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Scale your small business

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When scaling, your business needs will change. You’ll have to adapt and keep up with them.

Achieving this is possible by using certain tools to help you scale your business to increase its longevity and boost its competitive edge. 

By category

Outsourcing

People frequently associate outsourcing with cost savings. But outsourcing is much more than that. For “employment solutions,” outsourcing is a broad word that encompasses ideas as varied as offshore staffing, remote labor, call centers, and virtual assistants.

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) can benefit greatly from outsourcing, therefore it shouldn’t merely be seen as a way to cut costs. In fact, I’ve found that offshore staffing is one of the most effective business tools available and can completely change a company. Many large companies use outsourcing, but SMBs frequently take longer to adopt it.

There will always be times when your team is overworked or you require a certain ability for your project that is outside the range of the people you hire, even if you have already built an incredible team consisting of talented and committed individuals.

Contracting, freelancing, and outsourcing can also assist close the gap between having too much work for the people you already have on staff and not enough work to hire a new employee.

Here are some of the top areas where you might consider it.

Accounting

One of the most popular services that small businesses seek to outsource is accounting. It might take a lot of time and expertise to master all the procedures and compliance requirements your firm must follow if you are not an expert in finances. However, a competent accountant may frequently handle this subject simultaneously for several organizations. This improves productivity and helps you save money.

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Marketing

A marketing company from the outside might assist you in expanding your company swiftly when the time comes. They can handle your social media posting, content production, and ad design so you can concentrate on running the internal affairs of your company. Additionally, these businesses are frequently staffed with experts who can assist you in developing innovative ideas and beneficial techniques that you might not otherwise have access to.

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Sales

Similar to this, your business can lack the staff or knowledge necessary to set up sales funnels and processes, make cold calls, or close agreements. You can delegate those activities to competent people who will generate more business by outsourcing to sales companies or specialists.

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IT Management

One of the biggest outsourcing sectors is IT. In actuality, this year’s global outsourced IT services industry hit $85.6 billion. To handle any IT issues or projects you may have, you can outsource to a managed service provider or collaborate with a company that offers on-demand assistance.

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Administrative Tasks

Virtual assistants are increasingly popular, particularly for solopreneurs and business owners with home offices. There are virtual assistants (VAs) who can handle everything from social media posting to inbox management and scheduling. Given that some VAs charge as low as $10 per hour, this is frequently among the least expensive options to outsource. However, if you need a professional VA or someone with a particular specialization, expect to pay between $30 and $75 per hour.

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Customer Service

You can outsource your customer care strategy to a third-party call center or chat service if your company primarily deals with customers online or over the phone. To do this, you must first put procedures in place and ensure that the business handling your customers’ direct interactions has received explicit instructions.

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Manufacturing

For a small business, establishing a dedicated manufacturing site can be rather expensive. This is the reason why so many product vendors opt to outsource this process. Additionally, you don’t necessarily have to offshore this process. Approximately 18% of the global manufacturing market is still controlled by the United States. To keep your operations close at hand, you could discover domestic outsourcing partners.

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Shipping and Logistics

Additionally, you can really delegate the delivery and processing of your items to your production plant or a different drop-shipping business. This is a popular choice for online merchants who want to concentrate entirely on their company’s web and marketing efforts.

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Research

Do you need to learn anything new about your clients or your sector as a whole? Proper research is essential whether you’re planning to introduce a new product or explore entering a new industry. Therefore, you can outsource this phase to a research agency if you don’t want to spend days or weeks surveying your target group or becoming lost in a sea of web content. More resources should be available to them so they can contribute particularly priceless insights.

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Human Resources

Any activities in your company connected to recruiting, onboarding, or managing your employees fall within the purview of human resources. Working with a recruiting service to bring in capable candidates for a new post is the most typical sort of outsourcing in this field. However, there are choices for outsourcing things like payroll, time and attendance concerns, benefits administration, and training.

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Work management

Choosing the best job management tool might be challenging because there are so many available on the market today.

We’ve done the research and identified the top job management tools so that you may successfully manage your workload.

Monday

An industry-leading work management solution called Monday is used in many different sectors. It is simpler to plan, manage, and track your workflows because to its straightforward and user-friendly design.

It may also be used as a CRM, to manage your marketing campaigns, keep track of problems, and handle client projects in addition to project management. Your teams may work together in a supportive environment to be coordinated, flexible, and effective at all times.

Zoho Workplace

Zoho Workplace might be a fantastic solution if you’re wanting to integrate several business requirements into a single workflow. In order to help you concentrate on the important issues, it adds context from sales, marketing, or finance to your productivity tools.

