8 Activities to Outsource for Your Small Business
While outsourcing has been around for decades, it seems like it’s the latest trend as many businesses are learning the awesome benefits. It used to be primarily large companies outsourcing some of their essential functions, but now many small businesses are jumping on the bandwagon for its advantage.
Running a small business takes a lot of time, effort, and strategic planning, leaving many owners working around the clock to get the job done. To improve efficiency and increase productivity, a third of small business owners outsource many of their activities.
Let’s dive into the top activities to outsource for your small business and the benefits of doing so.
8 Activities to Outsource
The truth is, almost all business functions can be outsourced successfully. Most small business leaders like to focus on core business activities like product development and growth strategies.
Many will turn to outsourcing for time-consuming tasks or functions that require a specific skill set.
If you’re new to outsourcing activities for your small business, it may seem overwhelming. Once you have a trustworthy outsourcing partner, you will feel confident in your decision to send off work to a third party to help you complete your essential tasks.
Here are some things your small business can outsource to save your limited and valuable time.
1. Accounting and Bookkeeping
Let’s face it, most small business owners don’t have experience with accounting and bookkeeping, but it’s an essential activity. Maintaining accurate books is a time-consuming and tedious task. Scrambling to prepare for tax season is not what you want to spend your precious time on.
Outsourcing your bookkeeping is an excellent way to save time and track finances with ease. An experienced and knowledgeable professional on your accounting tasks will always have your expenses and finances organized to know where your business stands.
Not to mention, you will be more prepared for any surprise IRS audit. Tax season will be less of a drag too.
2. Customer Service
Although many business owners see customer service as an expense rather than a revenue-producing activity, that’s far from the truth. Customers are the bloodline of a business. Without a steady stream of customers, there is no business.
Customer service is an essential business function that should receive the utmost care. Rather than winging your customer service efforts by trying to manage it yourself or with your already busy employees, outsource it.
By outsourcing your customer service activities, you are putting this top-priority activity in the hands of service pros that solely focus on satisfying your customers’ needs. When you outsource to the right company, you can be sure your customers are getting exceptional service.
Most outsourcing companies that offer customer service activities do so 24/7 and through multiple channels such as phone, SMS, online and in-app chat, email, and social media.
Happy customers turn into loyal ones and even brand advocates. When consumers are satisfied with a company, they are likely to tell friends and family about their positive experiences and write favorable online reviews.
So, providing excellent customer service is investing in the success of your business long-term.
3. Graphic Design
Small businesses often need graphic design work to attract customers. Whether it’s designing ads, websites, mobile apps, visual materials, or email marketing templates, it can be extremely challenging for most small business owners.
Graphic design many times is the face of your business in the eyes of your prospects and customers. It’s how they view your business, so it’s definitely not something to take lightly and best to put in the hands of a professional.
Outsourcing graphic design activities may seem costly, but it’s more affordable than most may think. An ad designed correctly is the difference between grabbing the users’ attention and getting them to respond or not. So essentially, investing in a professional graphic designer will bring in more revenue.
4. Human Resources and Payroll
Human resources involve tasks that involve hiring, onboarding, and managing a team. As your business grows, you will need to recruit extra help to get the job done. Finding qualified candidates is not always a walk in the park.
Outsourcing your human resource functions puts the work of recruiting in the hands of the professionals saving you a ton of time posting help wanted ads, sifting through applications, and initial interviews. They hand you qualified candidates for you to make the final decision.
When you start your small business, payroll may seem like an easy task of calculating hours worked, but it’s much more than that. Just one mistake in payroll can result in IRS audits and cost thousands of dollars in fees.
Outsourcing your payroll is one less thing you have to worry about or spend your time on. The peace of mind of not making costly mistakes is well worth it.
Outsourcing your human resources also includes benefits administration, so you offer competitive healthcare and retirement at a reasonable rate.
6. Administrative Tasks
As a small business owner, it’s super important to focus on core functions to keep things moving in the right direction. There are so many small administrative tasks that are time-consuming and not an effective way for you to spend your time.
Outsourcing administrative tasks is an excellent choice since you avoid the need to hire someone full-time in-house to do it or lose focus on the activities. The beauty of outsourcing time-consuming and tedious tasks is you only pay for the hours it takes to complete the job.
Tasks such as data entry, sending emails, setting or changing appointments, or conducting market research are great activities to outsource and eliminate wasted time in-house.
7. IT Management
There’s a reason that IT is one of the primary functions outsourced. IT management takes a specific skill set that many small business owners don’t have and can’t afford to have an experienced professional on payroll full-time.
Sending off your IT activities to the pros allows you to have access to a higher skill level at a fraction of the cost, and you can be sure it’s done correctly. If you have on-demand tech issues, you can hire an experienced individual to handle them quickly and only pay for the services that you need when you need them.
8. Sales and Marketing
Sales and marketing are essential for a business to thrive and grow. A small business may not have the workforce to handle these critical tasks continuously.
Outsourcing sales activities to an outbound call center is a great way to get the job done without much effort in-house. Call centers can set appointments and generate sales for your business to increase revenue.
Marketing professionals can handle essential tasks such as content creation, developing ads, social media posts and replies, marketing management, email funnels, and much more.
Marketing firms are full of creative individuals that can help with marketing strategies to take your business to the next level.
Benefits of Outsourcing Activities
Thousands of small businesses outsource many functions to reap the awesome benefits it provides. It’s how many have grown their small businesses and increased revenue. Here are a few of the sweet benefits for your small business when outsourcing activities:
Reduce cost – When you outsource, you have the advantage of paying only for the services you need when you need them – nothing more, nothing less. You avoid needing additional full-time employees on payroll with high salaries and benefits.
Increase productivity – You might be surprised to hear by trying to multitask and handle multiple tasks at once, you can experience a 40 percent decrease in productivity. Putting attention on the task at hand without being pulled away to handle other tasks will increase productivity.
Increase efficiency – When you and your employees are overworked and stressed from handling too many business functions, things will slip through the cracks.
Staying focused on the tasks you are best at is more efficient than being spread thin to handle multiple duties. The activities you complete for your small business are more likely to be done right when your attention is solely on them.
Access to a higher skill set – Hiring the best of the best comes at a high cost that most small business owners can’t afford to have on payroll full-time. When you outsource specialized activities for your small business, you get on-demand access to a higher skill set without breaking the bank with high salaries. You pay for tasks that you need to be completed, and that’s it.
Access to innovative technology – As we all know, the newest and coolest technology typically comes at a high cost. Many small business owners just can’t afford to always stay up-to-date with the latest technology.
By outsourcing, you gain access to innovative technology to improve processes and procedures. It’s a great way to stand out from your competition without reducing profits.
Scalability – As a small business owner, your focus is probably mostly on growth. When you scale your business, naturally comes additional workload and responsibilities.
When you have an outsourcing partner, you can pass the touch when business functions come up and ensure they’re completed quickly without having to scramble to find quality workers. So by outsourcing, you can scale your business with ease.
All in All
Running a small business is a tough job requiring time, money, and effort. With so many tasks that need completing each day, it seems like it takes an army to get done. Outsourcing some of your activities is an excellent way to work smarter, not harder.
Having an outsourcing partner on your side to pass off some of your business functions will help you scale your business and improve your bottom line without needing to manage additional employees. Choose tasks to outsource that you don’t enjoy doing, are time-consuming, or require a specific skill set.
Are you ready to outsource some of your activities for your small business to take advantage of the benefits? If so, contact Awesome CX today.
Sources:
10 Small Business Functions That Can Be Easily Outsourced | SBA.Gov