Small Business Outsourcing: Getting More Bang for Your Buck!
As a small business owner, you bring what you are best at to the community. Whether your business is a restaurant, an accounting firm or a boutique, you are the expert at what you do. But when you’re operating a business, it takes more than just quality products and services.
Many of the behind-the-scenes functions that are critical to your success — like accounting, marketing, information technology, etc. — take specialized skill sets that you may not have. Learning how and doing them yourself will take time that could be used focusing on the areas of the business you know and love. Additionally, hiring an employee to do them in-house just isn’t an option for a lot of small business owners.
However, outsourcing some small business tasks can save you time and money, allowing you to work on the heart of your business, while everything in the background is done correctly and efficiently.
Let’s take a look at some small business functions that can easily be outsourced.
Tasks That Can Be Outsourced
1. Accounting
Accounting is one of the most-frequently outsourced functions for small business owners. If your products and services are your specialty, there’s a chance you don’t have financial expertise, and learning all of the processes and compliance standards can be time consuming. Outsourcing this area of your business to an experienced accountant will save you time and money, while keeping you protected from unwanted audits.
2. Human Resources
Human resources is one of the most important parts of operating a small business, especially if you have a team of employees. Utilizing the services of a small business HR firm allows you to outsource essential tasks, like training, benefits administration, payroll and more. They can also help you recruit new employees when you’re ready to expand your team.
3. Information Technology (IT)
When your home computer or internet connection is having problems, how do you go about fixing it? If your answer is “call the experts,” then outsourcing your IT service is probably the best option for your small business. A managed service provider can offer on-demand assistance to troubleshoot any technology issues you’re experiencing and make sure your systems are up and running properly. In this day and age of technology, you can’t afford your systems being down while you’re trying to serve your customers.
4. Marketing
Attracting new customers is almost as important as taking care of existing customers, but marketing can take a lot of time away from focusing on your business. When you work with an advertising agency, they can help by designing ads, creating great content for your website and taking social media marketing off your plate. They can even help you come up with new creative ideas throughout the year to help you reach your target audiences and grow your customer base.
5. Customer Service
If you are selling products online — around the country or around the world — it might be a good idea to outsource some of your customer service to a call center that can assist your customers over the phone or via online chat. They can make sure your customers are taken care of while you continue to focus your business at the local level.
Round Out Your Business by Outsourcing Essential Functions
Keeping your focus on providing great products and services to your customers is essential to your success as a small business owner. But you can’t forget about all that must be done behind the scenes. If you’re not an expert in some of those areas of running a business, don’t worry. Help is out there!
To learn more about how to improve your efficiency by outsourcing some of your small business functions, check out this content from the Small Business Administration.
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