Most likely, you knew when you were starting out that building a successful business was going to be a lot of hard work. You likely started your own business to enjoy schedule flexibility, freedom to vacation, have a sense of independence, control over your finances, and more creative freedom. But more than likely, you’ve been working longer hours, less money and have been overwhelmed with more tasks than you imagined the more your company grows.
While this is a great problem to have, the reality is that you need help. Hiring employees may seem to be the only way to maximize your time and get everything done. Taking on an employee means taking money from your profits, ensuring they are kept busy enough to want to continue working for you, and teaching them how to do things your way.
This isn’t necessarily the best answer. There are plenty of ways to free up your time, grow your business and stay within budget without hiring and training an employee.
Outsourcing
Outsourcing is one of the best solutions for marketing, IT, design, writing, and all the things that take up too much of your time. There are endless things that you can outsource – web design, graphic design, presentation creation, and anything imaginable that will maximize your efficiency. There’s no longer a need to hire a part-time marketer to create posts when you can outsource this task to qualified freelancers from Upwork and Fiverr. Staying in constant contact with your customers and potential customers is essential. Consider outsourcing customer service tasks to free grow your business faster.
Automation Software
Automation software is another key to growing and scaling your business. Whether it’s managing your marketing campaigns or finances, you’ll save hours of work with automation software. Automate your email marketing campaigns with Aweber or post to all of your social media campaigns with Hootsuite. There are plenty of tools that will provide automation solutions to free up your time performing tedious tasks.
Software is the key organization – it will help with communication, collaboration, manage productivity, handle daily operations, and everything in between. Every successful business has some type of software that makes their lives easier – accounting software, design software, and productivity software that helps you better utilize your time.
Bots – Yes, Bots!
Bots have become increasingly more popular because they are cheap and easy to set up. But don’t worry; if you don’t have the time or patience to set it up, you can outsource this task. Using bots is similar to automation software as they save you money and reduce manual labor on many tasks. More than likely, you’ve used bots when communicating with some online companies, such as Facebook messenger bots and customer service. Utilizing these bots helps to improve engagement, provide instant gratification and build a sense of community without consuming the entire day. You’ll find there are bots for customer service, marketing, and communication for all types of platforms.
Content Research Tools
Content research tools are a great way to come up with endless content for blogging and social media posts based on trending topics. Getting ideas is probably the most challenging aspect when it comes to blogging and social media. You’ll also be able to identify who the top influencers are within your industry. This is essential for marketing purposes. Some of the best tools for this are BuzzSumo and Google Trends.
The key to any business is understanding where your time is better spent. And when you’re the only person doing the work, it’s even more important for the success of your business that you’re streamlining and managing your daily workflow efficiently. You want to maximize your time and put effort into the tasks that generate the most profit. By incorporating some of these tools, you’ll reduce the pressures so you can get everything done without getting burnt out or putting things off.
Stop putting off important and necessary tasks because you lack time. Let’s face it; social media and email marketing are likely to be the tasks that you most often put off. But these are an essential aspect of your business, no matter what type of business you have.
