Early entrepreneurs and founders tend to be catch-all employees: they do marketing, product management, customer service, social media, office administration, field research, sales and anything else necessary to get their business off the ground.
But after a certain point, successful founders will rightly focus more of their time to working on the business (Strategic) vs in the business (Tactical). The truth is, as a founder, in order to scale your businesses and operations you have to learn to let go of the small stuff.
Now that doesn’t mean that the small stuff shouldn’t get done, it just means founders shouldn’t be spending the limited time they have on productivity-sucking tasks and projects that could be delegated to others to run with.
The stuff that shouldn’t be on your plate is actually perfect for outsourcing. Startups are especially ripe for this model: while you may not have the funds to hire full-time staff to knock out these initiatives, hourly and outsourced employees can fill roles quickly, efficiently and deliver a lot of bang for your buck. The best place to get started with outsourcing your projects and tasks is to turn to virtual-assistant sites like Zirtual or freelancer sites like UpWork or even Fiverr, depending on the gig.
If you’re wondering what projects and tasks you should let go of, here are the top 6 productivity-sucking tasks that you need to outsource today.
Social Media Management
It goes without saying that modern digital marketing relies on social media. But why should you learn the ins and outs of Instagram yourself? Why should you spend hours researching the right hashtags, following people who are likely to follow you back, creating a posting calendar, replying to comments and providing the right images? Moreover, why should you do that for every social channel you want to penetrate?
Understanding social media is critical, sure, but the beast is so huge, you can and should leave it to professionals. If your goals are too daunting or your budget tight, you can even handle it piecemeal: if you have a voice you like to write in, you can write the copy and outsource the scheduling and research. Or vice versa: work with a content writer (see below) and schedule the posts yourself after they’re supplied to you. Regardless of what route you take, consistency is key—you need to post and engage daily to see real growth. All the more reason to find someone to help.
Content Marketing
Not everyone is a writer, but it’s easy to find them. Freelance farms can lead you to writers of all levels, from bargain-basement scribes (whose quality of work will show) to high-profile professionals, and working with one or more is an excellent idea if your business model includes blogging—and, by extension, search engine marketing, guest posting for publicity and authority building.
A good ghostwriter is like having a secret best friend. You can always rely on them, and the longer you stick with them, the better their work becomes—they get to know your voice, your business needs, your subject and your style. They can grow to become an invaluable team member whose loyalty only strengthens their work.
Presentation Preparation
Let’s face it: very few founders enjoy spending their time putting together pitch decks and PowerPoint slides. But there are people out there who actually do enjoy it—and who can whip up a presentation for you, or spruce up a pre-existing one, in no time at all.
Investing in one stellar PowerPoint presentation can provide value far beyond that one moment, too. You will likely use that file as a template and tweak parts only when necessary. Combine this with having someone help you with researching your pitches and subjects, and you’re saving a tremendous amount of time for a modest fee that will provide exponential benefits.
Administrative Tasks
Virtual assistants have been in vogue for years now. There is no reason why you need to worry about everyday office tasks like payroll, bookkeeping, employee scheduling, fielding generic phone calls, ordering new office supplies or organizing company events.
You can free up a tremendous amount of hours in a day by not worrying about these. Hire someone who can handle it all quickly and remotely through one of the various websites that specialize in finding exactly these kinds of people. As with other roles, the person you hire will become an invaluable team member, especially the longer they stay onboard.
Search Engine Marketing
The world of search-engine marketing is obtuse and difficult to navigate, especially if you don’t have weeks to spend researching it. Keyword research, while critical, is one of the most time-consuming endeavors digital marketers take on, with larger companies devoting entire teams to exclusive specialization in the field and the opportunity for low-cost leads an exponential reality.
It’s just as easy to reap the benefits by outsourcing. And while some founders might turn to agencies for this, outsourcing it to an individual specialist is just as effective—arguably more so. The person can feel like an extended team member, while still bringing the knowledge of a diverse client range to the table.
Customer Support
In the beginning, handling customer support as a founder can be a big benefit to getting instant feedback on your product or service. It’s confirmation that people are responding to your product or idea, and you get to inform them as to the best ways to engage with it while feeling good about providing awesome, intimate customer support.
But after a while, as many startups in that situation can attest, the feeling wears off. The calls keep coming in—more each week (if you’re growing)—but the time and energy you can devote to each will wane.
Outsourcing customer support to remote workers, either through chat forms or call-in numbers, will save you and your team several hours of work each week while improving the response times and consistency of your customer support. There are companies that specialize in connecting businesses with support staff, and you can find people who have the time and people skills necessary to work the job right.
In the end the success or failure of your business is squarely on the shoulders of you as a founder. But that doesn’t mean that everything needs to be on your plate. Start by outsourcing these 6, simple tasks so you can get out of the trenches and spend more of your time on the big picture items-like scaling your business.