Tags – Services Small Businesses Can Outsource
Outsourcing is when a business obtains a service from an external provider, rather than dealing with it in-house.
As a small business, there are many advantages to outsourcing, with the biggest being you can achieve more and allow trusted professionals to achieve important tasks and processes, without having to employ staff you cannot afford.
In other words, outsourcing means you can keep costs under control, increase efficiency and focus on parts of the business you’re good at (and enjoy!).
If you are still not convinced, here are 11 reasons why outsourcing will help you grow your business:
Of course, as an entrepreneur you probably see your business as your baby and it can be hard to let go, but as competition increases and you want to grow the business, you will have to ditch the “I can do it all myself” mentality and offload back office tasks.
However, it’s important you outsource the right areas of your business, and if you’re looking to scale upwards, there are certain services that can be highly beneficial.
With that said, here are 5 services that every small business can outsource.
1. Digital Marketing
A lot of businesses ask themselves the same question: should we outsource digital marketing to an agency or do it ourselves?
In theory, yes, you can do it yourself.
But in reality, it can often be a much bigger challenge than expected.
The reason being, digital marketing is a whole different world of its own and it consists of many facets, endless possibilities and ever-changing features.
In order to grow, you need a well planned digital marketing strategy, but it can be difficult to understand every single element.
However, by outsourcing this service, you will have an agency full of experts in their field who will have access to special tools for faster, more accurate research, analysis and quicker implementation, which means you can achieve business goals much faster.
Not only that, but it is much more cost effective; some marketing tools are expensive, but outsourcing means you can save these costs and you get access to high-end tools without committing to a subscription yourself.
Lastly, digital marketing agencies work together with a variety of businesses across different industries, which means they have the know-how to make a website or make a campaign perform; outsourcing gives you a new perspective on how to approach and adapt your marketing efforts.
2. Sales
Outsourcing your sales function could include a few things like: market research, lead generation or handling inbound and outbound calls.
Generally, this is outsourced by those businesses who do not have the resources or time to expand their sales process.
Typically, a salesperson spends most of their time updating spreadsheets and CRM systems, and travelling to meetings; only 36% of their time is actually spent on selling.
With that said, outsourcing sales is not for everyone.
But, if you have a small team that cannot cope with the volume of leads generating or you’re a startup looking to scale across new demographics, outsourcing can be the perfect solution.
Moreover, if you’re tight on budget and cannot afford to hire a new employee, or if there is a lack of expertise in your existing team to handle specific sales functions, you can outsource some tasks and only pay for what you need.
3. Accounting
As many small businesses are operating on tighter budgets, some have found that outsourcing accounting is a great way to keep quality up whilst keeping costs down.
And, one great benefit of outsourcing this service is that it provides an opportunity to improve your existing financial processes, as they will instil best practices that improve the efficiency of data.
Furthermore, this can save you time as you can spend less of our day overlooking payments and payrolls, which means you can redirect your focus on growing the business.
For further detail, you can check our previous blog here where we discuss reasons why to outsource your accounting function.
4. Customer Services
For small businesses, having a dedicated customer service team is not always an option.
Often, other staff members have to deal with this function which means dividing their time on keeping new customers happy, as well as fulfilling tasks for existing clients.
However, you can outsource this to an external call centre or chat service to handle your support services on your behalf.
Simply, you can choose between:
- Multichannel support: giving customer service across multiple channels, like online and offline messaging, social media, email etc.
- Omnichannel support: collecting customer information in one place that is easily accessible for agents across different touchpoints
And so, you will need to weigh your options up carefully as this will depend on your business needs.
At the end of the day, they will be interacting with your customer base directly, so they need to sound exactly like your in-house team; be sure to clearly state your brand guidelines, specify what can and cannot be said and run through hypothetical situations to ensure you’re both on the same page.
5. Human Resources
Administrative responsibilities can be a nuisance for any company.
But, for smaller businesses, managing human resources (HR) can be quite the burden.
Simply, small business owners have very limited time and resources and you can’t afford to divert your attention from core business functions.
However, outsourcing HR can free up your time so you can concentrate on your business objectives.
For instance, HR providers can take care of processing payroll, managing benefit plans, recruitment, training and so much more.
Plus, HR professionals are trained in specific fields and will have in-depth knowledge that an employee in-house may not have, as well as understanding legislations and ensuring legal compliance.
Take a quick look at our previous blog on why small businesses should outsource the HR function here.
Rounding Up
Overall, outsourcing certain services can have a huge, positive effect on growing businesses and provide cost-effective solutions to help you thrive.
Also, you cannot disregard other advantages like lower risk (as they are trained in their fields, meaning it’s less likely for something to go wrong), better compliance and more control over resources.
But more importantly, outsourcing helps you to avoid wasting time, money and talent on activities that can be better handled by experts outside of your business, which means you can focus “on” your business, rather than “in” your business.
Please get in touch to find out more.
In the meantime, please check our digital marketing services.
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