Outsourcing is a great way for businesses to receive the assistance they need without having to hire in-house teams or pull resources from daily tasks. Whether it’s content creation, social media management, technical support or HR, offloading tasks you don’t have the time or skills for as a business owner can help move your company forward.
Before you start hiring agencies or contractors, it’s important to identify the tasks that make the most sense for your business to outsource. Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Below, 14 members of Forbes Business Council shared the tasks they believe business owners should consider outsourcing to maximize their own productivity.
1. Non-Core Competencies
Businesses should outsource only those tasks which will not be part of core competency. Core competency provides a sustainable competitive advantage. For example, hiring or accounting may not look like a core competency for a product company. However, if done right, these two things can help product companies build better and fast and bill faster. Core competency strategy should decide what to outsource. – Puneet Gaur, Next Quarter
2. Cold Calling
Cold calling potential clients is a proven strategy that works. However, it can be very time-consuming for your team to do so. By outsourcing your company’s cold calling efforts, you can reap the benefits of doing so and ensure your team is running at peak efficiency. – Greg Welborn, First Financial Consulting
3. Engineering
Outsource when your engineering capacity is maxed out and it’s slowing down sales, but be very careful how you engage with outsourcing. It takes a lot of research, data and due diligence to make the right pick. – Sean Languedoc, Global Talent Accelerator
4. Social Media Management
I think the answer will be different for each business. For us, using an outside call center to rent storage units seemed like a great fit. Unfortunately, it created more challenges than solutions for us, so we brought the calls back in-house. One task we have outsourced successfully though involves social media management and marketing. Hiring a pro has made way more money than the cost to hire them! – Chris Clear, Clear Storage Group, LLC
5. Operational Tasks
Outsource operational tasks that are outside of your core competencies and that don’t necessarily need context about your business. This will leave space for your employees that are more in contact with your culture, business and strategy to focus on things that will add value and contribute to your end goals. – Karim Zuhri, Cascade Strategy
6. Marketing Efforts
Marketing is a full-time job and there is no way I could run my business while also doing marketing for it. I tried but it was impossible to run a medium-sized company, keep focused on quality control and run our marketing. – Tammy Sons, Tn Nursery
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7. Tasks That Don't Require In-Depth Brand Knowledge
Outsource anything that doesn’t require brand or cultural emotional intelligence. This will likely mean different things to different organizations and maybe include things like IT, accounting or legal. If you feel the person in that role would make better choices because of their personal or intimate knowledge of your team, don’t outsource it. – Noah Mishkin, CraftJack, Inc.
8. Brand-Building
Building a brand is where you will need the real help of professionals that have connections in media. It takes forever to reach out to journalists by yourself. Relationships decide everything when it comes to expanding your media presence, so don’t waste your time trying to get published on Techcrunch by yourself. – Valeriy Makovetskiy, Everytalent
9. Payroll
Outsourcing your payroll operations allows your team to focus on core operations improving overall productivity and time management. It takes the internal focus off of compliance and administrative pay issues while also giving you access to the latest technology and better data security. – Chase Flashman, ShipSigma
10. Repeatable Tasks That Can't Be Fully Automated
If you are doing anything low-touch or repeatable that it can’t be fully automated, then it can be outsourced. I have five VAs that do these tasks but also graphic design, social media planning and management, executive assistance and also bookkeeping. It has been incredible for me, my businesses and the outsourced talent because they love learning and also appreciate making a difference. – Natasha Miller, Entire Productions
11. Server Infrastructure Management
First, outsource to the cloud. Don’t manage your own server infrastructure. There are too many managed services attached that help optimize operations and offerings. Next, outsource anything far outside your expertise, but use caution. If someone else can make a business out of it and profit, you might be throwing away dollars and profit margins while not learning how to manage it internally. – Anthony Dohrmann, Electronic Caregiver, Inc.
12. Administrative Tasks
It depends on which industry you are working in and what tasks you need help most with. For example, those in the legal field may need help with admin tasks such as research, records filing, appointment setting, etc. In my case, I started with appointment setting because this is what I need help most with before. Outsource a position that is tailored to your business needs. – Pavel Stepanov, Virtudesk
13. Copywriting And PR
Outsource positions that have flexibility in areas such as hours or time spent in the office. For example, if your main marketing strategy involves social media, every word counts. Hiring a copywriter can take your vision and bring it to life with the appropriate text. If you need help pitching your concept during strategic times such as product launches, hiring a publicist might be beneficial. – Kelley Higney, Bug Bite Thing
14. Areas Where You Lack Expertise
Outsource expertise. When you call upon another business to help optimize a task, you’re not just receiving said deliverable, but also years of experience in that discipline. As much as you may want to handle things internally, self-awareness about your team’s limitations is a skill worth its weight in gold. – Veronica Buitron, TangoCode Inc.
By now, you would have some ideas of what task(s) in your business you should outsource to boost your productivity. Outsourcing saves you time, money, increases efficiency and potential hassles from over-staffing.
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