Benjamin Franklin coined the phrase: “Time is Money” in 1748, and it is still perfectly true today. As an entrepreneur, you know that running a successful business is rewarding, but you are also keenly aware of the hours upon hours of your time that your company demands from you. If you often find yourself saying: “I just don’t have enough time” or spending too much of your precious time on the tasks that don’t actively generate revenue, then maybe it is time to hire some help. Are you ready?
Hiring an employee (even a part-timer) is BIG decision, so my suggestion is to think it through carefully, and consider these strategies you can implement to help increase your efficiency and reduce your costs, before you become an employer.
Maximize Your Technological Tools
Oftentimes there is a technical solution to your time crunch. There are thousands of innovative tech tools that you can use to organize and streamline your work flow as much as possible. After wasting 45 minutes in a post office line, a friend of mine bought a postage meter the next day. If you have an unreliable printer, copier or other office machine, then it needs to go. Clearing paper jams or rebooting your phone system steals time away from you. Functional and reliable technology can help you cut costs by giving you back minutes (even hours) of productive time that you can use to generate revenue.
If you find yourself wading through dozens of emails each morning (like me), one of my favorite time-savers is my email filters. Like you, I often receive mass mailings from different organizations, so I eventually set up various email filters to separate client emails that need ASAP responses from the other emails that I can read and respond to when time permits.
Explore Various Outsourcing Options
Outsourcing is a familiar concept to many business owners, but before you hire your own staff, you should consider outsourcing the work that you cannot economically or efficiently do yourself. Outsourcing can help your business reduce the costs of labor and increase efficiency when you do not possess the required personnel to complete the tasks.
Common business processes that you should consider outsourcing include payroll processing, bookkeeping and accounting functions, product delivery or distribution, and customer call center services. There are several websites that connect small businesses with companies specializing in outsourcing services. As an reader of this blog, you already know that you’ll need a clearly written, understandable, and enforceable business agreement in place with your preferred outsourcing firm.
When to Hire Staff
Though outsourcing may save your business money, there are certain functions within a business that cannot be outsourced and must be performed in-house. How do you know you have reached the point where you need to expand your capacity and bring someone else on? What do you need to consider when you do that from a business perspective?
When you start experiencing a decrease in efficiency, such as missed orders or an unacceptable quality of service due to a lack of personnel, then it’s probably time to hire employees. However, before you do, you should make sure that your business is financially prepared to start taking resumes. You may have different taxes to pay, certain insurances policies to buy, and possibly even benefits to pay for, all of which make outsourcing options or independent contractors very good alternatives to hiring part-time or full-time employees.
The Law Office of Brandon Woodward P.A. is eternally grateful that you have visited our web site or read our blog. The materials and information contained here are provided for informational purposes only and are not to be considered as legal advice. For questions about hiring employees, outsourcing, risk, corporate agreements, business entities or any other legal issues facing your business, EMAIL US, and we’ll give you a totally FREE consultation.
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Manage email messages by using rules The Benefits of Outsourcing for Small Businesses