At first, the entrepreneur is a jack of all trades. However, as time flies, you begin to see the adverse effect of handling too many things at the same time and biting more than you can chew. The ability to focus and avoid distractions is one important quality, every entrepreneur should imbibe. So, the entrepreneur should outsource some tasks.
Focus is important when building a brand, but it’s extremely difficult to focus when you’re handling too many things. You would end up not giving your best to the many things you have to handle. Therefore, it’s important that the entrepreneur should outsource certain tasks.
One major trait of successful entrepreneurs is, they know when and what to outsource. They don’t handle many things, they just pay attention to the 20% aspect of the business that yields 80% of the result. This 20% aspect of the business is what they call the core, and this is the part of the business that they handle themselves and give their utmost attention.
Growing customer bases, staying organized, and ultimately raising revenue should all be the core for small business owners. As a value-focused entrepreneur, focusing on taking your business from point A to point B should be on the front burner. This takes a lot of mental work and creativity. Which is why it’s important that you have the time to do it. You can only have the time when you outsource the things that are not core.
See Also: Reasons why your company should be outsourcing.
What The Entrepreneur Should Outsource
The entrepreneur should not outsource everything; knowing what to outsource and what not to outsource is very important. Let’s take a look at some of the things the entrepreneur should outsource.
1.) Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is huge and should not be ignored by small businesses. But, it can be a huge distraction because a lot of work is involved in creating the right social media strategy, developing content, and putting the content in front of the right audience.
Fortunately, there are seasoned digital marketing agencies who specialise in different areas of social media marketing. Engaging these agencies will make your marketing effort effective because these agencies understand what works and what does not work.
2.) Bookkeeping And Payroll
Bookkeeping, an important task for any small business can be tedious and time-consuming for any business. Keeping track of accounts payable, filling out a timesheet, filing taxes, paying invoices, and so on is time-consuming. The entrepreneur should outsource these tasks and focus on the core of the business.
There are countless firms out there whose primary function is handling these types of tasks for companies. Outsource the task to them and focus on your core.
See Also: Free growth hacking tools for entrepreneurs and small business owners to achieve growth.
3.) Content Creation
Entrepreneurs can outsource their content creations to freelancers or content creation agencies. Creating content, publishing the content, and distributing the content to the right audience is a lot of work. If you don’t have the right expertise to deliver this aspect of your business, you can outsource it to people who have the knowledge.
Content creation ranges from social media content, website content, blog content, landing page content, email marketing content, and so on.
See Also: Reasons why your company needs content marketing.
4.) Customer Service
It is no longer news that robots are replacing humans in the workplace, especially those in the customer service department. Customer service is becoming increasingly important in today’s competitive marketplace, especially for small businesses.
If your business deals mainly with customers online or over the phone, you can outsource your customer service to a call center or chat service. You’re in business because of your customers, so the way you communicate with them is important. Therefore, ensure that the company you outsource this key role to have the expertise to execute.
5.) Manufacturing
As a small business owner that is into manufacturing, setting up a factory or a production plant can be capital intensive. So one of the best bets for small business owners is to outsource their production.
Most Fortune 500 companies outsource certain aspects of their production. If outsourcing will help keep costs low while maintaining a good standard, by all means, outsource.
6.) Shipping And Logistics
Shipping and logistics are singlehandedly one of the most outsourced arms of businesses. There is literally nothing as distracting as handling the logistics aspect of your business. If your core business is not logistics, then, by all means, outsource this aspect of your business to companies that have the expertise to deliver.
7.) ICT Management
The Information & Communication Technology (ICT) industry is one industry that is known for on-demand services. It is one of the largest outsourcing industries around.
You can outsource to a managed service provider or work with a firm that offers on-demand assistance to handle tech-related issues. This will be cost-effective for an entrepreneur, whose startup’s core product or service is not IT solutions.
8.) Scheduling And Administrative Tasks
It’s easy to get occupied with all of all these small tasks that eat up your time each day. You need to focus on the 20% core which drives 80% of your business.
Some people go as far as hiring a virtual assistant on an hourly basis. This will help you eliminate a lot of wasted time spent on emails, appointment-setting, and other repetitive tasks.
See Also: How to write a growth plan for your business.
9.) Outsource Your Weaknesses.
As a business, you have your strengths and weakness. The best approach to life is feeding your strengths and starving your weakness.
Check your team, highlight your processes and daily operations, and know where your strength as an organisation lies. Then, outsource those areas where you and your team are struggling. If there is anything an entrepreneur should outsource, it should their weakness.
10.) Cleaning Services
Even in the middle of the tech-driven, and remote work society, a lot of entrepreneurs still have office outlets. These outlets need to be kept tidy. And, you don’t need to be the one doing the cleaning when you have a business to run. You can outsource all your cleaning needs to a cleaning agency and focus on the core of your business.
Conclusion:
No matter what, entrepreneurs should not attempt to do everything themselves. Critically look at the benefits of outsourcing a task and the advantages of having the same task in-house before you make your decision on what to outsource.
What are the things your business currently outsources? What tasks do you think the entrepreneur should outsource? We will like to hear your thoughts in the comment.
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