Are you overwhelmed with work? Here are 6 tasks to outsource
If you're overwhelmed by a long list of things to do you may want to recruit reinforcements. These are the 6 jobs you could outsource to a virtual or freelance assistant.
If you are an entrepreneur, your plates are always full.
The work tasks keep growing. The inbox is full you have seventeen Excel spreadsheets open at the same time, you haven't looked at your social media alerts for a week, and you keep catching typos whenyou publish blog posts.
Your to-do list is too extensive for one person to tackle. You can't do it all by yourself and that's okay.
The time has come to bring in reinforcements. Namely, Virtual assistants (VAs) and freelancers.
The outsourcing of repetitive tasks will give your time to invest in growing your company. From data entry to managing social media, there are plenty of things which consume your time and can be outsourced to a third party.
In this post we'll go over six areas that you can outsource in order to cut down on time (and your mental health).
But first ask yourself if outsourcing reallyworth it?
Yes, and we'll explain why.
What are the benefits of outsourcing tasks or tasks to an assistant virtual or freelancer?
This is especially the case considering this perplexing statistic: workers typically be able to spend 2.8 hours per day doing productive work.
As a full-time business owner, that number is definitely more for the person who works full-time. However, chances are you're working on projects that aren't making the most effective use of your time.
By outsourcing those lower-growth repetitive jobs to the freelancers or to a virtual assistant (VA) You can get back time to focus on higher-growth to-dos.
Bring in an expert to complete the tasks that you do not want to spend time on (or really don't enjoy doing).
Save costs and time over employing a full-time worker.
These benefits are why 70% of small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) report having hired a freelancer, with 81% of them saying that they intend to hire a freelancer again.
Hiring a virtual staff such as freelancers and VAs -- has also been proven to boost the productivity.
The research suggests remote workers have an average of 13.5% more productive than their in-office counterparts.
In the end outsourcing work to a freelancer or VA can help you take certain of your most unpopular work-related tasks that have the lowest growth potential off your to-do list and free up time for you to focus on expanding your business.
Now, there's just one question left to be answered: Which tasks should you assign to an outside company?
Six tasks you can outsource when you're running out of time
#1: Organization and admin tasks
When someone thinks about outsourcing their work to a virtual assistant They usually consider outsourcing time-consuming tasks like data entry and transcription. These definitely are a part of many VAs work.
They can also assist businesses with a array of duties, which is probably why the worldwide outsourcing market -- which includes VAs -- amounted to 92.5 billion dollars in 2019.
A few of the most commonly performed VA tasks include:
Calendar management and scheduling
Data entry
Project management
Event planning
Email marketing
PR outreach and follow-ups
Controlling accounts payable, invoicing as well as expensing
Support for the customer, such as moderating social media accounts
Management of CRM-related software
Analysis of competitors
Converting audio and video file
Vendor management
Webinar management
Marketing via social media
Phew. If that list seems to span a wide range of abilities, it's because VAs can be among the most flexible team members that you can find.
If you are looking for an VA ensure that you are aware of the tasks you would like the VA to concentrate onas well as having the budget to compensate the VA fairly, in accordance with their abilities.
The present rate of market for VAs are:
$25-40 per hour for general admin skills
Affordable rates of $30 to $50 per hour. skills
50+ dollars per hour to learn specialized skills
While we wait, let's move on to some more specific jobs to outsourcesuch as bookkeeping and accounting.
2. Accounting and bookkeeping
If you're anything like me -- you're nota number-oriented person, there's a hundred different things you'd rather do other than crunch numbers.
In the event that you're making less than 5 figures for your venture and you don't have an abundance of expenditures to track it's likely that you'll be able to manage the finances of your company using a tool like QuickBooks .
If your earnings are higher than this, hiring an accountant who is freelance can help take the nitty-gritty of keeping the books in order off your hands and help simplify your management of finances.
Accounting is among the most frequently performed business processes that are outsourced to a third party. .
And there's a good justification for this. Accounting is among the main tasks of small-sized businesses, especially when you consider that nearly 29% of new businesses fail due to running short of funds.
Plan, organize the quarterly tax bill, and manage
Make sure you control your cash flow
Keep track of and follow the
Unlike accounting software the bookkeeper or accountant can give you personalized advice and address your questions in more depth since they are familiar with your tax requirements.
Some bookkeepers even specialize in helping professionals in specific fields. For example, Friedman, Kannenberg & Company, PC is a specialist in accounts services for musicians, bands, music equipment retailers, and music education institutions.
To find an accountant that is knowledgeable about the specifics of your particular industry, Google "accountant specializing in your industry".
As a business owner, accounting services are among the first you should consider outsourcing (unless you really enjoy analyzing tax codes -- I won't make a judgement).
Alongside the tasks that require a lot of numbers like data entry and accounting You can also outsource your creative and technical work, too.
#3: Web development and design
It can take people around 0.05 second to make a decision about your website.
That's why having a good web developer on your side important.
Your website needs to look appealing and attractive, as well as easy to use, and also informative. In this day and world of instant feedback, it needs to be fast.
26.9 Percent of website visitors have to wait for less than four seconds loading a website, and 45.4 percent of those who visited reported that they are less likely to buy things if loading speed was slower than they anticipated.
It is also important to ensure that your site is responsive to mobile devices. Traffic from mobile devices accounts around half internet traffic in the world , and visitors are five times more likely to abandon your website in the event that it's not mobile-friendly.
Plus, Google announced in the year of 2018 that they're increasing the positions of mobile-optimized websites within their results for mobile searches So being responsive and mobile-friendly on your website will help with search engine optimizationtoo.
(You can check your site's present mobile-friendlyness using Google's Mobile-Friendly Checker Tool .)
