One of the perks of working from home is that you can do all the work you love while sitting in your pajamas. But what about the stuff you don’t love doing?
There are tasks that need to be done in every business but don’t necessarily bring the business owner any joy. Why spend your day doing things that you don’t enjoy when you can outsource those tasks and focus on the deep work that you do love?
We know outsourcing may cost a few bucks, but the savings of time and the headaches are totally worth the investment. Here are five important tasks every business owner should outsource.
Accounting & Finance
It goes without saying that accurate, up-to-date financial records play a critical role in a company’s success. However, it can be difficult for small-business owners to effectively juggle and maintain the mountain of daily financial tasks, which often end up falling to the bottom of their lengthy to-do list and becoming a burden. This can include invoicing, late payments, collections, balancing the books, and more.
Using an online platform, such as Freshbooks or Quickbooks, entrepreneurs can easily outsource nearly every aspect of the accounting process, from bookkeeping and managing accounts payable/receivable to budgeting and financial planning. This type of system also helps you keep things in line to increase your cash flow.
When it comes time for taxes, hiring a skilled financial expert relieves the burden of navigating the long list of tax laws and reporting requirements associated with managing a company’s finances – ultimately avoiding costly mistakes.
Human Resources
As a business grows, the management of HR becomes increasingly complex. No two companies face the same challenges, making it challenging to stay on top of the latest changes in laws, regulations, and trends. Outsourcing this area allows small-business owners to streamline and more efficiently manage HR administrative functions.
Payroll, in particular, can be a huge undertaking for a small business. It goes well beyond simply calculating hours and salary payouts for employees. Some of the more involved tasks include adjusting payroll taxes at the correct rates, cutting and distributing checks, filing tax returns on time, and keeping up with changing wage and hour laws. And a single mistake can trigger a tax audit and cost a company thousands of dollars.
It also allows small-business owners to streamline the hiring and onboarding process, more easily track employee time and attendance, and better manage their group health insurance, retirement plan, and other employee benefits.
Marketing & PR
In today’s ever-evolving marketing landscape, more demand is being placed on companies than ever before. However, most small businesses lack the capital and resources for a marketing team to handle all of the moving parts of a solid marketing strategy – from branding and a website to content and social media.
Not surprisingly, this often falls on the plate of a small-business owner, who simply doesn’t have the time it takes to consistently and effectively produce valuable content that will resonate with their target audience and generate leads.
By outsourcing marketing and PR to an outside agency or freelancer, small-business owners can remain competitive in their industry by leaving those tasks to experts whose job it is to stay informed on the latest marketing trends and tactics that will grow their business.
Ultimately, this helps entrepreneurs save money, free up their time for larger projects and build better relationships with customers – resulting in more success over the long run.
Content Creation
Unless you enjoy writing and are good at it, one of the first things to outsource is content creation. From the creation of email marketing newsletters to blog posts designed to draw traffic to your website, hiring an expert to prepare what you need is a smart idea.
There are business owners who spend hours trying to create landing page copy and social posts — and it sucks away their time and energy. Once you get to the point where you can afford to hire good writers, outsource most of your content creation.
Admin and Processes
Anything that is an administrative or a repetitive, repeatable task should be outsourced. Not everyone may feel they are at the level where they need to outsource their scheduling and email needs. However, you might get to the point where having an assistant to manage your schedule makes a great deal of sense. Perhaps having help with entering orders into your system would relieve more stress than you think.
If you feel overwhelmed by email, interview requests, and other mundane items, a virtual assistant can help out. There are scheduling apps that can make things easier, but sometimes you need a personal touch. Outsource to a virtual assistant, and you might be surprised at how much extra time you have.
With the right team and the ability to delegate at least some of your daily tasks, you can free up your time so you can concentrate more on building your business and making it more profitable.
Bottom Line
Ultimately, the benefits of outsourcing far exceed any challenges when it comes to operating and growing a small business. By freeing up valuable time, outsourcing back-office tasks allows small-business owners to focus their time, energy, and resources on what really matters – cultivating their most productive year ever, developing a solid strategy, and taking the business to the next level of its growth stage.