When you choose to work for yourself, it can be a little lonely. Usually, you don’t have anyone working for you at the beginning and when you do get to the point of needing other people, you’re already overwhelmed and overworked. Instead of trying to hire people who will work for you full time, why not turn to outsourcing? Oh, your budget is low? Every time you try to outsource, your budget is standing in your way, and it becomes a pain! You want to offload some of the work, but you can’t afford the extra sets of hands you need. Whether it’s a whole new IT team or you need help with your marketing from SunCity Advising, you need to figure out a way to outsource that works for you. There are ways you can manage to outsource on a budget, though, and we’ve got a few solutions for you below.

• Choose Just One. What’s the one thing that you want to outsource more than anything in your business? Whether it’s your digital marketing strategy, your administration or your IT, you need to look at what you want to outsource as a priority. The piece of the puzzle that requires your full attention needs to be outsourced first, as then you can focus on the rest of your business. This can help  you to save a lot of money as you’re not outsourcing everything; just a piece.
• No Motivation? Whichever piece of your business that you hate working in the most, you need to let that piece go! Everyone has a piece of their day they hate, whether it’s the invoicing or the sales calls. Which is the part you detest doing? You can call in the experts to take it over for you and breathe easy that you’ve got the rest of your business handled.
• Go Small. You don’t have to outsource your entire marketing department from the get go – start smaller than that and outsource your social media consultant first. Or choose to outsource your print advertising needs. You can start with one element of one department and move forward from there as your company builds enough of a profit to expand.
• Earning More. If you know that you are struggling to keep up with some elements of your business, you will be able to outsource the tasks that affect your profits the most. If you need help with something that consumes a lot of your time, you need to call in the experts to make it work for you.

You don’t need to have a huge amount of a budget in the bank to outsource elsewhere – you just need to know where to start! Building your team slowly over time with outsourcing is the way to go and the internet has made it very easy to find the right experts who can help you. You should be methodical in your approach and have a plan in place. You can then layer your business and continue to grow your revenue all at once!

If your business has been running successfully for some time and seems to have strong foundations it may be time to think about scaling the business and increasing your revenue. This might seem simple on the face of it but in reality, it can be difficult to strike the balance. You need to have the capacity for expansion in terms of infrastructure and personnel, along with effective investment and business strategy. Below are some things to look out for. 

Investment 

If you’re a small business looking to scale you won’t be unfamiliar with funding options and challenges. To get your business off the ground you might have a bank loan or investment of some kind supporting you. Depending on your success you may need further funding to scale. If your business is ready to scale or you want to take advantage of a unique opportunity in the marketplace further funding is available. Seek out venture capital firms, angel investors, and accelerator programs to give you the boost you need. Remember, however, funding isn’t everything.

Infrastructure 

You need to be ready to scale your business and that doesn’t only mean having a successful product and a growing customer base. It also means having the infrastructure to support the sudden growth and subsequent increase in capacity.Depending on your product or service there is a range of infrastructure solutions. You may need more offices or a warehouse. As a pole barn builders you will find the solution to external capacity requirements. They can build custom metal and storage facilities for you in no time. 

Personnel 

Scaling your business also means increasing your capacities, both for infrastructure and for personnel. You need to be able to handle the new demands for your products and services. If it’s seasonal you may only need low-skilled staff to process quantity, 8n other cases you’ll want to hire more skilled workers.Finding the balance between skilled and unskilled personnel when your scaling is important as you need to effectively cover the work without overpaying wages. Start small and hire the personnel you need as you grow.

Marketing 

These days a business won’t grow without proper marketing, and with over three billion people now connected to the Internet that also means digital marketing. When scaling your business you want to make sure you have a strong digital presence and that customers are engaging with your brand. Plan various ads on popular search engines as well as social media sites and make sure you have an effective landing page. You want customers to have the most streamlined route into your sales funnel. When scaling your business in this way it’s easy to forget about quality in favor of quantity, be wary of this.

