Tasks Your Start-Up Should Outsource

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10 Nov. 2018. When you start out in business and working for yourself, it can be a large juggling act. There are so many different aspects that you have to look at, from the finances, to the marketing, employment, and so on. And when it is your business idea and your dream, it is so tempting to want to do all of it yourself. When you have the plan and want to get the ball rolling with it, you can be really hands-on, especially in the early days.

But try as you might, it is going to be very difficult for you to do absolutely everything yourself. There may be some things that you are really experienced in and it would make a difference to you if you were able to do them. But there will be many tasks that can easily be outsourced to others.

Why outsource? One of the reasons why outsourcing can be good for your small business is that you are hiring professionals or experts within their own industry. You might have an idea when it comes to creating a website,for example. But when you’re not entirely sure, you could spend a whole day trying to get it looking as you want it, and that is precious time for your business.

So instead, you could hire a professional and they’d be able to meet your requirements but do it in nearly half the time. Saves you time and in the long term, that will save you money. Outsourcing can be cheaper too, as you don’t have to pay someone full-time. You simply pay them for the work that they do, rather than fo just turning up as you’d do with a full-time (or even part-time) employee.

Web design was mentioned there, and is definitely something that can be outsourced quite easily. But what else? If you are starting out in business, or will be shortly, then making a plan of who will do what, and the kind of timeline that you are looking at is going to make a difference. So with that in mind, here are some of the things that can be easily outsourced. It can lighten the load and leave you time to do all of the things that only you will be best at, to help your business and vision come to fruition.

Money and accounts

When you’re someone starting out in small business, you are never expected to be able to do everything that the business needs. And one thing that only some people will have experience of is accounting and all things relating to the small business and money. When it comes to tax forms, tax returns, refunds, expenses, payroll, and anything else accounting related, it can be quite easily outsourced to someone else. They just need your information and the receipts and so on, and they will be able to organize and arrange it all for you, as they know exactly what they will be doing.

Video content

For your advertising or marketing, and even your social media channels these days, video can be really good to capture the attention of your potential customers. In fact, it is often listed as one of the top things that can be done to help your digital marketing effort, as mentioned in an article here: https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/video-marketing. And if you have no real experience of video, especially for these kinds of channels, then it can really pay off to use professional help.

You will want to create a brand that is professional looking, and not just like you filmed something on your phone and threw it all together on your laptop and uploaded it. Someone who does this for a living, or as a hobby that they have really honed their skills in, is going to make something that looks much better. So it is worth hiring the, to get the video content looking exactly how you want it, and as professional looking as you want it.

Marketing

Video content is part of your digital marketing, but there are so many other aspects when it comes to marketing, as well as advertising, and other promotions. For small businesses, they can rarely afford to do all of this themselves (financially and on a practical level). It can be full on for someone doing that each day, which you might not have scope to do at the moment. So look to hire agencies to handle this kind of thing for you. You can call on them when you have a launch or a specific campaign that you’re working on. It will save time, effort, and will mean that all work is done to a good standard. Even if you have experience of this, your time can be better spent doing things elsewhere.

Transport and logistics

If you have products that need to be moved from a warehouse or storage and off to different locations, then managing it all yourself can be tricky, as well as time-consuming. Which is why outsourcing for the transport and logistics side of things can be a wise decision. Look at sites like https://www.jayde.com.au/ to see the kind of things that someone else could offer to you, and then you could go from there. When you outsource in this way, it can also help you to make the business larger and deliver to a wider region. So it is definitely something that has the potential to help the business to grow.

Content creation

All small businesses need a website. And as such, will need someone to help to create the content for the website. Not to mention that as part of the website, it helps to have a blog for the business. This can help your site to be found in online searches, as well as increasing traffic to your site when you have exciting, interesting, or relevant content for people to read. But who is the person that is going to create that content?

It can be expensive and not the best use of an employee’s time to do this. Which is why hiring a writer, copywriter, or social media content creator, to write this kind of thing for you. You could pay per article, or perhaps just ask them to create ten pieces of content all at once for a set fee. They could create the content for your business’ blog, as well as social media channels. It is all important for the growth of your business, but isn’t something that the top people should be doing.

Admin and time planning

The admin side of running a business can be pretty difficult. As there are is a lot to organize and arrange. Plus, in the early days of the business, and as it grows and progresses, there are plenty of people that you need to meet with and arranging it all, although important, can be such a time-sucker.

So to save your time for the more important things like prepping for the meetings and planning pitches and so on, it can be worth outsourcing to an assistant to arrange these kinds of thing got you. A VA (or virtual assistant) can set your schedule for you, and deal with the admin side of things like arranging transport such as taxis, airport bookings, and flights. This can be done remotely, and you’ll just need to email and call them with details for them to then set up and arrange. So it is something that can be really worth doing. Plus, it is something that can be paid hourly, and at a pretty low rate. As they’re unlikely to be needed each day, it can make a difference to your budget, and give you plenty of time (and sanity) back.

Your weaknesses

As the business owner, director, or CEO, there are plenty of things that you can be doing for the business (and it can be tempting to want to do it all yourself). And there will be some of the tasks that you quite easily can do yourself. But when you own a business, it is important to be humble and make sure that you are getting help where your weaknesses lie. You can’t do everything as the business owner, and it takes someone special to accept what they’re not as good at and then do something about it.

So the best things to outsource for you, can be those things that you’re just not as good at. Even if you could physically do it, it is going to be better in the long term when you outsource for the things that you are not as good at. It can be hard to do but needs to be done.

Is there anything else that you would add to the list? Outsourcing really can be one of the best things that a small business or startup can do. It gives you the time that you need to grow it, all until you need or are able to hire employees. It would be great to hear what you think.

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