Outsourcing: The Elephant in the Room

The first image that comes to one’s mind of outsourcing is of a smoky boardroom stuffed with corporate executives discovering ways to cut costs across the board, determinately drawing a conclusion on outsourcing the work to a competitive resource outside the United States. So, if you are reading this article, it is not about outsourcing jobs from the USA to India or China. NO, it is not.

The kind of outsourcing I am going to talk about is to help small businesses grow in some way or the other. Let’s be honest, as an entrepreneur, you have to invest in all aspects of your business. Moreover, as a small business owner, keeping individual departments alive and kicking may cost you an arm and a leg. The truth is, outsourcing is effective in cutting costs and if done properly, can result in higher growth for your company in the long run.

So how does a small business owner benefit from outsourcing? Laura Lee Sparks of Legal Marketing Maven says, “Most entrepreneurs have great talents but many times they think they can do it all. By outsourcing the day to day back-office tasks, the business owner has more time to focus on generating income.”

Quick Tips About Outsourcing for Small Businesses

Payroll

When you hire an accountant, you are not just hiring someone to do the day-to-day menial activities. It covers IRS rules, paying the right employment taxes, being aware of any change in federal and state tax law, and more. Besides that, you have to pay them a monthly salary with health benefits. In most cases, you are running into an annual salary of a minimum of 35,000 dollars. Most businesses outsource this job to a budget-friendly freelancer or trust software like QuickBooks to do the job. If you are just starting out, this should help you save time and additional costs.

Talent

This is again another space where high-quality team members are hard to find because of budget constraints. By hiring a freelancer using freelance websites, you can save time and money. Just put up your requisites on any reputed freelance site, for example, Elance, and witness competent resources competing against each other to get hired. For most businesses, instead of hiring part-time employees whom you will have to train, this is a much better cost effective measure.

Social Media

Social media connects small businesses with the public at large. However, trying to do it all by yourself or hiring a full-time webmaster to handle it, is a waste of time and money. Can you guess the age demographic who use social media better than anyone else? 14 – 25 years old. Kids as young as 14 know the ins and outs of any social media domain. However, as a small business, it is highly advised to go with a college kid who is competent and needs extra cash for school. People who are studying marketing as their major could use this as a paid internship. So it is a win-win for both sides.

Virtual Assistant

As a business owner, it is hard to keep track of everything on a daily basis. Handling customers, day-to-day appointments, phone calls, emails are not a walk in the park especially when you are on a budget. Keeping a check on your employees is also critical. To overcome these complications of everyday business, heaps of businesses and business owners prefer using online scheduling software like Setmore to simplify their lives. Besides, it saves you time, money (since you do not need to hire an assistant(s) to attend phone calls or customer emails), and helps you focus on what you love to do. You can sign up for a free Setmore account (yes, free account that remains free for life) now! How about Pro?

Keeping an eye on your employees is not always possible since you remain occupied with your requisites. Time tracking software like YoCo Board helps you keep track of your staff’s roster and working hours. You get detailed login/logout reports on daily, weekly and monthly basis that helps you compute accurate hours to pay them accordingly. It works perfectly for computing hours of your freelance resource as well.

To think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted. – George Kneller. We agree.