What is outsourcing?

If you ever hired an outside consultant, service provider, subcontractor, or agency to produce some deliverable service on your behalf or manage a portion of your business, you’ve already engaged in outsourcing. In the case of offering a new product line without producing the items in-house, a smart business owner may take in the order; find a reliable, proficient subcontractor to run the job; mark up the subcontracted cost to generate a reasonable profit (hey, you put in the effort to secure the sale, right? You deserve to get paid for that); and then resell it to your customer.

In fact, I suggest taking the tact of, at first, having a subcontractor make new product offerings repeatedly over a relatively short period of time, and then stepping back to analyze the viability and sustainability of that business as the least risky approach of your options. Rule of thumb: get great at marketing and selling it profitably then bring it in-house.

—Vince DiCecco, Your Personal Business Trainer