It’s Not Scottish…

May 22nd, 2008 Chris Posted in General | 1 Comment »

This will sound completely contrarian but I think the whole “4 hour work week”, “outsource everything you can” is crap. In short: if you’re not working your butt off – what are you doing?!

I’m not completely a outsourcing luddite – I do believe that certain business essentials need to be outsourced for one of two reasons:

1. Skill sets. I am not an accountant, a lawyer or a graphics designer. Those are all tasks that we outsource. Even if I wanted to do those things – I can’t. So we pay people to do that work.

2. Opportunity cost. This is the one where Tim Ferriss and I really deviate. I am incredibly picky and given my druthers, would have my hands on every piece of the puzzle. Unfortunately, there are only some many hours in the day and something has to go…

What do I mean “something has to go…”? That means, unless I’m willing to hire another person that I can micro manage, it has to be outsourced because I’m not ready to work more than 60 hours a week (I have in the past but I’d really like to have some modicum of non-work stuff in my life). So it means prioritizing what effort is done in house and outsourcing the stuff that has less risk of impacting the customer.

For example, I am really picky about how customer facing stuff looks. I wasn’t happy with some of the way stuff on our web looked so I undertook to update it. I knew enough to get done what we wanted so I brought it in house. On the other hand, while we could print out and collate 200 copies of a work book for one of Colleen’s clients, we don’t have time – so off to the printer it goes.

Think I’m crazy? Do you know the CEO of Starbucks has been known to pick the size of font on store signs and the color of cups? This is the guy that built and runs a bazillion dollar empire. He could outsource it or delegate it (an option in a non-micro biz) but he doesn’t. Finding the time to personally ensure a positive customer experience pays.

So, if you only want to work four hours a week, I think Tim Ferriss has a good plan. But I also assume you don’t care if your business grows – otherwise, you’d use those other 56 hours. There is always more to be done.

Otherwise, perhaps its time for a gut-check: are you really passionate about your business?

C.