If you’re a solo entrepreneur looking to start your own business, you’re wearing many hats and juggling a vast and varied number of responsibilities. You may find yourself falling behind or overstretching yourself to try to perform all the duties necessary to keep your business running. You cannot possibly know everything or have all the required skills to perform everything expertly. But the good news is, you don’t have to.
You also don’t need to have a full-time staff, even if you can afford one. You can, however, afford to hire freelancers and virtual assistants and tap into technology that can be just as good as any staff, if not better!
Freelancers
You can find freelancers to help you with almost any task. A search using online sites like Fivver, Upwork, and Freelancer allows you to find the freelancer you need. Those sites give you the ability to filter by specific skills, experience, reviews from previous clients, ratings, and, of course, price per hour or job. Or you can get referrals from colleagues or from people who belong to the same industry organizations as you.
A marketing freelancer can help you increase your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) which means your business appears higher in search engine results. Freelancers who are skilled at writing can provide content for your blog, website, marketing strategies, and ebooks. The more content you offer the public, the more they stay engaged with your business.
Use a freelance website designer. Your website is the point of contact you’ll be sending the public to for information about your business and perhaps your sales, too. Since it’s how you will be perceived and judged, it makes sense it looks as professional as possible. That’s why you should hire a professional freelance web designer to design it for you.
Virtual Assistants
Virtual assistants do just that, they assist you virtually from the phone or internet with many of the tasks you need help with throughout the day. This can be tasks like managing your calendar and scheduling appointments.
You can use a virtual assistant to answer and respond to emails, social media messaging, customer service inquiries, data input, market research, and manage customer information.
WayUp notes that a social media manager is a type of virtual assistant that can be your online presence, responding to posts, answering comments, and, in general, staying engaged with your followers on all your social media platforms.
Software as a Service
Instead of purchasing a lot of software that can be expensive, especially if you won’t use it all the time, use software as a service instead, simply accessing it through the internet. It can cost you less in the long run, not only because you don’t have to lay out a lot of money in the beginning to purchase it, but upgrading is automatic when you use the software as a service instead.
EDUCBA points out that you can use your SaS for IT management, project management, customer relations management, business intelligence, finance management, and productivity evaluation.
A Better Business Structure
If you’re setting up your own business, choosing an easy-to-manage business structure is crucial to your success. You have a number of options so research the pros and cons, and if possible, find out what business structures are favored by entrepreneurs in a similar line of work. This can mean a big difference in both a legal and a financial sense. You can also look into business grants to help you get started.
By using the services of freelancers, virtual assistants, online software, and a smart business structure, you can save time and money while growing your business more efficiently than ever before.
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