Outsourcing: The Hottest Thing In Business

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When you’re in business, it’s very hard to fall behind. So many new advances, trends, and ways of doing things pop up all of the time – meaning you hear about them pretty much as soon as they land. Some will benefit your business, others will be irrelevant, and then you’ll find the trends that stick. Because some of them will just work for your business. One of these is likely to be outsourcing. It’s nothing all that new, but as trends go, it’s certainly making waves out there in the business world right now. If you want to grow your business, improve your productivity, and generally operate well, here are some of the key areas you could consider outsourcing.

Sales

Not everyone is comfortable with the sales process, and that’s okay. When you own your own small business, or you’ve just started out, it’s highly likely that you’ll be tackling the majority of the sales process yourself. And if you’re not a natural, it can be something that you dread. So, instead of suffering, why not look at outsourcing it to an expert? With a sales consultant, their compensation is often results lead, so you’ve got nothing to lose.

Production

Then there’s the actual administering of your business operations. If you manufacture a product, why not look into outsourcing it? Even if it means you have to send cutting services to one expert, R&D to another, and packing to a specialist, if it speeds up your productivity and is cost-effective, it makes sense. Even if you provide a service, you could outsource some areas of the work to free up your time for more important things.

Marketing

As a small business or startup, do you often find yourself saying that you’ll market more, and never find the time for it? If you’ve answered yes, don’t feel guilty, you’re not the only one. When you wear different hats, and you’re just trying to get your work done, marketing and promotions often get put to the bottom of the priority list. But that’s one of the benefits of outsourcing your marketing – it gets done for you. Plus, it will be experts handling your strategy, meaning they could probably do a better job that you anyway.

Finance

If you’re not a natural when it comes to numbers, you probably hate having to deal with them. Looking at budgets and forecasts and even filing your taxes can be a lot of work. So, outsource it. You can hire an accountant to take care of the regulatory stuff and even filing your taxes. And if you really don’t want to deal with anything yourself, get an assistant in to run the day to day stuff for you too.

Administration

When you’re really busy and are trying to put all of your efforts into growing your business, you’ll probably find that you just don’t have the time to take on all of the admin that needs to get done. Or, worse, you’re spending your time and efforts on the admin and not growing your business. Either way, you need a VA. A virtual assistant can take on all of the annoying admin that you hate doing, and probably get it done a lot quicker than you could too – because they’re a pro!

So You Created A Product, Now How Do Your Get It To Your Customer?

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When you come up with a great idea for a product, you can often find that you spend so much time putting your all into its creating, to then be left stuck wondering what to do when it’s complete. Well, even though it may not feel like it now, you’ll be glad to know that the hard part is over. You managed to come up with a product that was not only worth creating, but that was actually able to be made – so give yourself a pat on the back. So now, you’re going to need to work out just how you’re going to get it to your ideal customer – and that can involve a few different processes.

During the planning stage of creating your product, you would have identified the ideal audience that would be interested in buying from you. So now it’s all about getting your product in front of them and making those sales. Using a combination of marketing, sales, and operations, that can be easily arranged. As long as you’re ready to put a bit more work in and not aim for retirement just yet, your product will find a bunch of happy homes in no time at all.

Marketing

First up, you’re going to want to work on a proper marketing strategy for your product. This will not only get it in front of your customer but also help to create a brand image for your product and your business overall.

Deciding On A Strategy

Before you start with any kind of activity at all, you need to make sure that you decide on the right marketing strategy for your product. Now, this will entirely depend on what it is that you’ve created. But, it’s not always easy to know what strategy to formulate. As long as you have your intended audience at the center of your decisions, you should stay on the right track.

Creating A Brand

You should also think about your branding. It’s so important for every business to establish the right brand for themselves, but it’s especially important for startups or small businesses. Branding is often a way to assert your mark and differentiate yourself from the competition, so be sure to create a brand that will work for your product.

When To Launch

As apart of your marketing process, you’re also going to want to establish a set launch date for the marketing activity that you intend to carry out. This will often depend on the launch date that you also decide for your product to enter the market on. You may wish to coincide the two together or to start your marketing beforehand to work up some buzz around the launch. Either way, you need to have both dates in your mind to work towards.

