Do you have too much to do? Here are 6 things to outsource
If you've got a long list of projects you need to complete, then it's the time to recruit reinforcements. There are six things which you can outsource to a freelancer or virtual assistant.
If you are an entrepreneur, then your plates are always full.
The tasks just keep piling up. There are a lot of emails to check, you've got 1717 Excel spreadsheets open You haven't looked at your social media alerts within a week, and you keep catching typos following the timeyou compose blog post.
The number of things you'll need to accomplish is way too long to be handled by one individual. You can't tackle it all by yourself -- which is fine.
It is time for reinforcements. For example Virtual assistants (VAs) and freelancers.
Outsourcing repetitive tasks will give the time to concentrate on developing your business. From inputting data into your systems to the management of social media an array of jobs that consume your time and can be outsourced to a third-party.
In this post we'll go over six things that you can delegate in order to reduce time (and improving your mental well-being).
First ask yourself if outsourcing is actuallyworth it?
Yes, and we'll explain how and why.
Why outsource tasks or jobs to an assistant virtual or freelancer?
It's even more so considering this perplexing stat: Workers are more likely to devote 2.8 hours a day doing productive work.
If you're the sole owner of your own business, this figure will be more for the person who works in full-time. It's likely that you're doing things that do not provide the best use the time you have.
When you delegate those low-growth, repetitive tasks to the freelancers, or to the virtual assistant (VA), you can make more time on higher-growth to-dos.
Hire an expert for the work you aren't willing to devote your time to (or that you don't really like working on).
There is a way to save money as well as time when the hiring of a full-time employee.
The benefits of this are the reason 70 percent of medium and small firms (SMBs) employed freelancers, with 81% affirming that they will continue to employ freelancers.
Employing a virtual team such as freelancers or VAs -- has also been shown to increase productivity.
Researchers have found that remote workers can be at least 13.5 percentage points more productive over their office counterparts.
All in all outsource your task to freelancers, or a VA can help you take some of your least favorite work-related tasks that have the least growth potential off your list, freeing your time to concentrate on expanding your business.
So, you have one more question to consider: what tasks can you delegate to an outside firm?
6 tasks to outsource if you're running out of time
1. Administrative and organizational tasks
When we think about outsourcing work to a virtual assistant , we usually think of outsourcing tedious tasks such as data entry or transcription. These are certainly part of many VAs work.
They also aid entrepreneurs with an range of tasks. This is probably the reason the world outsourcing market that includes VAs increased to 92.5 billion dollars in the year 2019.
The most well-known VA assignments include:
Management of calendars and scheduling
Data entry
Project management
Event planning
Email marketing
Contacts, follow-ups and outreach in PR
Controlling accounts payable, invoicing and recording expenses
Customer support involves the management of accounts for social media accounts.
CRM software management
Analyzing competitors
Converting video and audio files
Vendor management
Webinar management
Marketing via social media
Phew. If the list seems to include a wide range of abilities, it's because VAs are some of the most versatile team members out there.
If you're searching for an VA ensure you know which tasks you want the VA to concentrate onin addition to that, you must have the funds available to compensate them in accordance with their abilities.
Current rate of demand for VAs are:
$25-40 per hour for general admin skills
Advanced capabilities
50-$50 per hour or more for skills that are specialized
Since we're in the interim period, we could look at more particular jobs that can be outsourced- like accounting and bookkeeping.
2. Bookkeeping and accounting
If you're like I am and you're nota numerals person there's many things that you'd prefer to do rather than doing the math.
Now, if you're earning less than five figures in your company and don't have many expenses to monitor, you'll be able to handle the finances of your company with a program like the QuickBooks .
If your earnings are higher than that, working with an independent accountant could simplify the task of managing the books out of your fingers and assist in reducing your management of finances.
Accounting is among the most often outsourced business processes .
And there's a good reason why. Accounting is one of the main tasks of smaller businesses, particularly in light of the fact that 29percent of start-ups fail due to cash.
