Time is money, and small business owners understand this better than anyone else. They are used to working on a tight budget, and do as much work themselves to reduce costs. This is why it’s important to prioritise tasks which give the most value, delegate when possible, use technology, plan your time better or outsource as much as possible.
1. Delegate or outsource basic tasks
If you have jobs that are repetitive, then these are ideal for outsourcing. Here are some examples:
- One business outsources its reminder calls for annual inspections to a call centre service called PCC Solutions. He now has 25% more time to work on other important tasks, and the feedback from customers has been great.
- A paper and magazine publisher trained an overseas outsource service to follow up on outstanding invoices using their number via Skype. They found more than 75% of late payers responded to the first follow up phone call. Bad debts reduced to 0.5% because of regular follow-ups, and costs of the service were less than 1% of debts.
2. Rent an expert rather than employ one full time
Look at some online services to find a marketing, design, programming or editing solution that suits you:
3. Outsource valuable but time-intensive tasks
Want someone local for one-off jobs? Try:
- Airtasker – a real estate colleague managed to get 2000 time-critical advertising leaflets dispatched to the letter boxes of local homes within 48 hours.
- Serviceseeking – a local coffee and gift shop had an expert shop fitter review and alter the layout to suit their new focus on gifts. They came up with different ways of changing the shop layout that saved time and money.
4. Use technology to streamline tasks
- Try using a service such as HootSuite, TweetDeck or Buffer to schedule non-time specific social media posts for the week. I save links and pictures in a folder, and then on Saturday mornings, I spend thirty minutes scheduling those posts to go out for the following week or month at regular intervals. It makes it look like I am online all the time, but I am focusing on other work.
- Any business needs good accounting procedures. There are plenty of add-ons available for MYOB software to save time, such as:
– EzyCollect to manage debtors
– Shoeboxed to organise receipts and documents
– SmartJobs or ServiceM8 for job management
– Tanda for staff roster scheduling and attendance management.
- For retail businesses, you can update your point-of-sale software to have more control using cloud-based software such as Kounta that allows you to control and access reports remotely. For instance, if maintaining stock and supplies are a primary concern, implement a system that will track stock as you use it or sell it, which will save time and reduce cash tied up in inventory. You can access data from multiple outlets from anywhere.
How to approach outsourcing
Take the time to document the task properly. Include the preferred procedures and set reasonable expectations so that the person doing the job knows what you want and can quote accurately, saving you both time and effort.
Pay a decent price to reflect the job done. It’s not all about getting the cheapest price. If you are going to outsource, then you are having someone else manage your reputation. You need them to be at least, if not more, professional than you. It’s all about freeing you up to work on more profitable tasks, so focus on that, rather than penny pinching.
Practice makes perfect
All of these tips mean changing habits you have acquired over many years. You must learn to delegate properly, and it takes time to adapt. The principles of working smarter are not ground breaking, but what’s really hard is changing them into a new habit.
The post 4 proven ways to work smarter, not harder appeared first on The Pulse NZ.