Customer Focus

Today businesses are intimately connected to their customers and often optimize their products and services based on feedback. Customers often interact with businesses and brands on social channels and expect a certain level of respect and communication. Make sure your online presence is transparent and that you’re ready to engage with your audience as you expand the business. Without this customer engagement, you might find that customers don’t respond in the way you expect and you will miss out on important and free market research.

Are you working on ways to improve your business? If so then you need to think about the traits of a successful company. There is a variety to keep in mind here. These are some of the key traits that you should be key aspects of your business model. 

Connected

First, you need to think about how to keep your business connected to everything from employers and suppliers. No business should ever be an island and without the right connections, you are always going to struggle on the market. For instance, a connection with the right supplier could ultimately help you save a considerable amount of money in your business model. But you do need to be set up the right way to make this type of connection. If, for instance, you want to reach a supplier in China you need to be able to transfer money to China and the best way to do this is to set up an international bank account.  Another key connection that you need to have is with influencers. The clue is in the name here and the right influencers could change customer buying behavior in your favor over a long term period.

Flexible 

As well as thinking about whether your business is connecting in a larger sense, you should also consider whether your company is flexible. Keeping your business flexible will ensure that you can respond and react to different challenges on the market and that’s going to be key. We’ll explore this concept a little further down, but for now, it’s important to understand how to keep your business model flexible. 

One of the ways to do this is to operate your company remotely. This is a smart decision in the age of social distancing anyway and it will help you avoid one of the massive costs that could plague your business model. In terms of flexibility, there’s a lot more to consider of course. You could consider your workforce too. You might want to put a stronger focus on the gig economy. This could be a smart choice if you are keen to keep yourself adaptable. With the gig economy, you can quickly decide exactly how big your workforce needs to be at any given time. 

Future Focused 

You do need to think about the future when you are running your business. This should be a factor from the very first day that you open your doors. Essentially, you need to have a five year plan in place. That’s a recommendation for all start ups, particularly if you do want to attract the interest of investors for your company. There’s no set rule about what it means to be future focused. However, you do need to be aware of the latest challenges that exist on the market and what they could mean for your company. 

For instance, right now businesses do need to prepare for the continued impact of the coronavirus pandemic. It’s understandable why business owners think that this is a problem of the past. But even with a vaccine, the ripples are going to continue well into next year. This means that you do need to consider how your business is going to survive and the steps that you will need to take to remain profitable. 

Green

Next, you should think about whether your business is on the right track in terms of your energy usage. You might think that you can get away with running an inefficient business model, but you can’t and there are a few reasons for this. First, your customers care a lot more now about whether they are buying from a green business. They want to make sure that they are connecting with businesses that are keen to help save the planet. This is also going to ensure that you can keep your customers under a tighter level of control. Particularly, if you make some greater changes in your business model. For instance, you can think about investing in renewable power. The latest renewable power options such as solar panels are going to help you stay off the grid and deliver the awesome benefits that you want. It could even become a new source of income for your business as in the future you’ll be able to sell off any energy that you are able to conserve. 

Furthermore, it’s worth being aware that it seems as though governments are about to take a more firmer stance against businesses that are not pulling their weight in terms of energy savings. You could be hit hard in terms of taxes if you don’t start taking action right now. 

Great

What does it mean to be a great company? Obviously, this could have a lot of different connotations. However, specifically, we’re thinking about what makes a company great for customers and clients. There’s a lot to think about here. For instance, you need to make sure that you are adopting fair practices with customers as well as employees. You should pay close attention to your hiring practices and ensure that the decisions about the people you hire is always about who is best suited for the role and nothing else. In terms of fairness with customers, you need to think about how you are hiring customer complaints and points of customer service. You should spend time focusing your customer support and ensure that you can deliver the solutions that they want in your business. 

Security is another key point for customers. Clients will want an absolute guarantee that you are making the security of your business a top priority. What does this mean? Ultimately, you need to ensure that you are not leaving any gaps in security that could mean your customers are vulnerable. Don’t forget, if a hacker does attack your business, it will be customer data that they are after. 

We hope this helps you understand the key traits of a modern and successful business. By keeping these in mind, you can guarantee that your business is in a far stronger position on the market today and in the months or even years ahead.