Running a business shouldn’t be a solo performance. Even with the growth of successful one-person businesses, many of them rely on outsourcing services – so they’re not really alone.
Because you’ll need help eventually. Maybe it’s because you’re working longer hours, or can’t afford to hire a full-time local employee. Whatever your motivation, outsourcing will enable you to:
- Increase your company’s output.
- Reduce your overhead.
- Focus on your core competency.
- Operate in different time zones.
So where do you start? Here are several pressing functions you should outsource right away so you can focus on doing high-value tasks.
Property management
If you run a property management business, you can delegate a number of responsibilities to a real estate virtual assistant. This may include but aren’t limited to:
- Preparing lease agreements.
- Scheduling property inspections.
- Monitoring changes to local property laws.
- Generating rent roll reports.
For more information on the breadth of tasks your real estate virtual assistant can do, check out our previous articles on the topic.
Answering incoming calls
If your business provides helpdesk services, order taking, or other similar offerings, you’ll have to outsource the responsibility of answering inbound calls.
Yes, other employees can also pitch in, but when the volume of incoming calls increases, you’ll have to hire people to tend to the phones. Otherwise, you’ll just needlessly keep yourself preoccupied.
Having the same virtual assistant perform the task exclusively will make the process more efficient as well. They’ll know how to answer frequently asked questions and direct inquiries to the right person.
Making outbound calls
Outbound calls – especially telemarketing – tend to get a lot of flack, but when done properly, the approach works. It’s a cost-effective way to engage warm leads, raise brand awareness, and get valuable market information.
If your business uses outbound calls as part of its sales and marketing strategy, you need to delegate the task to a virtual assistant.
Aside from not having to do the task yourself, hiring a VA skilled at connecting with prospects maximises your promotion efforts.
Data entry and processing
As long as your business uses computers and needs to perform clerical work, you’ll likely have to enter, store, and organise data in a spreadsheet or some other software.
You’ll also need to update this data on a regular basis.
The task may sound easy, but to input and process a large amount of data efficiently takes skill and experience. Thus, it’s better to outsource to an expert.
Lead generation
The process of identifying and nurturing potential customers is time-consuming, particularly because there are several ways to generate leads. Here are a few familiar examples used online:
- Search engine optimisation
- Email marketing
- Social networking
- Producing gated content (e.g. white papers, e-books)
The challenge here is that each method will need a specialist to perform.
You can form an internal lead generation team, but it won’t be cheap. The most feasible option for small businesses is to contract out the work to VAs.
Calendar management
Yes, you can manage your own calendar. But as your business thrives, you’ll get swamped sooner or later, which means you’ll need help updating and keeping track of your schedule.
To maximise your outsourcing efforts, get a VA experienced in administrative tasks like:
- Managing email inboxes.
- Conductive research.
- Scheduling and coordinating events.
- Updating your social media accounts.
Outsource to the right talent
But don’t just hire any VA. Not all are created equal.
If you want to hire the right talent to carry out these tasks, partner with Remote Workmate. Unlike freelancing marketplaces where you do everything yourself, we handle all the heavy lifting for you, including payroll and onboarding.
You can actually choose from our pool of top candidates right away. Simply click the button below to browse a wide range of profiles on our Hotlist page.
