9 Small Business Owner Responsibilities That Can Be Outsourced

Small Business Owners Are Under Pressing

Businesses of every size are under growing pressure due to the 2022 economic downturn. The challenges facing small businesses are especially acute, with one-third indicating they are thinking about shutting their doors in the next 12 months. In a different survey, 40% of small businesses say they plan to increase pricings by 10% or more to offset rising expenses. Nearly half plan to raise prices between 4% and 9%. There are numerous factors driving this level of pessimism—uncontrolled inflation, rising interest rates, spiraling gas prices, supply chain issues, and labor shortages.

Small business owners are already under significant pressure without all of these challenges. There simply isn’t enough time for small business owners to tackle everything on their plates. They wear every hat in the company—finance, operations, HR, marketing, sales, and customer service. This likely explains why 42% of small business owners admit they are overwhelmed. 

Responsibilities a Small Business Owner Can Outsource

To scale their businesses, small business owners must learn how to delegate. Some small business owners sometimes feel they are the only ones capable of doing certain tasks and are reluctant to relinquish responsibility. Hiring more staff isn’t an answer in most case—either it isn’t financially feasible or finding workers with the right skillsets is difficult to impossible. 

Following are some of responsibilities that a small business owner should consider delegating. 

Appointment Scheduling and Calendar Management

Keeping track of your meetings and managing all of the activities on your calendar can be a significant time commitment for small business owners. Meeting requests and changes occur via incoming calls, texts, and emails—and it can be difficult to keep track of all of them and to prioritize your calendar to address those that are most important. 

Virtual receptionists, such as Davinci Live Receptionists, are a great choice and better option than part- or-full-time administrative staff—which cost upwards of $39,000 annually (for a full-time administrator). Davinci live receptionists are available on demand; small businesses pay for highly skilled and professional resources who schedule all their appointments using a virtual appointment scheduling system. They can manage calls, emails, and texts to confirm appointments, auto email and text reminders, and out-of-town meeting scheduling.

Marketing 

Marketing is much different today where much of it takes place digitally. Outsourcing marketing operations to an expert team can dramatically increase the impact. In addition, designing and maintaining a website, reputation management, email, social media, content, search engine optimization, and online ads can sap valuable time and energy from small business owners. Digital marketing agencies provide the expertise small business owners need to build marketing programs that efficiently and effectively expand opportunities and grow revenue.

Sales Calls

Small business owners are busy and need to be everywhere at once. It is difficult for you to make time to make outbound sales calls and emails to grow your business. And as many businesses are inundated with incoming calls and emails from other vendors, it is difficult to reach and engage with prospects when making outbound sales calls and sending email. On-demand virtual receptionists are becoming a source to which small business owners are turning; they are experts on your business and their work can be scaled up and down based on the requirements of a small business owner.

Customer Service

Customer service calls, emails, and texts can arrive at any time of the day or night and during other meetings and projects. Research shows that when customers must wait for a response to their question or problem, they become frustrated and can even look to other vendors for the services or products provided. And while email and phone remain two important channels for customer support, a growing number of professionals prefer to use live web chat—a digital service many small business lack today. As in the case of outbound sales calls and emails, live receptionists are available on demand, and small business owners only pay for the time spent on customer support. 

Order Processing

Order processing is another areas that small business owners can outsource. For a small business that outsources customer service, outsourcing order processing makes sense as well. Live receptionists can take orders from callers over the phone and from customers via email. For small businesses with an online order system, live receptionists can also manage those capabilities. They also can answer incoming calls with questions about orders—shipping logistics, expected timeframes, questions about charges, and so forth.

Call Screening & Forwarding

Sometimes, a small business owner wants to have a live person upon receiving a call from a customer, a professional who can answer questions and route the calls to the appropriate person on your team when such is warranted. On-demand live receptionists can answer these calls and get the incoming caller to the right resource on your team. In some instances, a small business owner may not want a real human to engage immediately but rather route the incoming call through an auto receptionist system. 

Administrative Tasks

While administrative tasks can seem mundane, they often are business critical. Photocopying, faxing, and online research are tied to new business opportunities, finalization of contracts, support for upcoming meetings, and various other critical tasks. Other administrative tasks like travel planning, scheduling deliveries, assisting customers, checking voice mail, and returning calls fall into the same bucket and require someone who is highly professional and an expert in your business. Billed based on the amount of time taken to complete an administrative task, live receptionists are a great resource for small business owners and better option than an expensive part- or full-time administrator. 

Finance and Accounting

Small businesses often look to outsource finance and accounting functions. They simply don’t have the tax law and accounting expertise to manage these functions in house. Outsourced finance and accounting firms do not need to be in the same location, which means a small business owner can look for a finance and accounting firm that meets their business requirements and is cost effective. The availability of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based finance and accounting software also makes this process much easier. 

IT Operations

In addition to accounting and finance, IT operations is the most commonly outsourced small business function. The emergence of the cloud makes it immensely easier for small businesses to leverage some of the services bigger businesses have historically used via on-premises deployments. IT operations for a small business can run the gamut—from setting up laptops, to setting up email and other tools, to troubleshooting issues when they occur.

Delegate for Growth and Efficiency

Small business owners must delegate different responsibilities in order to grow their business and maintain a high level of efficiency. Hiring part- or full-time headcount isn’t possible in many instances. Further, outsourcing a function often delivers a better outcome. Small business owners should look for a virtual receptionist provider that has the ability and resources to address multiple—rather than one or two—delegated responsibilities. 

About Patrick Spencer

Patrick Spencer (Ph.D.) is the President and Founder of TIRO Communications that helps companies develop, build, and manage content, customer, advocacy, and demand-gen programs. Included in its offerings is TIRO Cognition Insights, a data analytics tool that enables B2C and B2B businesses to pinpoint what their customers and competitors’ customers are saying and to identify corresponding actionable product, services, competitive, sales, and marketing intelligence.

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Website: www.tirocommunications.com