People become business owners because they dream of a life they can live on their terms. The reality is that entrepreneurship has a steep price.
About 49% of entrepreneurs suffer from at least one mental health issue. They’re more likely to abuse alcohol and other substances.
Entrepreneurship is stressful because you’re responsible for every part of the business. This often leads to burnout and other problems.
There are ways to become a smart entrepreneur. There are services for businesses that you can use to help you run different parts of your business.
Are you wondering what to outsource and what you can keep in-house? There’s good news on the horizon. Keep reading to learn the top things to outsource and how to outsource those tasks.
1. Administrative Tasks
How much time do you spend at the computer on email, scheduling meetings, and sending thank-you cards?
These are all tasks that are necessary to operate, but you can find ways to delegate and automate them. For instance, you can hire a virtual assistant to send email follow-ups to clients.
They can also send thank-you cards after meeting with a prospect or new connection.
You can use automation to handle some tasks. For instance, you can create autoresponders to cut down on certain repetitive emails.
Another way to spend less time is to use services for businesses that filter emails. These services take general subscriptions and put them in a separate email box that you can read or delete later.
2. Graphic Design
The business brand is one of the top things that you need to have a thriving business. Unless you’re a design expert, you need to hand off the visual aspects of your brand to a designer.
They can design a logo, flyers, create a brand book, design promotional items, and digital marketing assets.
3. IT Services
You might run your small business from a single laptop, or you might have a whole network to worry about.
No matter what your situation is, you have to be concerned about IT and security. Businesses of all sizes are targets for hackers. Someone can hold your information for ransom, leaving you stuck.
Just imagine what would happen if your network goes down for a day. You’d lose a day’s work and money.
IT services like these services help businesses manage every part of the infrastructure.
4. Tax Filings
Businesses often get lost in the maze of tax laws. There are federal taxes, payroll taxes, state and sometimes local taxes.
It’s hard to know when you have to pay taxes and for how much. Missing a deadline turns into fines and penalties for your business.
Take the stress out of taxes. Hire a CPA that has experience in your industry.
5. Lead Generation
Many businesses struggle with lead generation. You don’t have to because there are services for businesses that handle different types of lead generation. Companies that focuses on lead generation in the Philippines are in demand for both small and medium enterprises because of the effective strategies they utilize in converting leads to sales.
Some will contact connections on LinkedIn, while others will focus on funnel marketing. To outsource this task and be successful, you have to have a clear idea of your target market and what you offer them.
6. Website Development
There’s more to website development than installing WordPress. This is ideal to outsource if you accept payments on your site.
Good website developers build functional websites for performance. You want to make sure that you have a website that is fast, because that impacts your SEO.
The best scenario to build a website is to have a graphic designer design the front-end of the site and a developer code it.
7. Legal Issues
You are likely to deal with service contracts and other legal issues in your business. For instance, did you know that you could violate copyright laws by posting an image on your website?
This is why you need to have a good business attorney by your side.
8. Manufacturing
Do you have plans to sell products in the future? You could sell supplements, sunglasses, branded t-shirts, or anything else you can imagine.
You’d have to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars to create a manufacturing plant. Fortunately, there are manufacturers that you can outsource to.
Some handle everything from manufacturing to shopping and logistics. You can then focus on sales and lead generation.
How to Outsource and Delegate
Most entrepreneurs are reluctant to outsource. They think that they’re the only ones who know their business and can do the related tasks.
That’s a recipe for burnout.
There are a couple of ways to outsource and delegate tasks. Productivity experts say that you should dived your tasks into revenue-generating tasks (closing sales) and non-revenue tasks.
You’ll find that you spend most of your time on things that don’t generate income for your business. Make a list of all of the non-revenue tasks and divide them up by importance.
Repetitive tasks that are easy to do can be delegated. You can outsource them or find ways to automate them.
Another way to outsource is to look at areas that pose the biggest risks to your business. For instance, what would happen if you fall behind on your taxes or get audited?
What would happen if you’re facing a lawsuit because you didn’t perform services according to the terms of the contract?
These are very real issues that businesses face every single day. This helps you prioritize things that require specialized expertise, like accounting, IT, and legal issues.
You can then focus your attention on delegating the small administrative tasks to free up your time.
It’s Time to Leverage Services for Businesses
There are plenty of services for businesses that you can use to be more productive. Take advantage of them to get more time and realize the dream of being an entrepreneur.
You should focus on the ones that lower your business risk and personal stress. Then turn your attention to eliminating the repetitive tasks that don’t generate revenue and take up a lot of time.
Do you want more great tips to grow your business? Check out the other articles on the blog today!