Small business owners often seem like they have no time and are constantly busy doing something to improve their business or to look after their customers.
Today we are going to look at some of the most time-consuming tasks a small business owner may face and we will also look at some of the solutions that can help you get back on track and make your company more profitable.
First up, it’s customer support.
Customer support takes up too much time.
Running a business will involve talking to customers especially if you have a product that has a learning curve or can cause your customers confusion. If you have a product or service like this you will know that customer support takes up so much time.
If you find yourself having to reply to customers all of the time and it’s taking up too much of your time you should consider outsourcing your customer support.
You can outsource your customer support by finding freelancers on the web. Some sites you can look on include Upwork, Freelancer and you could even look at local directories to look for local talent.
When hiring a freelancer our tip would be to hire a few of them and give them small tasks to carry out. Keep the freelancers that pass this small test and get rid of the ones that don’t.
Finding a freelancer for your business is difficult and be aware that they may go missing if you don’t pay them enough or treat them good. This is especially true if you use freelancers from other countries outside of your own. Hiring a freelancer from the Philapeans for example may seem cost-effective but if you are only paying the bare minimum chances are someone else will come in and pay that freelancer more and steal them from you.
If you don’t want the hassle of hiring a freelancer there are companies out there such as Tawk.to that you can use to install a live chat feature on your website and then you can pay an agent through their company to handle any enquiries you may have.
Using a service to handle general enquiries will help you generate more business as well as concentrate on the business that you already have.
IT Support takes up the time of small businesses
How often do you find yourself being inefficient because your hardware, software or computer network isn’t working as it should? If you answered quite often then it could be time to outsource your IT support to a company like us.
IT support covers a wide area of skills including:
- Network configuration.
- Cyber Security.
- Cloud computing.
- Data backup and recovery.
- Email set up.
- Malware and Ransomware removal.
Very rarely do business owners have the skills and knowledge to put together a network of computer systems that can perform to their highest levels while being safe and secure. That isn’t a bad thing either because most businesses we speak to in Ottawa don’t want to know the ins and outs of a computer system, they simply want one that’s efficient.
If you are a business owner in the Ottawa area that is being let down by the efficiency of their computer systems or you simply don’t know where to start, outsourcing your IT support and services can help you reclaim back more time so you can focus on what really matters in your business.
If you ask yourself the question “Did I get into business to become an IT expert?” and the answer is no, then you should probably outsource your IT support.
Small business owners need help with marketing
Unless your business is a marketing agency you will need help with your marketing. Even marketing agencies outsource their marketing as there are multiple areas of marketing and most businesses or consultants aren’t good at them all.
For example, you can get marketing agencies that specialise in paid ads. You can get marketing agencies that specialise in content creation and you can get marketing agencies that specialise in social media.
You may even find a marketing agency that offers all of the above, but in our experience, you are probably better off working with an agency that specialises in one area.
If you struggle with marketing and don’t know where to start, our tip would be to look at your competition and see what they are doing to get out in front of their customers.
If your competitors are using more social media than you and they seem to be doing well from it, you could focus there too. If you don’t know what to focus on with your social media you can hire a marketing consultant to do that for you.
Small business owners need help with admin tasks.
Do you find yourself replying to emails, setting up meetings, looking through old documents and payslips to make sure your business is running as it should? If so you could benefit from hiring an admin assistant to take care of all of these tasks for you.
Maybe half an hour here and there doesn’t seem like a lot of time when it comes to your daily routine but over the course of a year, it could be costing you thousands in business revenue.
An admin assistant could free you up so you can concentrate on growing your business further. Which in turn would pay for the admin assistant and more.
Outsourcing to save time.
Having time to focus on your business and its objectives could be the difference between staying in business or growing your business exponentially.
If you are having problems with any of the above scenarios you should consider outsourcing them to save you time. As we mentioned above there are many ways of finding talent including freelance websites.
As always, if you need help with your IT support or services please get in touch with us. We have helped many Ottawa based businesses with their IT support and we could help you too.