.

When I do client work, I charge at least $35 an hour. Mowing the lawn takes me about three hours (we have a large yard and thick grass) not including ice tea breaks on hot days and cleaning myself up afterwards. Mowing the lawn myself will cost me at least $105 because that’s three hours out of my day where I could have been producing revenue instead.

I pay this lawn care company $30 each time they mow, which means every time they come out, I’m saving over $70.

In Calgary, our growing season is shorter than most. We usually start cutting the grass in late May and by early September, it’s stopped growing. If the grass needs to be cut once every two weeks during the summer, that’s around 8 or 9 times. Which means over the summer I’ll save $70 about 9 times. So, I’m saving $630 every year just by outsourcing my lawn mowing.

And that’s just my time. If I had to buy and maintain my lawn mower, it would be a lot more than that.

What about you? How much money are you losing by doing jobs you could easily outsource? Maybe it’s a home maintenance task like mine. Perhaps it’s a business task like maintaining your website or writing articles. In any case, here’s a simple formula you can use to find out how much money is slipping through your fingers by hanging onto those jobs yourself.

Step 1. Write down the dollar amount you make per hour.

Step 2. Multiply that amount by the number of hours it takes you to do the job you'd like to outsource. Be careful here – include all the time you spend planning, preparing for this job, as well as the testing and tweaking you'll do at the end.

Step 3. Write down the amount it would cost to outsource that one job to someone else. If you don’t know the exact amount, pick up the phone and find out, or do a quick online search.'

Step 4. Now, subtract the amount in Step 3 from your answer to Step 2. That’s how much money you would save each time you outsourced this particular job.

Step 5. We could stop there, but let’s take it a few steps further and save you even more money.How many times do you do this job over one year? Is it a one-time thing, or is it something you do every week or every month? Write down the number of times you do that job every year.

Step 6. Multiply your answer to Step 4 by your answer to Step 5. That’s how much money outsourcing can save you annually.

What does your outsourcing sound like? It may not sound like a lawnmower motor, but it is probably close to “cha-ching!”

Denise Willms is a ghostwriter and owner of WAHM Articles, a directory of reprint articles for women. Visit WAHM Articles for high quality reprint and ghostwritten articles designed to help you reach the lucrative "mom market."

Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com