In the book the E-Myth, Michael Gerber highlighted one of the challenges that small business owners encounter: balancing growth while trying to do everything alone. Many entrepreneurs have great skills and talents, but as the business grows, they soon realise that they have to juggle different roles to make the business work. They often find themselves overworked, stressed out and taken over by their day to day tasks. One strategy that is becoming popular among savvy entrepreneurs is to outsource. We have pointed out some benefits of outsourcing in an earlier article. If you are considering this tactic for your business, here are 10 tasks that you should outsource:
Outsource accounting and bookkeeping
Keeping your books in order is a crucial part of the business. It helps you stay on top of your company’s financial position and make adjustments when necessary. However, accounting is a time-consuming and a specialty trade. It has to be accurate and in accordance with accounting regulations. Outsource accounting and bookkeeping would give you access to skilled professionals. These experts will ensure that your business does not get into trouble. In addition to handling your books, Bureauserv can help you streamline and upgrade your processes. We can help move your accounting data to the cloud, or integrate your accounting and CRM systems. You can read more about cloud accounting here.
Outsource payroll processing
Another time-consuming, but integral part of the business is payroll processing. It requires attention to detail to keep salary adjustments from happening. Most importantly, you need to ensure that your staff gets paid on time.
Outsource lead generation and conversion
Sales is often a matter of numbers. That means, the more leads you have, the higher your chances to make a sale. Search Engine Land noted that average online conversion rate across industries is just around 2 percent, which means substantial investment in time and resources in order to get results. For small organisations, the best option is to outsource this aspect of the business.
Outsource email marketing
You have hundreds of prospects and inactive clients in your database. So, what you want to do is update them about new developments in your business, products/services or promotions. The problem is time or resources to send hundreds of emails. At Bureauserv, we use state of the art email software which allows us to send out bulk emails and gather useful information in a click. This way, information like email addresses that are no longer active, who opened your email and who clicked on the links are easy. Eventually, this will help you update your database and identify which contacts to focus on with your marketing efforts.
Outsource Administrative tasks
As a business owner, you could get bombarded with dozens of small tasks every day. These tasks could easily interfere with your core responsibilities. Hence, an administrative or virtual assistant can serve as an extra pair of hands. Outsource administrative assistant or virtual assistant will surely help you deal with routine tasks like maintaining your schedule or managing your emails. The best part is that you only pay for the hours spent in handling your tasks.
Outsource Data entry
Outsourcing data entry tasks will reduce your administrative burdens and allow you or your staff to focus on more important tasks. Whether it’s a simple copy and paste job or document and data digitisation, data entry is ideal for SMEs.
Outsource Website design and updates
Your website is the highlight of your digital strategy. It is instrumental in ensuring that visitors get the best impression of your brand. While website providers like WordPress, Wix and others have made it easier to create and maintain your company website, this isn’t easy to novice web designer. A professional looking website is a product of collaboration between different individuals. A good example of a perfect team includes a graphic artist, web developer, content writer, SEO expert and quality assurance staff. As a business owner, you and your staff may not have the time and resources to invest in learning all these and keeping things up-to-date.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
An effective SEO strategy starts with the website design – basic layout, navigation, URL structure, and content. But it should not stop with the completion of the website. SEO is a long-term strategy that should continue even after the launch of the website. We can work with you in identifying the best SEO service package that fits your needs and budget.
Outsource Social media management
Having a social media presence has become the standard for businesses. With the variety of social media sites, creating accounts and keeping them up-to-date overwhelms an average entrepreneur.
Outsource Customer service
You may equate personal attention with excellent customer service but as your business grows, you may realise that answering calls is interfering with your productivity and ability to provide quality service. Aside from ensuring that calls are handled professionally, outsourcing your customer service to an established company would give you access to Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology, improved reporting, call monitoring and quality assurance.
Regardless of how passionate you are about your business, you cannot do everything alone, nor is it practical to hire a full-time staff to do a few hours of work. At Bureauserv, we offer customised service to fit your business requirements, contact us and we can help you explore your options.
