Running a business is difficult and most small business owners make it more difficult by trying to do everything on their own. By not recognising your skills and weaknesses you could be focusing on areas within your business where you are least efficient.
Knowing where you need help is half the battle and outsourcing or hiring someone to help you in the areas in which you find more difficult is going to help your business become more profitable and successful.
In this article, we will take a look at some of the areas that small business owners really need help with.
Small business owners need help with recruiting.
Recruiting is difficult for all business owners. Bigger businesses however can take the risk of highering and firing more quickly as they have larger budgets to play around with.
Small business owners on the other hand don’t have that luxury and will need help with the recruiting process. Recruitment is difficult because at points in your business you will need to recruit very quickly to match the demand for your services and at other points, you will need to take your time to pick out the right candidate.
If you are a small business that needs help with finding the right staff, you will need to hire a recruitment agency that understands your business and can send the right candidates to you.
Small business owners will need help with marketing
Marketing can make or break your business as there is so much competition out there you will need to stand out one way or another.
Small business owners will need help with marketing their business if they want to generate sales or leads for their services. Marketing has so many channels it can be difficult for some small business owners to know where to start.
Our advice would be to have a look at your competitors and see where they are most active. Some of the ways you can market your business include:
- Cold email.
- Email marketing.
- Search engine optimisation.
- Pay per click ads.
- Social media marketing.
- Content marketing.
Finding the right channel for your business is going to be key for your business growth. Some businesses would be better off using paid ads to generate sales while others may be better off using social media marketing.
As a small business owner, you should research the potential areas that could be used to generate leads for your business and then look for a freelancer or an agency that you can hire to perform the work for you.
As a small business owner, you could learn marketing yourself but the downside of this is that it takes the focus away from your business. When hiring someone to carry out your marketing it’s important they are affordable but don’t hire someone that seems too cheap. A cheap marketer probably won’t get you good results so keep this in mind.
Some tips to improve the chance of hiring the right marketing team for your small business include:
- Check out their past work and results.
- Ask for a list of past customers.
- Ask if they have experience in your industry.
Depending on the form of marketing you choose for your business you should know that some take time to see results. Search engine optimisation and content marketing for example could take months if not years to start generating leads for your business.
If you need leads or sales quickly, in the example above you would be better off using other forms of marketing such as cold calling or cold emailing and Pay Per Click adverts.
Small business owners need help with customer support
Customer support is something that small business owners need help with. As a small business owner, you may not have the time to provide your customers with after-sales support so hiring someone to help can improve your customer’s experience, making them far more likely to buy from you again which will increase your profits long term.
Outsourcing your customer support can be a cheaper way for small business owners to provide support while keeping their costs down. Some businesses will have a live chat function on their websites which customers and potential customers can use to talk to a business.
You can hire a freelancer online to provide support through this live chat function as well as help with any help desk software you may already have installed within your business.
Small business owners need help with IT Support
All small businesses will need a computing system at one point to run their business. A computer system can help with stock management, task management, communicating with customers, sales, marketing and everything else a business needs to run.
As a small business, you may not need help with IT support right away as your processes and tasks may not overwhelm you. As your business grows though you may need help with determining the best network configuration or security protocols to keep both your data and your customer’s data secure.
A small business owner may not have the technical skills to carry the above out so in this situation they would benefit from hiring an IT support company.
An IT Support company can help you with:
- Securing your network.
- Building your network.
- General troubleshooting and maintenance.
- Cloud storage.
- Recovering your data.
- Malware and Ransomware removal.
- Email set up and support.
For a small business owner maintaining and building a network that’s secure and runs efficiently is going to cause them more headaches than they would like so we would highly recommend outsourcing your IT support and services to a company like us.
Small business owners will need help with accounting and taxes
Hiring an accountant to handle your businesses finances will not only save you money but will keep you from getting in trouble when it comes time to file your taxes.
Filing your business taxes can be difficult so having an expert to help will allow you to get back to running your business as soon as possible. Having a skilled accountant will also help your business from paying too much in tax and they will be able to show you how your business could be saving money.
A good accountant is needed by all businesses.