As a small business owner, you should first identify the core competencies and the capabilities, talents and resources of your company  and remember to never outsource those things as they make your business what it is. Instead, use the outsourcing simply to empower your online marketing campaign and to ease your team’s work.

Outsource The Administration…

A good accountant and administrator are worth a lot if you are keeping it in-house while hiring an outsourced professional will surely ease the accounting and make it cheaper. When you combine it with a managing VA and a time and attendance software for your office, you will surely cut the expenses from your budget. A good VA will lay a helping hand that will support you on your projects and the management of your team, especially if it is an outsourced one, and also deal with the customer support.

… And Outsource the IT guy!

Outsourcing the IT specialist, and all website related stuff, rather than hiring a full-time team for the tasks is also money and time saver. You can find talented admins and developers all over the web and negotiate the best price for the services you need. Ultimately, everything related to website building can be easily outsourced, that including building, design, apps development and also the  server maintenance.

Outsource the SEO Professional…

An in-house SEO with an academic degree and extensive background can cost you as much as $70,000 up to $150,000 per year according to Forbes Magazine, and this is for a single professional. The truth is building up your SEO strategy and making it to the first page is not cheap, but if you are just starting your online campaigns and your budget is not that big, laying the foundations with the expertise of an outsourced SEO is not a bad idea.

… And Outsource the Wordsmith!

If you have decided to take your business online, hiring an SEO is not enough. Popularization requires articles, blogs, social media advertising and content writers, also email marketing specialists and adwords experts. The hiring of the full-time in-house writer is not to say pointless unless you are a magazine of a sort. However, creating a blog and content for your website, using an outsourced writer will for sure popularize your product and service around the web, also winning you future clients and recognition.

Outsource the Online Sales Manager…

Time is money as we often say, and once you are going online and popularizing your product throughout the internet, you will lose an enormous amount of time to manage and modify all the websites you are using to win online purchases. Therefore, to ease yourself and invest your time in other important stuff for your business, hiring an outsourced  online sales manager to monitor the online purchases can be an ideal decision.

… And Outsource The Researcher!

Keeping an eye on your online opponents, researching and understanding their strategies, what are they trying to popularize and how do they do it is also crucial. Thus hiring an outsourced researcher to gather you all these data will be a convenient action and if you use it wisely will help you improve and develop your strategy.

What to Remember If You Are A Startup

These were just samples on what you can begin with when taking it online, yet as your business grows so do the demands. However, at the beginning of your outsourcing experience, it is vital to know how to manage your new team if you want to benefit from it and execute all strategies successfully.

The time tracking software of SCREENish is a helpful tool that can aid you in the management of your outsourced projects and teams, as well as your in-house staff. Going online is a big step and the field of battle is just as merciless, and for this reason alone it is paramount to properly manage your online business marketing.

• Online assistant manager/ Virtual assistant – Being packed by a pile of documentations, email letters and other internet and computer related tasks will no longer be an issue. All these can be left for the assistant to deal with while the manager does what he/she is supposed to – manage the company and staff. Hiring an outsourced VA can greatly increase the efficiency of the business, for it will open a window to the opportunity of better time management, productivity and organizational habits that will improve the workflow.

• Programmer/ Developer- Finding a good programmer for a convenient price within your region can be a problem. On the internet, however, you can find countless programmers and to hire the best fit for your business and team. That will prove to be an absolutely worthy time and money saving idea.

• Designer – Finding a good designer that will respond to your needs, give you a precious advice and understanding is also easily found on the web. Hiring outsourced designers will be an economical decision, that will save you again time and finances.

• Writer-The content of your company’s website is actually something you’d better leave to the professionals. There are numerous choices among the outsourced writers that can deliver an amazing content and do your website justice applying the magic of SEO and other such tricks, that will make your company popular on the internet.

• Marketing consultant – When and if you decide to take your business online, hiring a marketing consultant that is familiar with all solutions regarding the internet is vital. The truth is there is quite the possibility you will find the perfect candidate with lots of experience through outsourcing.

