Top 7 Business Tasks You Should Be Outsourcing
The success or failure of your business is a direct result of your productivity. If you work efficiently it will reduce your costs and increase your profits. On the other hand if you waste time, energy and money, your profits will suffer along with your business. You may soon join the ranks of 9 out 10 startups that fail (per Forbes).
Dictionary.com defines outsource as: “verb – to obtain goods or services from an outside source.” This can mean anything from hiring a local temp service to creating a virtual staff from around the world. By outsourcing you free your time to do the things you love and also lets you work in your strengths. Following are 7 business tasks you can and should outsource.
Managing your inbox
Do you find yourself drowning in email hell and spending way too much time there? It’s very easy for entrepreneurs to spend more time managing their email than they can afford. You can easily outsource this task to a virtual assistant. He/she can filter your email, create autoresponder content, answer customer service emails and more. This will free you to do more important tasks.
Content creation
Outsourcing content creation can free up a significant amount of time each week also. You should outsource writing blog posts, editing videos, writing articles and other content creation chores. One thing you should absolutely outsource as soon as fiscally possible it proof reading.
Social media management
Networking on social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter can be fun. However, it can be a major drain on your available hours. You can outsource some of this interaction to a trusted team either in house or virtual.
Customer follow-up
Even if you are a solopreneur, your time is probably better spent if you outsource basic customer follow-up. Your customer service professional should be communicating with your customer base on a regular basis. Be sure to train your customer service team member on the way you want all interactions with customers handled and on the company brand. Your goals are to:
- Build customer loyalty
- Learn how to improve your service or product.
- Stay current on what your target audience wants.
Public relations
If you are an entrepreneur it is important to have your face and voice connected with your brand. If you are branding yourself, it is definitely a necessity. There are many public relations tasks that can be outsourced inexpensively though. These include writing press releases and monitoring your reputation on line.
Web development
Entrepreneurs often decide to do their own web development and design. Unless you are a web designer this is one task that is better left to a professional. The amount of business you will lose by having a poorly designed website will more than pay for a professional site. When you add to that the cost of your time on what can be a mind-numbing and tedious task, it’s just not good business to build your own site.
Calendar management
Appointment setting, rescheduling, coordination, travel booking and other business calendar tasks can be as much of a black hole as social media. An entrepreneur can spend so much time managing their calendars that they don’t have time to run their business. This is another area that you can outsource to a competent virtual assistant.
Not sure what you can outsource? Write down everything you do in the course of your day and assign a time to each task. Be realistic and record the actual time you spend on each task. For example, you may plan to spend 15 minutes on Facebook but you know it always turns into an hour. For each task, multiply the time factor by your hourly rate. The result is what you could allocate to outsource this task. Are you surprised?