When you first start out in business it can seem overwhelming, especially if you are creating or delivering the product or service yourself. Marketing, sales, accounts, customer service and admin can’t be ignored if your focus is elsewhere and trying to do everything can lead to burnout. This is particularly true when your business is growing.
Know when to outsource
The extent to which you are able to carry out all the tasks involved will depend on the people in your business and your individual skill sets. But at some point you will recognise your time is precious and you will need to make a decision about where you need to focus your specific skills and time for the good of the business. Knowing when to outsource work could be the difference between success and failure.
The how and the what
Outsourcing tasks today is easier than ever. You have websites for freelancers with services on offer covering the whole spectrum of tasks you may need for your business from graphic design and coding to PR and admin. Its worth considering what can be outsourced and how you can access those services. Below I’ve listed some pointers to get you started.
Marketing
If you need help building and maintaining your social media accounts try Freelancer, Upwork or people per hour for freelancers able to manage these for you. You could also look at digital marketing agencies. 50poundsocial for instance offers social media management services aimed at start-ups at an affordable price.
If you are using a freelancer check out their social media accounts, both personal and business. You would want to know they have relevant experience in a business context. Check reviews before engaging a freelancer in this field. This is your brand and your social media is your voice to your customers. Once you find someone you are happy with check their posts on a regular basis to be sure they are in line with the image of the business you want to project.
Copywriting services for PR articles and blogs can be created by engaging the services of professionals on freelance websites. Freelance writers should be able to direct you to examples of their work and feedback from customers. Alternatively you could try writing services such as offered via Copify or blog writing services.
Sales
Sales is a sticky subject for some people. I cover these subjects in getting leads, routes to market and the role of marketing and cold calling a business or member of the public.
If this is an area you would prefer to leave to others you can look for freelance sales professionals on upinsales or through a sales consultancy such as Artemis.
If the Telemarketing approach would suit your business better contact them directly. There are many to choose from as a simple Google search will illustrate. In the UK you could try, for instance, The Telemarketing Company.
Accounts
Unless your business is book keeping or accountancy you may want to consider outsourcing this work to others. Make sure whoever you consider for this work is affiliated to a professional body. Freelancer or other such website where freelancers can list their skills such as Upwork are a good place to look for professionals. Book keeping services will likely be offered locally to you so look in the local newspaper for advertisements. Accountants may have offices in the high street if you want to meet and discuss financial matters in person. Such services are also offered on the internet and a simple Google search should produce results.
Customer services
How you treat your customers is important if you want them to keep coming back. You need to consider what kind of support you need in this area. Gathering information and feedback will not just help you improve your customer service but it will help you tailor the product or experience of the service better to your target market. There are online tools, such as Zendesk that can be used to enable customers to ask questions and get answers from other customers. You can integrate a ticketing system with your website so your customers can contact you with a defined time within which you guarantee to respond.
You may prefer to offer a personal touch with a person on the end of a phone line instead. Freelance customer service professionals can be found on sites such as People per hour or Freelancer. Alternatively you could contact a Virtual PA to do the work instead.
Admin and IT
If you need some help fielding the calls in to your office or when you’re not available to answer the calls a telephone answering service might come in useful. You can usually ‘pay as you go’ or on a monthly basis.
A Virtual PA will take care of all admin related work from typing, diary management and booking hotels and flights to answering telephones on your behalf. You can use a company offering a range of services including a virtual business address or if you would prefer to select your own PA you might want to consider a freelancer instead.
For graphic design, web design, software development or app development a freelancer can be found on Freelancer, Upwork, Peopleperhour or any other website listing the services of freelancers from around the world. If you want support setting up a computer network or for other hardware related tasks you may also be able to find a IT professional based locally via these websites or you could outsource to companies such as Sirius or Support instead.