Small business owners and entrepreneurs find it difficult to balance multiple hats in their business. If their goal is to scale up, they should probably think about routine business processes and activities that can be subcontracted out or outsourced. In so doing, they get more time at their disposal to take care of business-critical activities such as project management and business development.
Shrewd business owners figure it may be counter-productive to do all the work in house. They understand the importance of outsourcing work that is not generating revenue yet essential to your day to day business operations. After all, time is the most important resource for a small business. As a small business owner, when you know you have some reliable hands to take care of the tasks, why not outsource.
So, you have decided to outsource some work. It is time to figure out what to outsource. Below is a list of business functions that you can outsource to save time and make more money.
Marketing
As with any other business, marketing is one of the primary functions of a small business. Your marketing efforts have a direct impact on your sales. If you are caught up with nurturing your sales leads and closing the sale, you could do well with some help. Think about subcontracting some of your marketing activities to a PR specialist or a marketing consultant. The right outsourcing partner should be able to perform a wide array of tasks right from email marketing to developing content for your website. There are marketing professionals with expertise in generating leads, handling direct inquiries, and do branding and all that it takes to get your product out there to the market.
Hire the right guy or agency, give them a background of your business and your product or service, talk to them about your marketing goals, and sit down with them to set specific, attainable goals. And your marketing efforts will take off over time.
Accounting
When you start, your taxes and finances may look simple, and you may be able to deal with your accounting requirements on your own. However, as your business develops, you will add more employees to your payroll, and increase your engagements with your customers and clients. This is when things start to become a little more complicated. Ask yourself: do you want to be the business owner or the book keeper?
Bad accounting and recordkeeping procedures can cost your business time and money, a huge loss due to poor invoicing and collection for an extremely long period of time, and cash flow related issues.
You may hire a freelance book keeper or a full time CPA to help your business out. In addition to some basic services, they help companies file taxes every year and manage payroll as well.
Administrative Support
It is another area in which a lot of outsourcing can be done. If you thought it would be helpful if you had an extra pair of hands to assist you in your administrative tasks, you can think about hiring virtual assistants.
There is a wealth of talent available online, and their experience runs the gamut of maintaining blogs, travel booking, invoice processing managing email, maintaining your schedule, managing database, creating newsletters, editing copy, preparing mail stuff etc. You can even find a dedicated virtual assistance with niche-specific skills to do accounting, bookkeeping and much more. You can look for expert virtual assistants that take care of your administrative tasks in various channels online. Some business owners have managed to find qualified virtual assistants in social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook.
Regardless of where you find them, you must always make sure you do not get into a long term engagement with them. Get them to sign up for a one-off outsourcing contract that lasts for 2 to 3 months, keep an eye on their performance, assess their suitability to your business, and make a decision.
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