Plan, organize, and be sure to pay your quarterly tax
Make sure you control the flow of cash
Follow and keep track of the
Contrary to software that is used for accounting and accounting software, an accountant or bookkeeper will give you individualized advice and respond to questions in greater depth since they are familiar of the tax concerns that you have to deal with.
Some bookkeepers even specialize in helping professionals in specific fields. In this case, Friedman, Kannenberg & Company PC is a specialist in bookkeeping and accounting services required by bands, musicians as well as music equipment vendors as well as music schools.
If you want to find an accountant who knows the specifics of the field you work in, Google "accountant specializing in your field of work".
If you're a small company owner, accounting services are one of the most important things you need to think about outsourcing (unless you are really looking to analyze tax laws (which I'm not going to make a judgement).
Alongside the tasks that require a lot of numbers such as data entry and bookkeeping, it is possible to outsource your tech or creative tasks too.
#3 Web design and development
Users take about 0.05 minutes to form an opinion about your site.
This is why the presence of a trusted web design company in your corner matters.
Your site must be visually appealing, easy to navigate, and informative. And, in today's time of instant access the website must be swift.
26.9 per cent of online users must wait less than four seconds for the webpage to load. 45.4 percent of users reported that they are less likely to buy items in the event that page loading speed was less than what they would have expected.
It's also crucial to ensure that your site is responsive to mobile devices. Mobile-friendly traffic makes up about 50% of of the visitors to websites worldwide The visitors are five percent higher likely to leave your site when it's not mobile-friendly.
Plus, Google announced in in the year 2018 that they've increased the rankings of mobile-optimized sites for their mobile-friendly results So, having the responsive and mobile-optimized website can help your SEO, also.
(You can check the accessibility of this site on mobile devices by using the mobile friendly checker from Google .)
The task of designing your website to a skilled web developer or designer will help you design an attractive website that's speedy to load, works beautifully on smartphones and matches the image of your business.
Then, where do you locate web developers or web designers who can help improve the look of your site?
Some of the most popular websites to locate a web developer are:
The Website Builder allows you build a website to sell any number of digital products such as online classes, memberships or digital downloads, without the need to enter one line of code to fix an incompatible WordPress theme or installing the wrong plugin.
Take a look on the site Mallika Malhotra specialist in branding and photographer built using the site editor.
Mallika altered her website to reflect her brand and aesthetic without the assistance of a developer or designer to design it.
Additionally, they handle the mobile-optimization, speed of your site along with the other technical aspects also, meaning that Mallika as well as you are able to concentrate on developing and selling your products.
A well-designed, simple-to-use site is essential, however without great information you will get you to a certain level. You can, however, employ copywriting and content writers.
#4: Copywriting and Content and writing
Making and carrying out an effective content marketing plan takes a lot of energy and time especially when blogs typically take about 3 hours and 45 minutes to compose.
If you're looking to put up weekly posts, you're giving an extra four hours each week that solopreneurs don't have to spare.
Additionally, various types of content require different types of writing.
There's an abundance of experienced, skilled freelance copywriters and content marketing experts out there to help you develop material that is appealing to your audience and increases the sales.
You can outsource writing tasks of all sorts like:
Blogging
Writing press releases
SEO-related SEO services include search engine optimization, link building, in addition to backlinks
Find professional free content creators Jodi Harris Director of strategy and editorial content at the Content Marketing Institute, offers these suggestions :
Contact your professional networks and ask whether they know of any writers that they can recommend.
Send the job on a job board for writers specifically geared towards freelancer services like upwork.com as well as LinkedIn Pro-Finder .
Choose an agency that offers creative services or a Content marketing platform like Contently . (This choice comes with a price increase nevertheless.)
If you do not want to keep your content creation internally, you can ensure that your blog's content and text is high-quality by outsourcing the editing and proofreading process.
#5 5: Editing (writing videos, writing, and podcasts)
Your audience's interested to watch (and listen to) as well as to read and see amazing data from your business. The consumers love the content they consume.
