Many small-business owners have to be jack-of-all-trades—handling all the day-to-day business and big-picture strategy for every department. If that sounds like you, consider outsourcing some small-business functions to take a few things off your busy plate.
Special to the Roosevelt Island Daily News
Accounting
Business finances and accounting books are crucial to any small business, and competently managed finances can be the difference between a thriving business and one stuck in stasis. It’s often not the business owner’s fault—if you’re not a financial expert, it can take a lot of time and skill to learn everything needed to organize your accounts.
But small-business owners often don’t have the time or resources to devote so much effort to learn the proper standards of financial organization and oversight. Outsourcing these duties to financial experts specializing in small-business accounting management significantly eases this burden and often results in the small-business owner saving money by cutting expenses and earning greater tax deductions.
Compliance
Businesses with state or federal contracts also have to meet state and federal regulations for things like hiring—specifically affirmative action. But navigating the world of state and federal compliance to ensure their affirmative action plan is sufficient can be confusing and challenging for those unfamiliar.
Outsourcing OFCCP compliance ensures that experts diligently look over the plan and certify it adheres to required guidelines. The last thing a small business with federal contracts wants is to lose those contracts because they’re not in compliance.
Marketing
Quality marketing is essential for many small businesses if they hope to grow, but it requires a great deal of effort and creativity—much more than just coming up with a slogan. Outsourcing the marketing department to a professional firm frees up small business owners from getting drowned in details creating ads for:
- Television commercials
- Print advertisements
- Social media
- Billboards
- And more
With an outside firm handling the details, small-business owners can focus on the big picture of their brand and how they want to relate to and attract new customers.
IT Management
Another common function that many small businesses outsource is IT management. In fact, IT is one of the largest outsourcing industries in the world today, with a global market worth billions every year.
No matter how analog their products or services may be, every small business needs some tech to operate and reach customers in the modern world. But many business owners admit they’re out of their depth regarding IT. Instead, consider a service provider or on-demand IT firm to ensure that everything runs smoothly and you have experts on hand when needed.
“I Can Ask”
Chair Fay Christian opened the Operations Advisory Committee on February 12th, reading out member names from a prepared sheet that omitted Melissa Wade. It didn’t feel intentional, but it struck me as odd precisely because it came from something prepared. Lydia Tang gently corrected her, noting that Wade was, in fact, a member of the committee. Wade met the moment with grace, or perhaps she simply wasn’t bothered by it.
