External Expertise: 10 Things Your Business Should Outsource
Did you know more than half of business owners outsource as a way to cut their expenses? Not only does outsourcing save you money, but it also saves time, gives you access to experts, makes room for flexibility, and helps you focus on the important parts of your business.
So, what is outsourcing?
In a nutshell, outsourcing is when you hire another company to take care of specific tasks within your business. While you can outsource nearly anything, most business owners choose tasks that are either repetitive or require a certain level of expertise to perform.
If you want to save time and money in your business, here are several things you should outsource.
1. IT Services
IT outsourcing is a common practice for many business owners. While outsourcing your IT services can save you money, it also offers many benefits for your business. You’ll enjoy reduced labor costs, the latest technology, increased efficiency, 24/hour support, proactive monitoring, faster response time, and more.
Best of all, your IT providers will reduce your risk by keeping your business compliant and protecting your company and client data.
2. Customer Service
Customer service is also one of the most common roles that are outsourced. The job of a customer service representative can be completed from anywhere, at any time. By hiring a company to service your customers, you can save money on staffing and overhead, while offering your customers 24/7 support.
3. Accounting
One of the many benefits of outsourcing is having access to expertise without having to hire someone in-house. This is true with accounting, another task you can outsource for your business.
While many small business owners attempt to DIY their accounting, this can lead to costly mistakes and even a stressful audit. Hiring a qualified accountant is a great way to manage your business finances while saving money in the process.
4. Social Media
Social media is essential for many businesses, especially if your business is online. However, managing your social media accounts can be a complex and time-consuming task.
Not only do you need to know what platforms work best for your business, but you also need to know the type of content that will reach and engage your audience. By outsourcing your social media, you can hire an expert and let them effectively manage your accounts.
5. Content Creation
Every business needs some form of content creation, whether it is blog posts, videos, copy for marketing materials, case studies, white papers, or more. While content marketing is one of the best methods to grow your business, creating content is time-consuming.
Content creation is ideal for outsourcing. You can have a well-established team creating the content you need for all of your marketing channels. This frees up time for you to focus on other areas of your business.
6. Payroll
Did you know many small businesses are still processing their payroll by hand? Not only is manual processing time-consuming, but it also results in a variety of errors.
By outsourcing your payroll, you can take advantage of the latest technology that offers many conveniences beyond payroll processing. Your employees will be able to request leave, update their personal information, and add or delete their direct deposit, all from an app on their phone or desktop.
7. Human Resources
Your HR department is responsible for all of the administrative tasks that keep your business running. However, the most important function of human resources is protecting your company from liability.
For this reason, it’s important to have a human resource department that is fully-staffed with qualified employees. Unfortunately, many small businesses don’t have the budget for more than 1 or 2 HR employees. By outsourcing human resources, you can have a fully-staffed department that will manage the administrative side of your company remotely.
8. Marketing
Much like social media management, marketing is a part of your business that is best left to the professionals. While DIY’ing your marketing is an option, the time you will spend learning the best techniques and latest technology can be put to better use elsewhere in your business. Outsource your marketing to a company that has proven results and can customize a marketing plan for your business.
9. Collections
Debt collections, whether business-to-business or business-to-consumer, is a tricky skill to master. Collecting debt is more than just persistently contacting a company or customer. You need a variety of skills, like negotiating, attention to detail, active listening, empathy, and more, to be successful.
If you hire an in-house team or individual, you will have to pay a higher salary for experience, or budget for the cost of training an employee without experience.
For this reason, outsourcing your debt collections is a smart way to save money and get results. You can hire a skilled team that knows how to connect and engage in a way that will encourage businesses or consumers to start paying you.
You can also outsource with ease as many collection companies work on commission and are only paid if they deliver results.
10. Data Entry
Data entry is one of those tasks that are necessary but also boring, repetitive, and time-consuming. Most companies handle large quantities of data that need to be entered, formatted, and updated regularly. Without realizing it, your employees can spend hours of their week simply entering data.
Many data entry companies can enter and organize your data faster and more efficiently than you or your staff ever could. If you have a data-heavy business, outsourcing this task is essential.
These Are the Business Tasks You Should Outsource
You can save money, time, and effort when you outsource these business tasks.
Customer service, collections, data entry, and content creation are all essential tasks that can be outsourced. You can take advantage of expertise by outsourcing your IT services, accounting, payroll, and human resources. Your company will also benefit from outsourcing your marketing and social media management.
Reduce stress and overhead by outsourcing these tasks.
Don’t forget to browse our site for all the latest news.
Trevor Anderson wrote this article on behalf of FreeUp. FreeUp is the fastest-growing freelance marketplace in the US. FreeUp only accepts the top 1% of freelance applicants. Click here to get access to the top freelancers in the world.
HTV Native Ad Solutions and Hearst partners may earn revenue when readers click affiliate links in this article.