Running a Small Business – What to DIY and What to Outsource

As the owner of a small business, you undoubtedly have an endless to-do list. No matter how hard you work or how little you sleep, you cannot possibly devote your best effort to all of the day to day tasks necessary to run your business. There comes a point when you have to decide what to DIY and what to outsource. While some things to outsource may be obvious, such as hiring a payroll company or an accounting firm, other aspects which could be made more efficient by outsourcing may not be so clear. Here are a few not so obvious segments of your running a small business that are worth outsourcing.

SEO and Social Media Marketing

The importance of maintaining a robust and up-to-date online presence for your business is a no-brainer these days. Simply having a website is not enough, yet understanding what types of accounts are right for your business and how to maintain them can be daunting. It seems as if a new app, plugin, social platform, or SEO tool becomes available nearly every day, and just learning about the latest technology can become a job in itself.

If you have a clear outline of your business goals, the task of managing your online presence can easily be handed off to a specialist. A Website and Social Media Specialist will pick out and maintain the online platforms that are most impactful to your target market. He or she will do the research for you, make updates as necessary, and be able to come back with clear data analysis showing the impact on your bottom line.

Information Technology or IT Services

The majority of large business publications like Entrepreneur, Business Insider, and Forbes all have articles suggesting which aspects of your business you should outsource. Though the lists vary in some ways, the one thing they all suggest is to outsource your IT services! This article in Entrepreneur specifically sites IT services as falling under the “Specialized Knowledge” category, one of the three types of tasks best suited for outsourcing.

The reason? You’re a business owner, not a student learning a new specialization. Any task that requires learning a whole new position is a task that takes away from your role of running a small business. Having an in-depth knowledge of the latest ways to manage and process information is not your job. Outsource to an experienced and specialized IT Management Company like Cloud Colorado.

Administrative Tasks

The often tedious and mind numbing tasks of updating spreadsheets or returning phone calls can be exhausting for a business owner. These necessary tasks seem like chores and their simplicity allows them to pushed aside easily as more pressing responsibilities take their place. Any basic task that requires continuous action with the same formula for completion should be delegated to a lower level employee or an outside service. This ensures that these tasks are getting the proper attention necessary and will free you up to tackle more important issues.

Inc.’s article, “10 Tips to Master Your Time as a Business Owner” emphasizes the importance of this point when discussing how to, “Cut out distractions” in Section 4.

All said and done, when running a small business consider this key aspect when deciding what tasks to outsource: “Is it in the best interest of my time and knowledge to do this task myself, or could it be done more efficiently by someone else?”