Packaging

Next up, you’re also going to want to think about just how you’re going to get that brand onto your product and ensure that your customer receives it safely via the packaging you design and produce.

Incorporating Your Branding

One of the first things that you’re going to want to think about during the packaging process is your branding. As we established in the marketing section, you’re going to need to decide on a brand for your product. So, with that on its way to being created, you should also aim to add it into your product or your packing in some way. Again, this will depend on what product it is that you’ve created, but it should give you some food for thought.

Practical Packaging Design

However, at this stage, it is also very important that you think about the logistics of getting your product to your customer. You need to be sure that it is packaged safety and securely, so looking options. You may need a box for your technological device, foam padding for your breakable designs or even specialist intermediate bulk containers for your food product. Either way, be sure to do your research into what will protect and transport your product safely.

Supply Chain

But that’s not all; you’re also going to want to think of the operational ways in which you’re going to physically get your product to the customer. Not only does this involve how your customers will get their hands on it, but also where you will sell it.

Choosing Suppliers

To make sure that your product gets in front of your intended audience, it’s highly likely that you’re going to want to find the right suppliers for the job. Whether you have a B2B product or something for a consumer audience, working with retailers can provide useful to your sales forecast and for your growth. So you need to make sure that you choose the right ones to reach your customers.

Negotiating With Suppliers

With some ideal suppliers in mind, you’re then going to want to approach them. Sometimes, you can find it hard to get on their radar. However, if you’re looking to attend trade shows with your product, you might have better luck at accessing the right people. When you do get in touch, you then will have to work your way through negotiations so that you can get the best deal for your business.

Selling Online

You may also want to think about selling online. Going into ecommerce isn’t going to be for everyone, and it may depend yet again on what exactly your product is as to whether it will be a suitable option for your business. But, it’s often worth looking into. And if you’re not planning on having an operations ecommerce website, then be sure to have an informational site that allows interested customers to contact you.

Delivery Options

Whether you’re shipping to suppliers or directly to your customers, you then also need to think of another side of the supply chain – transportation. To physically get your product for your warehouse or manufacturing unit, you’re going to need some form of haulage, or a consumer delivery service. Or, you may even want to fulfill this yourself. Either way, they are all important decisions to make if you want to get your products out to customers.

Test-Running A New Business Idea

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Having a new business idea can be exciting, but before pouring all your time and money into it you should first test it out to see what it’s like in practice. A test run will establish any improvements that may need to be made to your business model, as well as providing essential audience research and feedback that you can then use to more effectively market your business. Here are just a few ways to give your product the best trial run possible.

Build a proto-type/test service

You don’t have to produce a full working business model just yet. Testing out the fundamentals is the most important part. If you’re thinking of starting a cake shop, try renting a stall out first for a day and sell your produce from there. If you’re selling a physical product, find a prototype manufacturer such as this sheet metal fabrication business that can produce a cheap and quick prototype. If you’re producing software, create a basic alpha version for testers to use.

Start marketing early

It’s okay to start marketing your product before it actually exists. By telling people that you’re ‘coming soon’ you can build up excitement that will help when you launch your business for real. Set up a website and social media pages and invite people to check them out. You should be able to get an idea of the demand for your product by how people react.

Use your close network

Family and friends can be useful to use when testing your business. They may be able to help you run a stall at a trade fair, preventing the need to think about hiring staff just yet. They may be able to act as a first client, allowing you to test your service out on them and get feedback. They can also help to spread news of your business idea via word of mouth.

Use a focus group of strangers

When it comes to constructive feedback, friends and family may not always offer the brutally honest criticism that you need. Organising a focus group of strangers and pitching your idea to them can be a way of seeing how your business idea will really get on in the market. Positive feedback can be used to help promote your business idea, whilst negative feedback can be used to tweak your business idea and make improvements.

Offer freebies

Don’t be too concerned about making money just yet – you’re still improving your business model. Right now you’re looking to simply test your business idea on as many people as possible, so entice them in by offering your services for free. If you’re hoping to start a restaurant, give people free tasters of your food. If you’re hoping to provide a fitness coaching service, offer people the chance of trial lessons. People are more likely to give constructive and friendly advice if you’re not asking money from them. Don’t be afraid to survey people after about how much they would pay for your service.