To handle nearly every area of your business in one place, it can be combined with other Zoho bundles like CRM, Finance, and Recruit. They occasionally suffer problems with their user interface and connectors, though.

ClickUp

With literally dozens of customisable options, the versatile work management tool ClickUp gives you the power to control your workflow. There is a distinct set of optional features available for each Space, Folder, and List.

The main goal of ClickUp is to boost team productivity and decrease the friction associated with utilizing numerous apps. ClickUp provides practically all of the tools you require to manage your job.

Teams may more easily organize and manage their activities with the help of the numerous views and inbox functionality, which offers a clear view of all the projects and assignments in one location.

Customer relationship management

CRM (customer relationship management) software aids firms in boosting sales, fostering expansion, and offering remarkable customer experiences. There are various CRM platforms available, and each has a unique combination of features and advantages.

Zoho CRM

Everything you want to manage your sales pipeline and expand your organization is provided by Zoho CRM. It enables organizations of all sizes to tailor their procedures, develop sales workflows, and take use of robust reporting. If you have a subscription plan, it also offers a comprehensive suite of apps that interface with the platform for marketing, customer service, accounting, human resources, and inventory management.

Custom dashboards, inventory management, sophisticated customisation, and scoring systems are capabilities available only with paid plans. Using Zoho Creator, you can quickly design a mobile app for your company. You may instantly access your company’s data from Android and iOS smartphones from anywhere.

Monday

Cloud-based Teams who need to work together on assignments and projects should use Monday. You may engage with team members and visualize your work using the platform’s task board display, which is modeled after a Kanban system. Additionally, you can attach files, set due dates and comments, and monitor the progress of projects.

Features like infinite configurable pipelines, unrestricted contacts and viewers, sales forecasting, sales analytics, automations, and integrations are available only in paid plans.

Marketing

How digital marketing levels the playing field for sole proprietors and small firms is one of its most fascinating features.

There are many accessible, affordable methods available for marketing your business if you have a fantastic idea for a product or service.

Mailchimp

If you’re just starting out or have a small business, Mailchimp is the best option. Up until 2,000 subscribers on your list, Mailchimp’s basic service is free. It provides the essential features you require without making email marketing management overly difficult.

Regardless of how big or little your company is, email marketing needs to be a part of your entire plan.

BuzzSumo

Using search terms, BuzzSumo displays material that is popular on social media. Following your search, you can examine the results to determine what makes them so intriguing and to come up with writing topic ideas.

BuzzSumo, however, is expanding beyond simple content analysis and trending topics. BuzzSumo offers a huge selection of digital marketing solutions nowadays.

Infusionsoft by Keap

It’s a business and marketing automation platform.

Choose Infusionsoft if…

  • You run Brick and mortar business
  • You want a multi-product store
  • Your product or service is B2B
  • You need a visual campaign builder

DO NOT choose Infusionsoft if…

  • You lack the funds to pay for the personal assistance you need to succeed.
  • You very easily become overwhelmed by technology

Communication

With online video conferencing and in-person meetings, technology has made interacting with colleagues and clients simpler and more accessible than ever.

There are several collaboration options to think about for your small business, whether you connect through software, a smartphone app, or social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

BlueJeans

Attendees can join video conferences via a web browser, desktop application, or mobile device with BlueJeans, a cloud-based video communications platform. Meetings are more productive thanks to a variety of collaboration capabilities that are accessible across platforms. You may have meetings in conference rooms and town halls, share screens, and record sessions, among other things.

It is simple to combine processes using BlueJeans. For instance, you may combine the software with other well-known business apps and services and organize meetings using Outlook and Google Calendar. AES-GCM 256-bit encryption is used to transmit all data, and chats can take use of BlueJeans’ real-time closed captioning for hearing-impaired users. Users can call in to meetings if their devices don’t support video or audio.

ClickMeeting

For companies who regularly organize webinars, ClickMeeting offers a variety of features to make setting up and running the presentation easier. You can prepare your webinar in advance by branding it, creating slideshows, and using screen sharing. To fill the webinar room with the right number of participants, you can create personalized invitations and registration pages.

You can include surveys, use a Q&A chat tool, and make calls to action during the presentation. The webinar can also be recorded for later watching.

Financial

Owning a small business and managing the finances can seem like an endless task. It’s amazing that business owners ever find the time to deal with actually creating items or rendering services, what with all of the invoicing, expenses, day-to-day accounting, and dealing with the IRS.

Check out these financial tools for small business.

