In these cases, many small businesses resort to outsourcing these functions to external entities. These entities could be freelancers, agencies, or subcontractors, and they could be engaged in either project-based intervals, over the short term, or as agreed upon in a multi-year contract.
Outsourcing doesn’t only help free up you and your staff’s time for more pressing operational needs, but it also helps you tap into dedicated experts who can potentially deliver better results to contribute to your business’s growth.
Furthermore, outsourcing also presents an opportunity for your business to save costs. This can help your small enterprise maintain a manageable cash flow throughout your entire operational timeline.
With that said, one may wonder: what business functions can be outsourced anyway? What are the best things to outsource as a small business?
This article will give you an overview of some of the most common functions that small businesses tend to outsource. Let’s dive right into it!
1. Content Marketing
When done right, content marketing can be a great siphon for inbound leads. This is especially true when integrated with search engine optimisation techniques and compelling call-to-action prompts.
That said, the entire discipline of content marketing is a time-consuming behaviour—from finding relevant topics to writing and publishing them.
A single, 1000-word, high-quality blog post can take you or your marketing staff an entire afternoon to wrap up from start to finish, and that could be time better spent on other marketing or operational needs.
Considering the time it takes to finish a blog post, and how often businesses need to publish a blog to build their inbound lead repertoire, this makes it the perfect function to outsource.
If you run a small business, you can consider outsourcing this task to external content writers. The right marketing agencies and freelancers have the expertise to drive traffic and convert prospects into customers at an affordable cost, all while freeing up your and your team’s time and resources.
The best part is that many of these articles can be used forever (as long as you keep the content evergreen)—or as long as you keep your website’s domain. This makes them excellent investments for helping your business grow and maintain its digital presence steadily over time.
2. Customer Service
Unless you want to be glued to your work phone 24/7, then you’ll benefit greatly from outsourcing your customer service to other companies.
Small companies need to build up a solid reputation to grow their customer base, and your customer service experience is directly responsible for ensuring that your customers are happy and willing to continue their patronage of your business.
That said, utilising only a single phone number or email address as a form of contact can be limiting. You won’t realistically be on your phone or online all the time, and some customers require an immediate response lest they bring their business elsewhere.
Considering these factors, outsourcing your customer service to more capable hands may be a sound idea.
Many companies use the latest tools to ensure that your customer service function is working at the ideal capacity. For instance, many Australian-based CS providers use specific numbers like inbound 1300 Numbers from Teleca to increase caller capacity and gather data and KPIs.
Furthermore, outsourcing also allows you to immediately tap into high-quality customer service representatives at a low cost.
You don’t have to go through a lengthy hiring and training process, as outsourced professionals are often already well-equipped with the tools and expertise to do the job right.
3. Accounting and Bookkeeping
If you’re a one-person team, spending the bulk of your workday getting your finances right can be a tremendous chore.
This is especially true once tax season rolls in, needing you to make accurate tax filing reports in order to operate and continue running a business without penalty, legally.
To free up your time, small business owners can consider outsourcing the bulk of their account and bookkeeping tasks to professional accountants or bookkeeping services.
Outsourcing your financial needs to these services not only frees your time, but it also gives you peace of mind knowing that your finances and taxes are dealt with by finance professionals.
These people are dedicated to ensuring that your business finances are on point and equally balanced, mitigating the risk of costly errors. They can also help in other finance-related functions, like processing payroll and dealing with debtors.
Furthermore, you can even tap into financial advisors who provide insightful consultations to help you find opportunities your business can capitalise on for growth.
In any case, hiring financial services can be a highly beneficial move—especially for strained business owners who need more time to focus on operational needs.
4. Legal Services
Unless you have a generous amount of capital to spend for an in-house, full-time lawyer, then you’re likely going to need to outsource one to save on costs.
Small business owners need to ensure that they’re compliant with local and national regulations to legally run their businesses. This means having all the required registration documents and licenses to operate.
Besides that, the dynamic nature of operating a business may expose businesses to lawsuits and complex situations that would warrant the presence of a legal representative.
Considering that such cases are fairly rare occurrences, it’s smarter for businesses to partner with an attorney on a retainer or an as-needed basis instead of hiring them full-time.
This way, businesses can access a wide breadth of legal services for a small fee since they’re not paying for a full-time lawyer. Furthermore, outsourcing a lawyer also allows these businesses to consult with their lawyer and gain insight on legal issues, like IP protection and dispute resolutions, at any time.
Considering the importance of legal protection, knowing a lawyer who can handle the legal part of your operation is a must, and outsourcing one is the bare minimum to access their specialised services.
5. Administrative Tasks
As a business owner, you wouldn’t want to be bogged down by repetitive and monotonous daily tasks. While you can automate them using specialised software tools, the quality isn’t always good or consistent. In such cases, having a human assistant pilot these tools is exponentially better than letting it run on its own.
You can hire freelance virtual assistants to conduct the bulk of the repetitive business operations for you. They can do things like schedule appointments, organise emails, data entry, and other routine tasks that may take hours of your day.
Furthermore, more specialised assistants can also help you with more specialised aspects of your business, like graphic design and blog creation. This can save you a lot of time and help you focus on the core aspects of your business instead.
Many administrative tasks can be taught and handled by a dedicated assistant. By getting their help, you can increase your business’s productivity and create a better working environment for everyone.
6. Social Media Marketing
Marketing is an essential component of small businesses as doing it right can help expand its reach and relevance to the community. That said, it can be a very time-consuming endeavour, and focusing on it can take time away from more productive duties.
Fortunately, this is one function that can be outsourced to more capable and free individuals. There are loads of marketing professionals and agencies in the market who can help increase your audience engagement with the right mix of creative content and engagement optimisation.
These people can create a timeline of content that can be scheduled to drive traffic and conversions to your business. By partnering up with them, you can have a bigger social media presence, which can potentially grow your brand and increase your revenue potential too.
7. IT Personnel
Hiring a full-time IT staff can be very costly, especially for businesses that are just starting out.
That said, for companies that use computers and technology on a daily basis, having a skilled professional overseeing the hardware and software of your company is crucial to ensure smooth operations.
Outsourcing your IT tasks can help give your business peace of mind in case it encounters any technical hiccups without breaking the bank. These services often provide on-demand assistance, allowing you to run your business smoothly and securely without having to pay for a full-time staff up front.
Specifically, these personnel can diagnose and fix technical problems, update software and drivers, and help safeguard business data from cyberattacks. In turn, this can help your small business remain productive and geared for money-generating endeavours.