Make a Small Business Feel Much Bigger

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So you own a small business. And when you say “small business”, you mean small. Real small. Small enough to be intimidated by the much larger business sharks out there. Maybe you’re just a small group of people working from home on the same project. Maybe you’re even one or two people running the entire thing from a bedroom! However small your small business is, there are things you can do to increase your stature.

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Just because you’re not a massive company with vast riches, it doesn’t mean you can’t sit at the same table. You can get many of the same opportunities if you play your cards right. The best thing to do, if you’re a little anxious about the size of your company, is to make it look bigger. It’s true that some prospective clients or partners will be reluctant to work with really small businesses. So here are some tips that will help your company seem much bigger than it is.

Build an amazing website

A surefire way of detecting a really small business is by looking at their website. If the design is basic, haphazard or messy, then it can be a dead giveaway. The fact is that your website is how many people are going to be introduced to your business. It can’t look like something a newbie to Geocities or Freewebs might have come with.

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Look at the websites that bigger companies are using. They’re sleek, modern, easy-to-use, innovative. You want to spend time on them just because they’re a pleasure to visit. Consider working with a web design agency to ensure a professional look.

Get a prestigious address

A company that works in the heart of big business city is going to look more attractive to potential customers. If your office address is in the middle of some suburb on the outskirts of town, then people will know you’re pretty small fry. That, of course, shouldn’t reflect on the quality of your service. But people may make their judgements nonetheless. This is why you should consider working with commercial movers such as myBekins. If you can get your business into the big commercial cities of your country, then you’re going to have a lot more prestige to work with!

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If you don’t have the resources for a direct move, you can use a virtual address. This is an address in a desired business location that you can use as your official address.

Become incorporated

Incorporation is the process of officially forming a company with the government. Of course, you will have had to have declared yourself as a company to your national revenue service in order to get taxed correctly. This isn’t all there is to do, though.

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If you get your company registered officially as a limited company, this can make all the difference. You will officially be a company, with the ‘LTD’ tag and everything! This can help your business look a lot stronger on your website and other relevant copy. This can affect the amount of tax you’re paying, though. It will usually affect it for the better, but you might want to consult an accountant before taking this step.

How to Prepare the Launch of Your First Ecommerce Company

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Branding & Company Name

Before you can even think about launching your business you will need to make sure that all your branding is air tight. You will need a solid business name, that makes your company recognisable and that effectively communicates who you are and what you do. You business name, logo and branding will need to be memorable and unique. So make sure you are researching online, beforehand, to make sure that your business name is not already in use and that your branding is not too similar to that of any of your competitors.

You will then need to register that company name and the domain of your site and if you are wanting to do business internationally, or even just outside of your local community, then you will certainly want to consider trademarking your logo and creating a copyright for your business.

Understand Logistics

Ensuring the success of an ecommerce site is not just knowing your website and your products. A huge chunk of your business is going to be logistics, so it’s essential that you get your head around how it all works and that you have all the logistics in place, prepared and ready to go for when the orders start rolling in.

You are going to need to to look into local warehouses and logistical partners. You will need to get all of your inventory sorted and organised and get all the necessary items in place, such as shipping labels, boxes and central Carolina scales. Making sure that everything is ready in the warehouse, that you have a logistics team in place and all your inventory and shipping materials are ready to go, means that you can really hit the ground running when the orders come in.

Employer Identification Number

Once your business and website are registered and you have researched how to properly trademark your new brand you will then need to think about how to get your employment identification number. You will need this number to open a bank account for your business and so that you are able to do all your paperwork, like invoicing and taxes. Every business need an employment identification number, whether you are employing staff or not, so this needs to be in place before you launch your ecommerce site.

Business Permits & Licenses

Another very important task for anyone launching their first ecommerce company is to ensure that all the correct business licenses and permits are properly organised and in place. These may differ depending on the location of your business, therefore you should check with your local city council in order to understand what sort of tax licenses, business licenses and permits you need in order to be legally trading from your home or office address.

Choose the Best Vendors

The bread and butter of any ecommerce site is the products. Therefore you are going to need to make sure that you are working with the best vendors and that your products are of the best possible quality. You will want to be negotiating for the best price and be building solid relationships with the best vendors that you want to go into business with.