Running a business is no easy job; it’s even more difficult if you are trying to juggle each task on your own. You may have considered taking on employees, however, for many small business owners today, it’s a cost that cannot be justified.
But, with the rise of the remote worker, it’s never been easier to outsource your work to reputable online companies or home-based freelancers. We’ve listed ten common business tasks and processes that you should consider outsourcing to save both time and money.
- Website Design
Today any business worth its salt has an online presence. Whether you’re selling products to other business owners or run a fashion store, your customers will not only want to be able to find more information about your brand online, chances are they also want to be able to make purchases on your website, too.
So, having a well-designed, easy-to-use website or e-commerce store is essential for business owners. But, if you don’t have any prior knowledge of coding or putting together a decent site, achieving the results that you want can be very difficult. So, outsource the work to a reputable web design company who know exactly what to do to help you get the best results.
- Business Blogging
Since your customers are constantly on the lookout for fresh, exciting new content, it’s never been more important to run an active business blog. But, coming up with new blog post ideas and then writing them all by yourself can be exhausting, especially when you have a business to run.
So, hire a freelance writer who can take on the workload for you. It’s up to you whether you pay them to manage your blog completely, or simply buy content to post when you don’t have the time. You can find an assortment of reputable online freelancers offering their services at ListingDock.com.
- Human Resources
Even if you only employ one or two people to work for you, it’s important to have a human resources department to deal with hiring, firing, employee grievances, and even employee perks and rewards. But, hiring an in-house HR team for a small business isn’t usually worth the cost.
Instead, you can find professional, experienced HR teams offering their services to small companies at affordable prices.
- Search Engine Optimization
Optimizing your website for search is a constant process. Not only do you have to regularly revisit and update your SEO strategies to stay competitive and remain current, it’s also important to stay up to date with the latest trends to ensure that your company doesn’t get left behind online.
All of this can be a lot of work for a busy entrepreneur to take on, especially if like many business owners, you have little prior knowledge of optimizing a website for search. Hiring a reputable SEO agency is a great investment; the initial cost can help you to earn more profit later.
- Social Media Management
With millions of people signed up to Facebook alone today, businesses must be present and active on social media to gain the best results. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and even Instagram are frequented by a huge portion of the population. So, it makes sense to utilize these sites to reach your target audience more effectively.
But, creating and sharing great written social media content, engaging with your customers in the comments, answering tweets and uploading awesome image and video content is very time-consuming. Thankfully, you can find freelancers around the world with plenty of experience in keeping a social media audience happy.
- Video Marketing
Video marketing is quickly becoming one of the most popular methods of advertising a business online. While sites such as YouTube have always been popular, the demand for video is on the rise, especially on social media.
Don’t worry, though – there’s no need to spend valuable time and money putting together your own marketing videos. Instead, you can find professionals online who create marketing videos for a living. This way, you can pay per-video and enjoy high-quality results.
- Email and Admin Tasks
Imagine how much time you’d save if you didn’t have to check your emails every ten minutes and reply to half the unread messages in your inbox? As a business owner, it’s important to get back to queries in a timely manner, especially if they are from your valued customers.
But, there’s no need to do it all by yourself – hire an experienced virtual assistant with great customer service skills to keep your email inbox up to date, create appointments, and do other administrative tasks that steal your valuable time.
- Market Research
No matter what type of business you run, getting to know your customers should be a top priority. The more information and data you have on your customers and their preferences, the more effective you will become at providing them with what they need.
The problem with this, though, is that conducting market research can be a lengthy process and you’ll need to reach as many of your customers as possible to get accurate results. So, hire somebody who can create great customer satisfaction surveys and engage with your customers via email and other methods to get to know them better.
- Contact Center
Although many customer interactions today are carried out online, don’t underestimate the need to be accessible via the telephone. Today’s customers may be more web-savvy, however, according to data, the ability to talk to a human over the phone is still very much preferred.
Running an in-house contact center can be expensive. You’ll need to think about purchasing equipment, hiring employees, and providing training, at the very least. Instead, you can outsource the work – there are many companies out there providing contact center and call answering services to business of all sizes.
Don’t burn yourself out by juggling every business task on your own! Outsourcing the work to reputable professionals will help you to save time and improve your work/life balance. And, it can often lead to better profits!
