Top 5 Tasks Business Owners Should Outsource
When you’re running your own business, you’ll quickly learn that there are some tasks you can easily outsource. Yes, these tasks are necessary to the day-to-day operations of your business and you won’t be able to expect any sort of significant long-term success without them. But having them done by a full-time member of your staff? That part isn’t necessary.
In fact, it might be detrimental for you to try to assign some (or all) of these tasks to your full-time staff members because:
Those full-time staff members might not have the level of expertise you would get from somebody who dedicates their full time to carrying out these tasks.
Those full-time staff members have other responsibilities that they should be focusing on instead—you would get better productivity if they weren’t pulled away from their main job to do something that isn’t within their realm of expertise.
Think of outsourcing a task as having your own mini department for hire—because that’s essentially what it is. Your company isn’t big enough to justify or afford a full-time department to handle each one of these tasks. So you could contract an expert to fulfill the non-full-time amount of work you have for them without having to pay them a full-time salary or benefits.
Depending on your business, you might need a full-time department to handle some of these tasks. Or you might need these tasks done to such a limited extent that it’s easy enough for you or a full-time employee to take a half-hour a week to handle it. Let’s take a look at five tasks you may consider outsourcing.
Marketing
There’s so much that goes into marketing—you need somebody who is going to come up with strategies that resonate with your audience, get their attention, and successfully turn leads into customers. It’s not as easy as posting to Facebook a few times a week. When you hire a team of marketing experts, you’ll be giving your business a competitive edge over other businesses that might not be using these experts.
Outsourcing your marketing also gives you a fresh perspective. As the business owner, you might think you know what it is about your business that resonates with customers, but an outsourced marketing team can let you know what consumers these days are really looking for and how/why your business fits that need.
Accounting
An accountant keeps track of all numbers related to your business—not only how much you’re bringing in but also how much you’re budgeting for certain aspects of your business, how much you’re actually spending, and how much you should be prepared to pay in taxes.
Keeping the books for your business isn’t the kind of task that you can let fall by the wayside, but it’s easy for you to do that if you’re not taking the time every day to look at the numbers. An accountant can give your books the attention and upkeep they need. They can stay objective about the expenses you’re spending money on and how they balance with the profit you’re bringing in. Additionally, an accountant understands tax law, so they will be able to help you properly allocate the funds you’ll need to withhold for taxes every quarter and how you can minimize the amount you owe.
IT
Just because a person is computer savvy doesn’t mean they are good with IT. A professional IT team can diagnose all problems related to your company’s tech and fix them much more quickly than the average person with even fairly extensive knowledge.
Additionally, an IT team will be staying abreast of changes and updates within the industry and will have access to the best resources.
Administration
There’s a reason so many companies are hiring outsourced virtual assistants (or VAs). Because there is so much that goes into running the administrative side of a business and most of it is busywork that the average employee doesn’t have time for. When you let a VA take care of it, you have someone giving their full attention to these tedious but crucial tasks: transcription, data entry, proofreading, web research, and much more.
All of these administrative tasks can be done by somebody who doesn’t have deep knowledge of your company and most of it can be done from a remote location. Most VAs for hire today offer choose-your-own services so you pay for the tasks you need to be done.
Payroll/Human Resources
You don’t want somebody who is anything less than an expert handling your human resources tasks. This role requires somebody who understands taxes, workplace ethics, and compliance issues so they can ensure your company is taking care of its employees the way they legally must be cared for.
HR comes with a steep learning curve, so outsourcing this to somebody who does it every day makes much more sense. It’s also more convenient for your business than ever before to outsource this work because today’s technology offers enhanced security of payroll data.