Many business owners know that outsourcing can save them time and money. However, they might not know how many different tasks they can outsource to their virtual assistants or other employees. In addition to the apparent administration functions, there are also several other things you can take off your plate by handing tasks over to somebody else.
What should you outsource in your business? In general, you want to outsource tasks that require a lot of work and time but produce little value. So, whether you’re just starting or have been in business for many years, there’s probably at least one thing you can delegate to somebody else that will help improve your workflow.
This article will cover different things you can outsource in your business. Let’s get started.
Email Management
The first and probably most apparent task you should outsource is email management. Unless you’re a one-person team, it’s almost impossible to keep up with the number of emails that your inbox receives daily.
This aspect of your business can become even more overwhelming if you send and receive many external emails. Delegating this task to an email management specialist can free up your time so you can focus on more critical business matters.
Handling Social Media
Social media has become a significant part of marketing, but it’s also time-consuming to find new content and post updates regularly on every channel. Suppose you’re struggling to keep up with all of your social media platforms, especially for multiple businesses.
In that case, it might be time to outsource the task to somebody who can provide more value than you could do yourself. You can hire someone independent or ask one of your employees to take over this responsibility for you.
Research
When you’re getting ready to launch a new product, marketing campaign, or another initiative, you’ll need to conduct thorough research on your competitors. Doing this type of work yourself can be exhausting if you have multiple businesses. Instead, it’s best to hire an outsourced researcher who can give you more insight into what your competition is doing.
Accounting & Bookkeeping
Every business needs a good bookkeeper to review the accounts from time to time and make sure everything is running smoothly. It can be someone you hire as an independent contractor or delegate this task to an existing team member. In addition, your virtual assistant might also be able to help out with at least basic bookkeeping tasks.
Customer Service
Customer service is another area that can be draining for business owners. It’s not easy to solve problems quickly and efficiently, especially if you receive dozens of inquiries daily.
Instead, consider hiring somebody who can take care of this task for you, so you don’t have to worry about it anymore. Virtual assistants are great for this type of work because they know how your business runs and what customers might need help with.
Customer Retention
When you outsource customer retention tasks to a virtual assistant or another team member, it will free up time so you can focus on growing your business instead. That way, you won’t constantly spend hours figuring out how to improve your marketing campaigns and retain the customers who already know your business.
Marketing
It’s difficult for many businesses to conduct marketing campaigns on their own because they need more than just creative skills – it takes time, effort, focus, and consistency.
For that reason, it’s best to outsource some of these responsibilities, so you can spend less time worrying about marketing tactics and executing strategies. Virtual assistants are great for creating content, running social media campaigns, and more.
Writing
Writing tasks are another great thing to outsource if you don’t have much time for this type of work yourself. Your virtual assistant can write blog posts, content for your website, press releases, product descriptions, and more. In addition, many journalists are willing to break some off their services or run a special deal on pricing if you’ve hired them before.
A good example of this is Andreas Grant from Networks Hardware, which outsourced the writing to specialists. Both to increase the content quality and free up time for himself.
Translation
If you want to expand your business overseas, ensure that you don’t face any language barriers. You can hire an individual or find a translation company to help with your translation needs. Once this is outsourced, it will be like having team members based in multiple countries and able to communicate with customers on their terms.
Customer Acquisition
When you first launch your business, you must acquire as many customers as possible. Having more customers means it becomes easier for your business to grow over time because there’s more demand for your products and services.
However, if you’re not spending enough time on customer acquisition activities yourself, consider hiring somebody who can do it for you, so you don’t have to worry about it anymore. For example, virtual assistants can help with marketing campaigns, blog posts, and other initiatives.
Lead Generation
If you want more customers, you need a steady flow of leads going through your website. Outsourced lead generation via virtual assistants is one of the best ways to do this because they’ll be able to create content that gets people’s attention, so they’ll want to learn more about your business.
However, bear in mind that hiring somebody without experience could result in wasted time and money on both ends if you’re not careful – therefore, always make sure they’ve done this type of work before so there are no misunderstandings later on down the road!
Conclusion
Outsourcing specific business tasks is a great way to save time and money because you’re not the only one who benefits. However, outsourcing is more expensive than doing something yourself – so you must look for somebody who can drive results as quickly as possible. It can be not easy if you don’t know where to start – so consider finding somebody with experience in your particular business niche.
Suppose you outsource small tasks, such as customer support or answering emails. In that case, there probably won’t be much of a difference between an outsourced worker and an employee (or even yourself).
However, outsourcing large projects like marketing campaigns and lead generation will help grow your business since these initiatives require months worth of commitment and dedication before they’re effective. So if you’re looking to grow your small business, then make sure you outsource the right tasks, so there’s enough time and energy left for everything else.