• Call agent – It is no secret that many of the large companies build their call centers in other countries where the work hand is cheaper. This again is outsourcing, that will save you a lot of money if you have a profitable large-scale business and your company is receiving a lot of calls regarding your product/service.

Making an “online office” of a kind, hiring outsourced professionals, requires a time tracking system for the better management of your remote staff and regular communication on a daily basis, to ensure the smooth workflow. Therefore, when outsourcing it is better to use a monitoring system so that the both offices can work together and complete their projects within the timeline.

Increasing the productivity of a whole office can be broken into a few small steps to follow:

» Create a daily goal board. Creating a daily goal board after each morning meeting will help the organization of the daily tasks. The goal board should be visible for all, and to display the summarized briefing. This will lower the chances of mistakes and will work for the motivation of your team. How will it work on the motivation? Since they will have it black on white, no one will be lost and everyone will know what is the daily strategy. Use your imagination and make the goal board organized, informational, colorful so every part of it can be distinguished and encourage the employees to mark as done the completed tasks. Scratching the tasks off will make the relieved its over and will motivate them to show their skill for the completing of the daily goals. The truth is many companies are saying to their personnel “No, you have a long way to go” or “We are far from done”, which is not motivating at all. Employees feel lost in their tasks, since they do not see the end of their daily duties, and instead of working harder, they lower their productivity. Information about the work process must be visible for those who participate in it. Just give it a try and results will be immediate.

»  Break long-term tasks into smaller chunks. Dividing the long-term tasks of the project in different days will increase the  productivity of the task handlers. How come? When the work is divided in different days, the employees can better plan it and execute it. They will have time to think it trough or even come up with a better idea for faster execution.

»  Plan the hardest tasks for the morning. Scheduling the harder tasks for the morning, when the employees are at their best is vital. This way, none will be too tired from the long day already and there will be no room for procrastination due to inability or burnout. Thus, when delegating the tasks, make your strategy in such a way that the employees will not feel too tired or preoccupied with their work. After all efficiency requires both strength and motivation. This small change of the work schedule will improve the productivity big time.

» Hire outsourced employees or interns. When there is work overload, hiring part-time workers can prove very useful for the overall productivity. Delegating some of the tasks to an outsourced employee or an intern will relieve the tension of the staff and more work will be done in a shorter period. Not to mention the productivity will increase, but the costs will reduce.

» Use time tracking. Using a time tracking software with screenshots and activity levels will help in proper delegating and monitoring both staffs. Time management is essential for the increase of productivity since it will aid the organizational habits of the team. Using time tracking app will also regularly inform you on the status of the workflow and give you the opportunity to improve it.

»  Use drafts and templates for repeatable tasks. There is even no need to mention that creating drafts and templates for certain documentations or regularly occurring tasks will save a lot of time, therefore employees can focus on the more pressing matters.

»  Encourage communication. Communication as we always say is vital. A better communication system and tools like the goal board will also aid the productivity because employees will be able to more easily share information and exchange ideas. Most important is that the management should always be part of the communication circle and to encourage the employees to share their thoughts and suggestions for the development of the project, the techniques and the workflow.

» Allow short breaks. Avoiding burnouts is crucial for the overall performance of your team. Most companies think that all the working hours need to be utilized, and some of them even forbid their employees to have a rest when struggling. The thing is if the employee is struggling their productivity goes downwards and the quality of the output is lower. Lower quality and productivity make the workflow unstable and this leads to even greater problems. The employees are what makes the business flourish.

» Install vending machine and coffee machine. Purchasing and installing vending and/or coffee machine will also prove worthy. The team will not lose too much time to go search for a fast snack or coffee, no one will be starving and everybody can focus on their work when they know the “survival supplies” are available at any time. After all, it is really frustrating to be hungry or sleepy, but not to have time to go search for nourishing stuff.

Honestly speaking, these are just small matter most managers neglect these days. Taking better care of the staff and making a proper organization of the daily goals will greatly increase the productivity of your team.