Take podcasts, for example. 64 per cent of Americans listened to some kind of audio streaming (like podcasts) in 2018. the weekly listeners to streaming audio reported the average was 17 hours listening each week.
That's a lot of content that customers might enjoy from you. There's a lot of data which you can use to gain your readers' trust and loyalty, or even money. Yet, content that isn't of high quality is unlikely to turn readers into customers.
Editors are who you should make contact with. A skilled editor is what differentiates good content and top-qualitycontent.
Editorial editors can assist writers in making their voices heard, get their point across in a clear manner, and help avoid the most common mistakes in writing .
You can also use software like Grammarly to check your work but it's not a substitute for the human editor -- even if you're proofreading yourself. Grammarly's AI often misses errors (or discovers mistakes where there are none).
Based on the type of content you're seeking -and your budget for spend- podcast producers can help with everything from cutting background noise to offering editorial input that helps your podcast tell a more compelling storytelling.
Last but certainly not least is the fact that editing video is an additional tedious job that outsourcing will free you from the burden.
If editors are searching for freelancers to edit any type of content, check out freelance marketplaces like Upwork as well as Freelancer.com .
Keep in mind that old saying, You purchase what you buy.
If you're looking for freelancers that claim to offer the best rates and the highest quality, look for experienced editors. It'll help you get the best quality services -as well as save you a lot of time (and stress) when you're done with the day.
As with video editing or audio, the job that is left to be completed requires an enormous amount of skills and dedication to complete, which makes it the perfect opportunity to outsource.
#6 graphic design
Let's take this issue over by saying that Photoshop is difficult. (And I'm not saying this because I got the grade of C in high the school's Graphic Design class.)
If you're a smaller proprietor of a business, the chances are that you're not equipped to grasp the art of graphic design. Visual content is, however an essential element of branding and online marketing.
In fact, over 90% of buying decisions are made by images, and 40% of marketing professionals said that original graphics help them achieve their goals for their advertising in the the past year.
The help of a graphic designer will aid in developing your brand's visual appeal across your site, downloads via digital and social media accounts as well as other areas.
Freelance graphic design deliverables might include:
Logos
Infographics
PowerPoint templates
Design and layout of ebooks
Brand assets to be used for visuals
In order to save time, you can make a commission for ebooks and slide templates that can be reused multiple instances, meaning it's not necessary to develop these assets each time.
For instance the process of turning your information-heavy blog post into an infographic makes it easy for readers to digest Infographics are popular and shared on social media 3 times faster than other forms of media.
Graphic designers can explore design marketplaces such as DesignCrowd and, obviously, UpWork's design section .
Both websites connect businesses to many thousands independent designers, and offer design services ranging from email and web design templates, through packaging design and T-shirt designs.
The bottom line is In line with the other things we've discussed in this post, appealing content is an important element of developing your business -- one that can be dealt with alone.
Outsource these 6 tasks for the shortest list of tasks
"There aren't enough hours to the daily schedule" is a common cliche that has an basis. This is especially true in the case of entrepreneurs looking to establish an organization on their own.
Utilizing a virtual assistant or freelancer can help you get back the time you've spent. If you're still unsure what you should do, here are the top six reasons you should consider outsourcing:
Organization and administrative work, like managing scheduling, data entry and transcription
Bookkeeping and accounting to ensure that you are up-to-date with your money flow and tax obligations
web design, development and for making a user-friendly UX that your audience will love
Content writing and copywriting in order to make sure that your content marketing and sales materials stand apart from the others (and the Google search results)
Audio, video and editing of written content so you won't need to fret about spelling errors or poor audio
Graphic design and visual content for displaying your company's identity and catching your prospective customers' interest
Asking for help can seem complicated, and there's often an overwhelming pressure for entrepreneurs to manage everything on their own. There's absolutely nothing wrong with outsourcing your duties to allow you to get back to developing and growing your business.
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