The fact that retailers have to multitask is no secret to any school supply dealer. Some choose to simplify their jobs by outsourcing the tasks that are too time-consuming, too difficult, or too unappealing to do themselves. Here is what some dealers told us about their experiences with outsourcing.
Hire the guy next door
Sheri Tarmen, owner of The Creative Apple store in Yuba City, California, pays a janitor to clean and polish her floors once a month. Where did she find her hired help? “We have a small dinner theater next to our store and he is one of the actors,” she says. “It worked out perfect for both of us. He has a janitorial business which frees him to work his own hours and have time to act.”
Other than this splurge, the rest of the duties are up to Sheri and her staff. “We tend to the bathrooms daily, and I do everything from accounting and payroll to advertising. You name it; I do it! It’s worked for 28 years with no problems, so I will continue.”
Imagine a shorter workday
Outsourcing is one of the things Laura Miller hopes to accomplish this year at her store, Imagination Village in Concord, New Hampshire. “Going into our eighth year in business, we have finally grown to the point where we really need to create more division of labor,” she says. “Up until now, I have done everything except the financial statements.”
With no other fulltime employees on staff, Laura is hoping that outsourcing will allow her to shave some hours off her workweek. “I would love to delegate more tasks, but all of my employees are part-time and follow-through is difficult to manage. It is my goal this year to automate more of our bookkeeping and perhaps I won’t have to work 12 hours a day!”
Don’t do what you don’t love
Amy Greene, owner of I.P.A. Educational Supply in Springfield, Missouri, is no stranger to outsourcing. She farms out many jobs, including catalog creation, pest control, window cleaning, accounting and lawn maintenance.
“Those are the things I either don’t have time for or just don’t like to do,” she explains. “With the pest control, I want to be sure it’s done safely and that it’s completely taken care of. As for accounting, if I ever got audited, I’d want to know the numbers were all correct.”
Amy agrees with Susan Friedmann’s suggestions in Riches in Niches for finding good outside help. First she analyzes whether it would be less expensive to do the job in-house. Then if the benefits outweigh the cost, she asks several friends and other businesses for recommendations.
“Once we find a candidate we’re interested in, we ask for references, and we’ll usually call at least two of the people listed,” explains Amy. “We do price comparisons before we hire for a job, and we check to make sure the workers show up on time and follow through with what they promised.”
Not all of her outsourcing experiences have been rosy, however. When she’s hired staffing agencies to screen candidates, Amy has been very disappointed. “I didn’t like the quality of people they were sending. For example, they sent me people who disliked working in retail. Another time when we needed to fill a position for the warehouse that involved processing UPS orders, the agency sent people who didn’t like to do detailed work. We used them twice, and we were done. We don’t outsource our staffing anymore.”
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