The cogs that make up the business machine are often too much to handle for a small group let alone a sole proprietor. There simply isn’t enough time in the day.
The suggested solution is to manage your energy.
Energy is a finite source – time will keep ticking. You wish you could do it all but you can’t. This leads to an expansion of the business which comes with new headaches to be had in the hiring and management process. Those energy reserves are certainly getting low now.
The solution? It’s time to outsource for the big wins.
Logistics
Logistics, the management of delivering the product, accounts for a sizeable time and money chunk of business operations. There’s employees, equipment, warehousing, reporting, and more. Hours of the day are dedicated to logistics for small businesses if they do not have the manpower.
Solution? A virtual mailbox.
iPostal1 is one such service which provides a virtual address to a physical P.O. box in the United States. Packages and letters are routed through this location, alerts are sent to the subscriber, and mail is managed through an app for forwarding, sending, or returning.
It takes the hands-off logistics and introduces a new level of flexibility in resources.
Customer Service
Chat has taken over email and phone support for many major online retailers. Surprising, isn’t it? People have become accustomed to shopping online and using social media to interact with businesses so this is a natural progression.
Solution? Virtual agents.
IBM’s Watson Virtual Agent is an advanced tool to provide answers to customers through a chat interface. It uses deep-learning to understand customer history to provide solutions. These advanced chatbots save hundreds of hours of customer support back-and-forth while reducing costs by reducing (or eliminating) the need for dedicated agents.
Online Marketing
The fact that digital ad revenue pushed $32.7 billion in just the first half of 2016 shows how much businesses are willing to put into this avenue. There are thousands of platforms and billions of potential clients. It would be impossible to learn them all – let alone understand one masterfully by the time you retire from the business.
Solution? Marketing Automation Tools
Pardot, by SalesForce, is a robust platform to automate the important aspects of online marketing. The platform has built-in tools to build high-converting landing pages, email marketing campaigns, lead management, and reporting. It’s housed within a dashboard that’s easy-to-use and has been rapidly adopted by large SEO firms.
Work with them or find a firm that uses this platform as part of their on-going marketing efforts. Their expertise allows you to kick back and watch the money come in.
Social Media
Your audience is on social media platforms. That’s a guarantee. Social media shakes mountains when it comes to recommendations, referrals, content sharing, and customer service. But for a small team that suddenly finds themselves behind a hot product… things can get tricky. When the social accounts collapse… so does the reputation.
Solution? Hootsuite.
The one and only. Hootsuite has grown tremendously. It supports hundreds of apps and makes social media automation pure magic. The all-in-one suite lets you schedule updates, thread interactions, build upon collaboration, run reports, and track the brand. It does everything you’d want for social media.
Outsource your social efforts to someone masterful at Hootsuite and you’re all set. There are thousands of individuals (and businesses) offering these dedicated services.
Free Your Time…
… and you’ll free yourself.
Hours become available within the first week of outsourcing. Before long this becomes hundreds each month once the policies are in place and platforms are fully understood. Imagine what could be done with an entire extra work week suddenly available for you and the business (let alone the amount of stress taken off your shoulders due to better time management).
Amazing when you think about it, right?
