Entrepreneurs often make the mistake of believing they must operate every function in their business. While this might be true initially to cut costs, it becomes less necessary when your business grows, and you have more than a handful of customers to serve. Continuing to be a one-man operation will subdue the growth momentum that your company is experiencing.
You have two options that are available to you at this point of business growth. Grow your business at a slow pace so that you can take the necessary time on each business function to ensure high-quality work and that minimal mistakes are made. However, this could mean you lose out on potential profits that could be made because you do not have the ability to handle a large project or a big workload. Your other option is to outsource the tasks that you are not an expert in – to free up your time to focus on creating products, developing your services, and selling. This is how companies quickly scale their operations and become major forces in their industries.
Here are 6 business functions you can consider outsourcing:
1. Website traffic and conversions
Website visits do not necessarily always lead to conversions. When visitors are hesitant to make a purchase, it means that they need to be filtered through the nurturing process. It takes time to do this – time that you might not have.
There are multiple strategies you can implement to boost your conversions. These strategies include content marketing, product reviews, improving your sales funnel, and guest-speaking at engagements that are geared towards your target audience. You will need to determine which strategy works best for you and if you are able to combine them to maximise your results. The great thing is that you do not have to do this by yourself or do it in-house. You can outsource this to an expert who specialises in effective activities that will increase your conversions. As your conversions improve, your business will scale as you acquire more customers.
2. Customer support
The most challenging thing about being an entrepreneur is the amount of time it takes to gain the trust of people – and for them to commit to being your customer after. Trust is hard to earn but very easy to lose – even the slightest grievance can cause a slippage.
The reason this occurs though is due to bad customer service. Bad customer service can result from you being too busy with the growth of the company, to provide your customers with personable customer service. Unfortunately, this excuse does not matter to your customers. Should your customers not feel appreciated, they would have no problem moving on to a provider who values their patronage.
To resolve this problem, outsource your customer service to a virtual assistant who understands your business and your customers. You would want to hire an individual who is knowledgeable about your industry and prides oneself on providing your customers with the best experience they could possibly have.
3. Lead generation
Your business’s ability to create leads will impact how quickly it can scale in size to become a leader in its industry. Lead generation is challenging though, because it involves frequent engagement with your audience to nurture their curiosity into a desire to become a customer. This is time you can instead spend on improving the performance of your business to ensure that you are keeping your existing customers satisfied. However, you cannot overlook the lead generation process if you want to create a steady stream of customers.
Although it might be tempting for you to handle lead generation in-house, better results can be produced by allowing an expert to take care of this need for you. You might not currently be in the position to hire a sales team or to invest in advertising. Outsourcing to a lead generation company can help you increase your number of customers, consequentially allowing you to invest in building your own lead generation team within your company.
4. Inventory-tracking
Ordering and keeping track of inventory can be very tedious and time consuming when you have money-generating activities to focus on. You have to be sure that your inventory meets your needs so that you can properly satisfy the demands of your customers. While this is important, it is not something you can allocate your time to if your goal is to focus on growth activities. To rectify this problem, outsource the tracking and fulfillment of your inventory.
5. Effective content marketing
There are many businesses struggling to understand how to connect with their audience in order to create marketing campaigns that produce great results. Content marketing is a great way to establish trust with your audience, generating followers who can be converted into customers. Content marketing activities include blogging, writing an e-book, hosting a webinar, or creating a guide.
The problem that you may face is that you are not a great writer. This should not stop you from participating in content marketing. Outsource your content marketing needs to an expert who can create customised content for your business and potentially generate leads.
6. Financial analysis performance
Your company’s finances are a key aspect of your business that determines how healthy it is and where improvement can be made. It is important to the longevity of your company that you outsource your finances and bookkeeping to an individual or company who can ensure your business is in good health and stays on track for continued success.
Related Article: 13 steps to follow when creating a business budget
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