FreshBooks

Accounting programs like QuickBooks or FreshBooks are examples of business finance tools. These programs may assist a small-business owner with all accounting-related chores, including invoicing, expenditure management, sales, payroll, taxes, and inventory management.

Individuals can track their income and expenses with the aid of personal financial management tools, which can also help with budgeting.

Rocket Money

Rocket Money makes it simple for you to manage your finances by displaying your small business’s expenses. Although it can be used to manage company spending as well, the software is generally used for tracking personal expenses.

To provide you better financial management, all of your expenses and subscriptions will be organized into an easy-to-read graph.

This app is a fantastic financial management tool for small businesses because it will examine your monthly subscriptions and compare them to the costs for similar services in addition to tracking your spending. If they discover you are paying too much for a service, they will get in touch with your supplier and negotiate payments on your behalf.

Zoho Books

An online accounting tool called Zoho Books allows you collaborate across departments while managing the finances of your small business.

The program is simple to use, inexpensive, and has all the capabilities a small business owner could possibly need. By offering invoicing, payment reminders, accounts receivable, inventory monitoring, and other services, it assists small businesses in managing their finances centrally.

Zoho Books offers other solutions that will assist you in managing your CRM, planning projects, and more because it is made to expand with your small business.

Analytics

We all have access to data today, and developing firms cannot afford to base choices solely on intuition and insufficient facts. We need a mechanism to transform data into insight because data alone isn’t sufficient.

Because of this, every firm requires a business intelligence tool to access, analyze, and present data sets to users in order to give them a comprehensive picture of the state of the business.

Zoho Analytics

When it comes to building interactive dashboards with visual representations of data, Zoho Analytics excels.

In the area of web-based business solutions, Zoho is a well-known brand, with Zoho Office being a household name. Zoho Analytics facilitates the acquisition of data from various sources and offers a dashboard that is similarly aesthetically pleasing.

Users can quickly combine the data using a straightforward online interface, and they can export the combined data to a variety of ecosystems, including Quickbooks, Google Drive, DropBox, and, of course, Zoho.

Scoro

You may get a real-time perspective of every area of your job with Scoro’s highly customized KPI dashboard, and automated reporting enables you to expand your business with useful information.

Scoro is more than simply a business intelligence tool; it helps you manage your complete organization in one location, not just your data. You may position your company for success by using an all-in-one solution to manage your sales and clients, schedule the time and projects of your team, and monitor your company’s performance.

Human resources platform

Not all businesses can afford a complete HR team; in certain circumstances, HR software or services can fill the role of a person for a much lower cost. Hiring, payroll, benefits administration, and performance management are just a few of the many activities that the best HR software for small businesses can handle.

While some suppliers have standalone solutions that you can buy individually, many of them provide all-in-one systems. Some even offer professional employer organization (PEO) services to small enterprises that require professional assistance with routine HR duties.

BambooHR

With tools to assist them in transforming HR into a strategic business partner, BambooHR is a complete HR Platform for small and medium-sized organizations.

Consolidating information gathered across the employee life cycle—from hiring to onboarding to talent management—is simple with the help of a consolidated, secure database. Key employee information, including personal, performance, and payment information, is always accessible from any location and on any device.

Zoho People

A cloud-based, end-to-end HR management system called Zoho People can help you automate your HR procedures. You can improve HR workflows by using a user-friendly interface supported by drag-and-drop and simple-click features. The software also aids in making your HR management flexible and responsive to hiring trends.

Employee records from several departments are kept in one place and are easily accessible to authorized parties, including non-HR staff. In order to accommodate different evaluation techniques, Zoho People offers a 360-degree feedback system for performance reviews.

Web development

A website is essential for small businesses. Social media by itself doesn’t give you much influence over your clientele or marketing. Additionally, for them to trust your brand more, they need to visit your website.

Many small business owners used to be unable to afford to have a reliable website with a beautiful design.

Today, however, it’s possible to locate a web tool that will make things so much simpler that one person—instead of a team of designers or programmers—can construct a website.

Wix

With Wix, you can make a website that looks expertly made.

It is perfect for designers and photographers, but it shouldn’t be your first option if you’re searching for an e-commerce solution or a reliable website with fast loading times.

Squarespace

One of the greatest website builders for owners of small businesses is Squarespace. It assists everyone in creating attractive websites, from artists to business owners.

The majority of users will concur that Squarespace is the most aesthetically beautiful of the big website builders. Additionally, it is quite simple to apply (second to Wix.)

Summary

Here are services available you might need to consider.