Delegating your web design tasks to a seasoned web developer and designer can aid you in designing a website which loads fast, functions beautifully on mobile and matches your branding image.
So, where can you locate web developers and web designers to help make your website shine?
Some of the best websites for finding a web developer are:
The Website Builder lets you create a website to sell any variety of digital items including online classes, memberships, and digital downloads -- all without any needing to type in a line of code to troubleshoot an unresponsive WordPress template, or download a confusing plugin.
Have a look at the website Mallika Malhotra , brand expert and photographer, created using the editor for websites:
Mallika modified her website to match her branding and style without needing the services of a designer or developer in order to build it from scratch.
Also, we take charge for mobile optimization, site speeds, and all of other technical issues as well, which means that Mallika (and you are able to focus on selling products and developing items instead.
An attractive, user-friendly website is a must-have, but without great content, it can only get you to a certain point. You can, however, outsourcing copywriting and content writing.
#4: Copywriting and Content writing
Building and executing a content marketing plan is a long process and effort, especially when blogs typically take three an hour, 55 mins to create.
If you want to put up weekly posts, it's more than four hours per week that most solopreneurs can't afford.
Furthermore, different kinds of content require different types of writing.
There's an abundance of skilled, professional freelance copywriters, content marketers and copywriters on the market to help develop content that appeals to your audience and drives sales.
Outsource writing assignments that are of any kind, which includes:
Blogging
Writing press releases
SEO services, like linking-building, keyword research as well as backlinks
To locate skilled freelance content writers Jodi Harris, the director of content strategy and editorial at Content Marketing Institute, offers these suggestions :
Reach out to your professional contacts and inquire if they have writers to recommend.
Post the assignment on a writers' job board focused on freelancer-based services such as the Upwork job board or LinkedIn's Pro-Finder .
Use an agency for creative staffing or an online platform for content marketing such as Contently . (This choice comes with a higher price tag however.)
And even if you keep the creation of content written in-house you can make sure your blog content and blog copy is top-quality through outsourcing editing and proofreading methods.
#5 5. Editing (writing videos, writing, and podcasts)
Your audience wants to see -- and hear, read, and watch amazing information from you. People are awestruck by the content they consume.
Take podcasts, for example. 64 percent of Americans listened to some kind of audio streaming (like podcasts) in 2018, with listening to audio online on a weekly basis, and reporting an average of nearly 17 hours of listening per week.
There's plenty of content viewers could get from you. And a lot of content you can use to gain your readers' trust, loyalties, and money. But poor quality content won't convert readers into buyers.
This is where editors step in. A talented editor is the key to distinguish between great content and excellentcontent.
When writing content, editors can aid writers in sounding at their finest, convey their message across clearly and steer clear of common writing mistakes .
There's also a tool like Grammarly as an extra check However, it's not meant to entirely replace human editors (even if you're proofreading yourself. Grammarly's AI often misses errors (or finds errors where there's none).
Based on the type of content you're seeking -- and the amount you're willing and able to affordPodcast producers can assist with everything from reducing background noise to giving editing suggestions that help your show tell a better storytelling.
The last but not least is that video editing is another task that takes a lot of time and outsourcing can help you with.
To find freelance editors for any type of content, check out freelance marketplaces like the Upwork and Freelancer.com .
Remember this old adage You get what spend for.
If you're looking for freelancers that boast of the lowest prices, seek out skilled editors. It'll help you get the highest quality service -as well as help you save a significant amount of time (and a big headache) later on.
As with audio and video editing the final job on the list requires lots of expertise and patience to master, making it the perfect candidate to outsource.
#6 Graphic design
Let's start by putting this out of the way: Photoshop is hard. (And I'm not just saying that because I got a C in my graphic design class.)
If you're a small enterprise owner, odds are that you're not able to learn graphic design. But visual content is an essential element of branding and marketing online.
Actually, as much as 90% of purchase decisions are influenced by the visual aspect, and 40% of marketers said that original graphics have helped them achieve the goals they set for their marketing in last year.
A freelance graphic designer could help create a visual identity for your site, downloads and social media accounts, and more.
Freelance graphic design deliverables might include:
Logos
Infographics
PowerPoint templates
Formatting and design of eBooks
To save even more time You can also commission ebook and slide templates that you can use over and over, so it's not necessary to design these assets each time.
As an instance, turning a data-rich blog post into an infographic will make your content more accessible for readers to digest Infographics get shared and liked via social media by three times than any other type of content.
To find a graphic designer, check out design marketplaces like DesignCrowd as well as, naturally, UpWork's design section .
These websites allow businesses to connect with tens of thousands of designers who are freelance, with design projects ranging in scope from website design and email templates to packaging and t-shirt design.
The bottom line is As with all the tasks we've covered today Visual content is a vital aspect of growing your business -- one that you don't have to tackle alone.
You can outsource these six jobs to shorten your to-do list
"There isn't enough time in an entire day" is a cliche for an reason. It's truthful, especially when you're an entrepreneur who's looking to establish a company by yourself.
Working with a virtual assistant or freelancer can aid you to regain your time. To recap, here are six tasks to consider outsourcing:
Administrative and organizational work like data entry, schedule management, and transcription
The bookkeeping and accounting process keeps you in the loop about your cash flow and tax needs
Web design and development to create a UX/UI your audience will love
Copywriting and content writing, making sure your content marketing sales copy stands out from the crowd (and the Google search results)
Podcast, video, and written content editing, which means you won't need to worry about typos or choppy audio
Design and content that is visually appealing to showcase your brand identity and grab the attention of potential customers.
The idea of asking for help may seem daunting, and there's often lots of pressure placed on entrepreneurs to do it all by themselves. But there's no shame in outsourcing your tasks to get back to doing the things you love to do- creating and growing your company.