If you are going at it alone in business, you don’t need me to tell you how much work is involved.
Marketing, accounts, creating estimates for jobs – they all use up valuable days that you could be using to make more money. At some point, you are going to reach your peak. There are only a set number of hours every day that one person can access, and once you start hitting those numbers your business will start to stall.
Sure, you might be in a great position, earn real money, and be completely happy with your lot. But if you want to expand that little bit further, it’s necessary to find help. It might seem like an expense you don’t need, but with a shrewder outlook, it is no expense at all – it’s an investment. All of which brings us to the purpose of this post.
We’re going to highlight how you can profit from your partnerships and grow your business beyond your current means. Let’s take a look at everything you need to know.
Crunching the numbers
There are lots of things you do in your business that eat into your ability to make a profit. Take a second to think about how you make your money – what activities give you the most return?
Let’s say you earn $50 an hour when spending time on client’s projects. It makes sense to spend more of your time on that, right? But if half your week is taken up with – say – basic admin duties that would cost an assistant $10 an hour, you are losing money. And it’s not inconsequential, either. Assuming you work a 50-hour week, that’s a potential $1,000 you are missing out on. All of it being wasted on basic admin duties you can pay someone $250 to complete.
Understanding the market
One of the key areas of your business you should consider outsourcing is your marketing. The modern business world is packed with competition, no matter what industry you serve. And the only way you will cut through the noise and grow your business is by taking your marketing seriously.
Now, be honest with yourself, how much time do you have to devote to market research, SEO, brochure production, website design and all the rest? Using a marketing agency taps into the skills you need and delivers all those tasks to your liking. It is far more cost – and time – efficient to pass it over to someone that lives and breathes marketing. And, it leaves you to focus on the real money-making potential of your business.
Buying excellence
It’s not only the money – it’s also the service you can provide your customers. As a business owner, you might well be excellent at a lot of things – but there is no way you can excel at anything. And when it comes to giving your clients the best service going, you will be selling yourself short.
Let’s say you are a copywriter who gets asked to design a client website as well as create the compelling copy. You might have a go yourself with something like a template layout – but the results are not going to all that impressive. Your best bet is to find a web designer to work with. Not only will this extend your services, but you can share and recommend each other to new clients, extending your market reach, too.
