As I’m sure you know, there are now countless pieces of tech on the market designed to make running a small business that much easier. From payroll to social media management to accounting, the amount of tech platforms out there have almost taken CEOs out of the picture! If you’ve been trying to run your business with no kind of support, and you’re finding it extremely strenuous, then it’s time to make some changes. Any reduction in overhead will allow you to invest more in your most pressing operations, and stimulate a healthy rate of growth. Here are a few things you should think about outsourcing at your business.
Content Marketing
Publishing engaging and easily digestible content, without making the message sound too much like a used car salesman, is one of the most effective methods of marketing out there today. With a good content marketing strategy in place, you’ll be able to generate some great new leads, and nurture your relationship with your existing customers, thereby increasing your chances of healthy sales figures. A lot of modern businesses have a single executive in the upper echelons who’s responsible for planning and directing content marketing campaigns. However, if your business has only just got off the ground, you may not have the kind of resources for keeping a full-time professional like this. Rather than taking on this burden yourself, or going to the trouble of hiring full-time marketing staff, I recommend outsourcing it to a B2B marketing firm. Even hiring a single freelance copywriter can free up a lot of capital, and take care of a lot of your marketing headaches.
Human Resources
After your customers, the next most important people in your business are your employees. If you’re not going out of your way to make sure they have everything they need to succeed, and that the state of their employment falls within the relevant laws, then you’re tempting fate. Poor management of HR results in high turnover, stunted development across the whole organization, and can even end in a lawsuit if you’re not careful. If managing your human resources is stretching you and your management too thin, then this is one function to seriously consider outsourcing. By passing the work onto a good HR consultancy or other solution, you’ll be able to save a lot of time which can be applied to other areas, improve efficiency, and assure better employee development too. You’ll also be able to minimize your risk somewhat, as employment and tax laws change very regularly.
Bookkeeping
Being able to multitask is pretty desirable as a concept, but as a small business owner I highly recommend steering clear of it. Psychological studies have found that when the average person attempts to multitask, they in fact experience a severe drop in productivity, rather than getting anything done faster. Individual projects take longer to complete in the large majority of cases, and stress levels are increased, which in turn causes even more damage to your productivity! This is the whole philosophy behind outsourcing anything at your business, but in my opinion it’s even more important when it comes to accounts and bookkeeping. You really don’t want to make mistakes when it comes to accountancy, and if you’re trying to take care of this at the same time as something more creative and free-reign, like designing a logo, for instance, you’re just going to increase your risk of making serious blunders. Seen as you’re reading this, I’ll assume you don’t have the capital for a whole accountancy team, so be sure to outsource your bookkeeping. Services such as QuickBooks can make a lot of your back-office tasks so much simpler, and hiring an accountancy firm will give you all the experience of an in-house professional, with some pretty considerable long-term savings!
Payroll
This is closely tied to bookkeeping, but is so important I figured I’d give it its own point. While payroll can become pretty manageable once you’ve grown somewhat and the flow of your business begins to mellow out, it can be pretty overwhelming when you first start out. Making sure your employees get their pay cheques in full and on time is extremely important, so important that leaving it open to human error is downright irresponsible! Aside from making sure everyone gets what they’re due, you also need to make sure that you’re filing income tax correctly, and that everyone doing work for your business is registered as the right kind of worker. Just one little slip-up in your payroll can be enough to instigate a tax audit, which can wind up costing your business hundreds of thousands of dollars. Be sure to find some reliable payroll software, or outsource it to a good firm.
Conversion Optimization
Content marketing, which we touched on earlier, is just one facet to the mysterious world of search engine optimization. Another important part is known as conversion optimization, where the idle browsers reading through your content actually “convert” into hot leads. A lot of business owners make the big mistake of thinking that getting people to convert is easy. In fact, the average conversion rate for a modern website is a mere 2%. That means for every 100 people who come across your content, two people taking the next step in the sales process is a good haul! Unless you have a strong background in marketing, your conversion rate probably isn’t going to be close to this milestone. That leaves a lot of room for improvement! Depending on the business you’re running, an increase of even 1% can make a huge difference to your overall revenue. Look around for some conversion optimization services, and hire one that’s well suited to your particular niche.
While I understand the want to keep everything directly under your control, outsourcing is necessary for a lot of small businesses with a view to become big businesses! Go back through this list, pin down the tasks you need the most assistance with, and look for some outsourcing solutions.
