Managing a business is a time-consuming and tedious endeavor, and attaining success means putting in the time and effort for important activities. However, you may be putting too much focus on repetitive administrative tasks. While these tasks are critical to running and growing a business, you may be spending too much time on them instead of building networks and expanding to new markets.
Savvy business owners know that outsource helps them automate their back-office operations and retain more time for activities that are tied to business growth. If you believe your business is missing out on valuable opportunities, consider outsourcing your most essential tasks.
Here’s a list of the things you can let someone else do while you work on your business this year:
1. Calendar management
For many people, scheduling and adjusting appointments don’t require much work. On the contrary, calendar management involves more than just setting up meeting reminders and checklists. It also involves knowing what to mark as urgent, high-priority, or postponable.
You need to employ critical thinking in order to come up with schedules that leave you with enough time to spend with your family. Consider hiring a remote assistant to help you organize your meetings and priorities for each day.
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2. Booking business trips
If you travel a lot as an entrepreneur, you will want to focus more on getting the most value from your trips. Anyone can book a flight or arrange for car rentals, but these are things you wouldn’t have to deal with when you have a more important agenda to keep up with.
Having someone prepare your travels is a great time-saver. It saves you the trouble of finding the best rates for plane tickets and hotel rooms. Not only that, you won’t have to deal with having to dispute a canceled reservation or seat. Outsource these to a remote admin assistant gives you peace of mind.
3. Email management
According to a report by CNBC, Americans spend an average of five hours a day checking their email. There is no harm in sifting through newsletters, sales pitches, and event invitations, and you wouldn’t want to miss out on a potential opportunity that might slide into your inbox.
Then again, you can do a lot more with those five hours you spend sorting emails based on their importance and sending proper replies. For this reason, you are better off letting someone else do it for you. Look for a remote assistant who has an eye for detail and excellent organizing skills to help you find value in each communication that flows right into your inbox.
4. Answering calls
If you are a busy person, you wouldn’t want to be bothered by telemarketers and other non-essential phone calls. The best way to get around them is by hiring a virtual receptionist who can take these calls on your behalf, evaluate their level of priority, and schedule a call back if you are out of the office.
Many virtual assistants have front desk experience, so it shouldn’t take you long to find someone with excellent communication skills. The way you answer calls affects your reputation, so it would be best to hire a virtual receptionist who can put your business in a good light.
5. Project management
Do you have a major project in the works? You may have a team for that, but you don’t have to spend most of your time being hands-on, and there’s a good chance you may have other projects that are in the pipeline. You can’t expect to manage different teams directly.
Whether it’s developing a website or starting an online masterclass course, managing a project is a complex task. It involves checking timetables, delegating tasks, sitting down with team leaders to solve recurring problems, and making sure the goals of each project are met.
Fortunately, you can ease all of this up by getting someone to act as a project liaison. Their job is to review progress reports, make minor decisions, and gather insights straight from each team. That way, you won’t have to delve into the finer details of making sure your projects are going smoothly.
6. Social media management
Nowadays, it’s impossible to run a business without a social media presence. Entrepreneurs depend on platforms like Twitter and Facebook for almost anything that nurtures the growth of their brands. Social media allows you to build your reputation, influence buyer decisions, and seek out networking opportunities, but managing your social media profiles across these platforms takes a great deal of time and effort.
Social media management involves researching what the market is talking about, creating content that aligns with current trends, and seeking the brand’s following. All of these require time management skills and creativity. There are also rules you need to follow, from knowing the best time to publish social media content to knowing the right publishing frequency.
Fortunately, you can always get around these challenges by simply letting an agency or a freelancer handle your social media operations. Be sure you end up with someone who has proven experience in digital marketing. Your brand-building and networking efforts will benefit immensely from someone who knows how to create effective and shareable content and how to publish such content for the most views and engagements.
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7. Paperwork and documentation
Regardless of your industry, you are never exempt from processing documents. As your business grows, the number of regulations you need to follow will expand and you will need to process the needed paperwork in order to comply. This is true when you are converting your setting up a multi-member LLC. You will need to prepare your articles of organization and keep accurate meeting minutes in case a dispute happens among members.
From a legal standpoint, effective documentation helps you steer clear of committing violations and starting unnecessary conflicts with other parties (think of costly patent disputes). The only problem is that few business owners have the time or the patience to do any paperwork.
Much like everything else on this list, you can outsource corporate documentation to the right service provider.
According to Benjamin Walker, the Founder, and CEO of Transcription Outsourcing, “if you are preparing transcripts for focus groups and quarterly meetings, you can use an online transcription service to help you with recording information accurately.”
You can also have a virtual secretary prepare an archiving system for all of your essential documents.
8. Online research
If you are looking to expand your business across borders or increase the number of products or services you are offering, it’s always important to do extensive homework. You can’t have a great plan if you don’t have all the facts laid out in front of you. Likewise, you could set yourself up for failure if you rely on hunches or hearsay.
You want your plans to have a solid foundation if you are aiming for greater goals, but research can take a great deal of time to complete. In addition to using a search engine, you also need to conduct surveys, read articles and marketing reports, and interview key people.
If you don’t want to relive your college days by doing any research, consider getting a person to scour for the information you need. Having your online researcher that can work around the clock to generate insights will help to support your initiatives, especially if you are planning a major event or promotional campaign. Make sure to outsource your online research to someone who has had experience in business development, statistics, and journalism.
9. Website maintenance
Your website serves as the main producer of opportunities. It helps improve your online presence and engages people who might end up buying a product or signing up for a service. Building and maintaining your official website isn’t something you do on your own. It requires creativity and technical know-how to run a website that’s well-designed, intuitive, and functional.
On top of that, you also need to make sure your website is adequately protected against the latest threats. Installing security plugins and complying with international data privacy standards are crucial for reducing your business’s exposure to cybercrime.
If you are used to using drag-and-drop website builders, you might want to graduate to more sophisticated platforms such as WordPress. You just need a team of web developers to help you with both backend and frontend elements. By choosing the right people, you can easily build a website that’s engaging, easily navigable, and secure.
10. Personal errands
At times, personal tasks can get in the way of your productivity. In addition, they can also keep you from spending quality time with your family.
You might find it helpful to outsource your personal errands to someone else. A remote assistant can help you gain more time for your business as well as the better things in life. It can be writing a report for your post-graduate class or maybe finding a nice place for a summer outing.
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Final Words
Are you committed to growing your business this year? Start outsource these 10 essential tasks and maximize your time and effort towards exponential growth!
Web developer and SEO specialist with 20+ years of experience in open-source web development, digital marketing, and search engine optimization. He is also the moderator of this blog "RS Web Solutions (RSWEBSOLS)".
