11 Things You Should Outsource to Save Money

by / ⠀Blog Entrepreneurship Startup Advice / February 28, 2015

If I’m trying to save money, what is the best area of my business to outsource?

outsource

The following answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs.

1. PPC

Paid search is one of the easiest things to outsource. Most companies don’t need a full-time paid search expert on their team. Outsourcing this is pretty easy and will save your business money in the long term. I personally like 3Q Digital, Hanapin Marketing, Adogy and Wordstream to manage my paid search. – Murray Newlands, Influence People

2. Document Formatting

If you create a lot of presentations and spreadsheets, consider outsourcing the formatting of this to a college student or remote employee who can handle these repetitive tasks. I especially recommend creating step-by-step screen capture videos to explain precisely what needs to be done. –Sathvik Tantry, FormSwift

3. Anything Outside Your Core Service or Product

You may think you’re saving money by trying to do everything yourself, but it’s a false economy. Focus your staff hires on people who perform your core business. Everything else — accounting, payroll, marketing, etc. — can be outsourced. – Mary Ellen Slayter, Reputation Capital

4. Anything You Hate Doing (and Aren’t Very Good At)

There is nothing more frustrating than “trying” to do things well that I am bad at and don’t like. Do what you love, and what you are gifted in. Outsource the rest. It is an expense, but this expense will allow you to be more effective building and generating revenue because you are inspired all day doing what you love. – Matt ShoupMattShoup.com

See also  4 Steps to Using Water Bottles for Promotions

5. Payroll and Benefits

Few people are payroll, tax and benefit experts, so it’s best to hire those who are. We’ve found that having one company manage both payroll and benefits simplified our life even more than two separate companies. It’s nice to have payroll automatically adjusted when benefits change — that used to be a manual process to make sure deductions were right with payroll and adjusted with each change. – Angela Harless, AcrobatAnt

6. Human Resources

We use a company called Zenefits to take care of many of the traditional human resources functions. This allows us to spend our timedoing what we do best. – Jason Kulpa, Underground Elephant

7. Content Creation

The best area of a small business to outsource is probably content creation for your blog or website. Plenty of freelance writers are available via sites such as Guru or Freelancer — just be sure to hire writers with industry-specific experience, and pay them commensurately. Remember, if you offer 10 dollars per article, you’re going to get 10 dollars worth of content quality. – Andrew SchrageMoney Crashers Personal Finance 

8. Prospecting

Hire a virtual assistant to put together a spreadsheet of prospects. Provide them clear instructions by creating a set of ‘prospect criteria’ (i.e. post Series-A SaaS companies with at least 10 employees that target the Healthcare industry), provide a few ‘prospect outlets’ (i.e. AngelList, Product Hunt, etc.) and recommend a few ‘prospecting tools’ (i.e. BuiltWith, Sales Loft, etc). – Ross Beyeler, Growth Spark

9. Social Media

It takes so much time and can be easily outsourced — just be sure to conduct adequate training in the voice of your brand before giving up full control. – Alexis Wolfer, The Beauty Bean

See also  How to Handle Difficult Customers as a Business Owner

10. Administrative Support and Personal Assistants

Nowadays, there are much more cost-effective options than hiring someone to handle the routine duties of your business. Virtual assistants can help you in a variety of ways, and even seemingly small tasks can add up to save you a bunch of time over the course of a few months. – Phil Laboon, Eyeflow Internet Marketing

11. Software Development

The best area to outsource is software development because it can be the most expensive. However, you should only outsource development through a service such as Elance if you have a dedicated developer in your company. If you have a developer, he or she can outline specific feature requirements to ensure you get what you’re looking for. – Eric Schaumburgeventr.io

About The Author

Matt Wilson

Matt Wilson is Co-Founder of Under30Experiences, a travel company for young people ages 21-35. He is the original Co-founder of Under30CEO (Acquired 2016). Matt is the Host of the Live Different Podcast and has 50+ Five Star iTunes Ratings on Health, Fitness, Business and Travel. He brings a unique, uncensored approach to his interviews and writing. His work is published on Under30CEO.com, Forbes, Inc. Magazine, Huffington Post, Reuters, and many others. Matt hosts yoga and fitness retreats in his free time and buys all his food from an organic farm in the jungle of Costa Rica where he lives. He is a shareholder of the Green Bay Packers.

x

Get Funded Faster!

Proven Pitch Deck

Signup for our newsletter to get access to our proven pitch deck template.