In reporting on the 2001 Outsourcing World Summit, Michael F. Corbett & Associates, Ltd. found that “the two most often cited goals chosen as reasons for outsourcing are to reduce costs and to focus on the core of business.”

For small office entrepreneurs, perhaps the juiciest reward of outsourcing is that it frees you to focus on what you do best and what you enjoy most. Instead of siphoning off your energy and attention on the details of operating a business, outsourcing allows you to devote more time and resources to the creative endeavors that make your business unique.

Outsourcing can help restore the fun factor to your work. If you love designing logos but hate filling out tax forms, hand off the miserable chore to an independent tax preparer. You’ll alleviate the stress of tax reporting as well as the pressure you feel to meet tax deadlines.

Outsourcing can often give you better and faster results than if you perform the duty yourself. You might be a top-notch financial planner, but not a whiz at marketing your services. Hiring a marketing specialist to create a coordinated promotion campaign will generate more client leads and help sell your services. Perhaps you’re a genius at running a retail bakery, but dread the time and paperwork you have to devote to employee payroll. A payroll processing company can many times complete the task faster and more accurately than you can do it yourself.

Outsourcing can also help reduce overhead while at the same time giving you access to greater expertise. Take Web site design, for instance. Instead of investing in technology and hiring a site designer as an employee, contract with an independent contractor (IC). That move gives you access to an expert with specialized skills who most likely works with state-of-the-art technology. You get a dynamite Web site, yet you don’t bear the burden of an employee or the financial investment in technology.

Sure, you still fork over money to pay independent contractors. But that expense is often less than it would cost for you to do it yourself. Plus, you gain the advantage of the contractor’s expertise, and you can use your time to court more clients, generate more sales and build a stronger business.