Business owners already have a lot on their plate – the demands of running a business involve a ton of juggling to make sure everything runs smoothly. However, in order to grow your business, you may need to start outsourcing a few processes that are better managed by other people.
In 2007, author and entrepreneur Timothy Ferris published The 4-Hour Workweek. And while the title of the book sounds a bit far-fetched, the book contained a lot of great advice on how you can use outsourcing to grow your business.
But exactly what areas can the average SMB owner use outsourcing? In this article, we’ll explore some of the areas that are most likely to help you grow your business faster by outsourcing.
Hiring Employees
Businesses tend to spend a lot of time and resources on hiring new employees. From reviewing candidate applications, to conducting interviews, to the onboarding process, it’s estimated that the cost-per-hire is around $4,000 for the average company.
Outsourcing your recruitment efforts to an RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing) provider can save you thousands. A professional RPO company will thoroughly evaluate the best candidates for your business and make sure that you get the most qualified applicants, so you don’t waste time on interviewing or training unsuited candidates.
Marketing and Sales
Some business owners have found great success in outsourcing marketing and sales. While many SMBs believe marketing is a relatively easy DIY process these days, such as placing ads on social media, the truth is that hiring a professional marketing agency can save you thousands in ad spending per year.
This is because a professional marketing agency won’t make the same mistakes that you would. The marketing agency will use proven strategies to reach the right audience and make sure your messages are understood.
Marketing agencies often also offer on-site training and provide you with ongoing support. This makes them invaluable for smaller businesses that are trying to grow their sales.
IT Management
Hiring IT staff is a crucial task for modern businesses, and it’s quite difficult to put together a great IT staff if you aren’t familiar with their work. This is because IT is increasingly becoming an important part of any business’s bottom line.
There are many ways you can outsource IT management to reduce the costs and stress associated with keeping IT secure. A number of IT management companies specialize in helping companies migrate off of cloud-based solutions and onto managed IT services.
Companies like techspertservices.com specialize in providing cost-effective onsite-and-offsite IT services for SMBs. Whether it’s setting up your system architecture to deploy virtualization, security, backup or disaster recovery services, an outsourced IT company will be able to quickly assess your requirements and get you off to a great start.
Accounting
Many SMBs are surprised to learn that the average accounting professional makes approximately $55,000 per year, and for a small business this is a huge money-saving opportunity.
The reason accounting professionals make so much money is because most businesses don’t think of their accounting departments as a budget line item. But by outsourcing your accounting tasks to a professional accountant, you can save hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
The reason many small businesses don’t think about outsourcing their accounting is because they see these tasks as part of their role as the business owner.
But if you want your business to thrive, you have to develop a plan for handling the financial side of things. Outsourcing this work to an expert accountant who can help you plan for the future and make smart financial decisions can save your business thousands of dollars a year in accounting fees, as well as tax benefits.
Clients Relationships and Email
If you ask most business owners what area they spend the most time, a lot will tell you email follow-ups. In fact, surveys reveal that biz owners spend around 32% of their time on email, compared to 25% on employee interaction, and 21% on customer interaction.
If you want to spend time focusing on more productive tasks, such as strategic business planning, then outsourcing your email correspondences is a great way to free up valuable time in your busy day.
You can hire a virtual assistant to take care of your email correspondence. Train them in your writing style, give them templates to follow, and then you don’t have to worry about it. You can spend more time planning for the future, such as growing your business.
As mentioned in this article’s intro, Timothy Ferris’ book The 4-Hour Workweek spent a lot of time promoting the notion of outsourcing to virtual assistants. One of the best quotes from the book is:
“Great VAs will use templates for answering your email; my assistant Amy uses more than a dozen specific templates to handle my inbox overload.”
HR Services
HR services are another area that SMBs often struggle to budget for. For example, a hiring manager may spend 12 hours per week on HR duties. And while SMBs often don’t need a dedicated HR department in their early days, many will find the need for HR consultation to grow as their business grows.
An HR consultant will often cost less per hour than you’d pay your HR department. Plus, they’re able to give your business advice on everything from recruiting and training to retirement, benefits, and all of the employee benefits.
Outsourcing your HR duties to a PEO (Professional Employment Organization) gives you more control and better management of your payroll, 401(k) accounts and other employee benefits, making it easier for you to focus on your bigger business goals.
Many outsourcing companies offer HR services, which will help you decide whether to outsource your HR duties or hire a full-time HR employee to do it for you.
