Declining economic conditions always cause businesses to look to their bottom line for cost savings. This inevitably leads to looking for ways to save both time and money. That is where business outsourcing comes into play. By outsourcing certain business activities outside of the company, this will help free up time and money to work on other projects that will not only help your business survive the economic downtimes, but thrive when the economy booms again.
So, let's go over seven of the most effective activities your business can outsource, so that you can begin to look to the future a little more profitably.
First, there is the dreaded bookkeeping and accounting. This takes time to do, and any slight mistakes can end up costing you. By outsourcing the daily financial activities, from bank account tasks, paying suppliers, to CPAs, you free up your time.
Second, you don't want to be handling your own taxes and your business activities also, so turn your business's tax activities over to a professional accountant, for both annual as well as quarterly tax needs.
Third, look to virtual assistants to handle the little things you are weighed down by every day.
Fourth, you know you need a web presence to stay afloat in today's economy. If you have a website, but it is taking up too much of your time, outsource the work to a web management guy. This person can focus on updating your site, and keeping the technical side of things under control for you. This includes getting targeted traffic and converting these to customers.
Fifth, there is marketing. Handling all the critical marketing tasks, from campaign creation to implementation, all by yourself is daunting. Why not outsource all your marketing tasks to a professional marketing group. Not only will they get the job done faster, they'd probably be more effective at it than you would be. This will save you time and money. They should be able to handle both online and offline marketing.
Sixth, the customer support for your business should be outsourced to a professional customer service help desk firm. They will handle live calls, concerns and communications between your company and your customers. These outsourcing customer service call centers can train their employees to represent your company, adding credibility to your business.
Lastly, data entry is often overlooked. Data entry was the first business tasks handled by an outsourcing agency, which used to be known as temp work. If there is a lot of menial computer work that needs to be done, this can be a huge drain on your time, so outsourcing data entry only makes sense. This is especially true when you have projects that aren't part of your regular routine. Seasonal data entry must be outsourced if you are going to stay on track.
When outsourcing these seven tasks, look to companies with established track records, where you know they will be competitively priced and will also meet your company deadlines.
