As a small business owner, you cannot do everything on your own. You should make it a point to outsource as many tasks as possible, especially those that are peripheral to your business and which don’t require a hands on involvement. So, what are the tasks that you can outsource, which would improve your productivity, boost your cash flow and cut costs to an appreciable degree?
Here are the top tasks that every small business should outsource.
Outsource Your Accounting, Tax Preparation and Bookkeeping – As a business owner, you will not have the time to prepare your own taxes or handle your own accounting and bookkeeping. Instead of hiring an in-house team of accountants, it is far better to take advantage of cloud accounting services such as QuickBooks hosting and outsource tasks related to accounting and tax preparation to an outside firm. Similarly, bookkeeping is a task that business owners often neglect and struggle to deal with. You should outsource your basic accounting and bookkeeping tasks to a professional bookkeeper, who is likely to use the latest technologies such as QuickBooks hosting, Sage hosting and Drake hosting to perform their tasks more effectively.
Outsource Your Marketing– As a small business owner, there is no need for you to handle the marketing on your own. Marketing is a specialist’s task and should be left to experts. You should outsource your marketing to a marketing consultant or a public relations specialist, who knows the ins and outs of the industry. They would be able to build your brand more effectively.
Outsource Your Payroll – As a small business owner, you should not concern yourself with tasks related to the payroll management. It is far better to hire specialists for this. When you do your own payroll, there is a possibility of getting into trouble with the IRS for not paying the payroll taxes properly. The IRS takes payroll taxes very seriously, even more so than personal income taxes. That’s why you should hire an outsourcing company to handle tasks related to your payroll management. This will ensure that you and your staff will have nothing to worry about at the beginning of tax season every year.
Outsource Your Social Media Marketing – The importance of social media marketing for a small business cannot be emphasized enough. But this is not something you should be doing yourself. Hire social media marketing professionals for such tasks, while you can focus on your core business responsibilities. But that does not mean that you can afford not to get involved in the slightest. Social media is a long-term growth strategy for any business, so it is important to dedicate at least an hour of your time to it.
Outsource Website Development, Pay-Per-Click Marketing and SEO – You should outsource most of your website development tasks. There are many top-rated web designers on sites such as Upwork, Freelancer and Guru who can do your web design for very affordable rates. Similarly, you should not attempt to handle SEO and manage pay-per-click advertising campaigns on your own. These are a specialist’s task, so hire online marketing firms for them.
