The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.
1. Software Developers
Software developers can come at a high cost, especially if you’re building a team that can handle all areas of development, including UX, UI, databases, complex algorithms and design, for example. You also have to manage the people, and losing one can be a major setback. Skip all the hassle and cost: Hire a development company to manage the majority of the workload overseen by a technical lead on your team. – Andy Karuza, FenSens
2. Transcriptions
If you have any transcription needs, you should outsource transcribing. This will be load off your back, and you can even get it done cheaply if you look in the right places. – Erik Bullen, MageMail
3. SEO
SEO falls between the lines of tech and marketing. Unless you’re a large company, it makes more sense to hire an agency that is skilled and specialized in SEO. The rules for SEO constantly change, and you need someone managing this at all times. Longer term, you can hire someone in house or get the services from SEO Boise. – Adelyn Zhou, TOPBOTS
4. Customer Communication
Customer communication is a great element of tech to outsource. Manually sending out emails doesn’t make sense, even if you’re dealing with a small business customer list. Regular communication is something that you can make error-proof with a little up-front planning and implementation. – Tim Chaves, ZipBooks Online Bookkeeping Services
5. Content Marketing
Many business owners understand the importance of content marketing to improve their SEO, but they don’t have the time to blog. Instead, you could hire freelance writers to consistently publish new blog posts targeting specific keywords. – Syed Balkhi, OptinMonster
6. Data Entry
Most people assume data entry is just part of a project, so team members should handle it. But data entry can be easily outsourced, freeing up team members to focus on strategy or other key implementation pieces. – Leah Neaderthal, Growthworks Solutions
7. Graphic Design
Graphic design is a huge part of presenting your business to the world, but it doesn’t always make sense to keep a designer employed. We have a main designer who we work with on a contract basis for larger projects. For smaller designs, like ads and social media graphics, we use a service called Design Pickle. Overall, we receive the same high quality designs without keeping someone full time. – Nathalie Lussier, AmbitionAlly
8. System Administrator
Most small businesses do have a robust enough network to justify hiring your own sysadmin. If your company is web based, it is very important to have someone on call that can fix things quickly if things go down. Make sure to have an outsourced company or person that you can quickly turn to and count on, but there is no reason to have a full time person dedicated to the job. – Scott Kacmarski, Reps Direct
9. Website Design
The design and creation of our new website was outsourced, and it was a good decision. When I started, the kind of simple website you could build with WordPress looked passable even without a lot of design experience. The expectations are too high for that today. The difference between a self-built and a professional site is huge. Even small startups need to pay for the design. – Matt Doyle, Excel Builders
10. Help Desk
It can take time to systemize and document all your responses for common customer questions, but the effort is worth it. Use a ticketing system to handle all questions and have an outsourcer (or several outsourcers) look after your customers. – Karl Kangur, MRR Media
11. 24/7 Live Chat Support
Research has shown that customers prefer live chat over email or phone support. Outsourcing this service is more cost effective, as individuals typically work from home, so you don’t have to pay for a building and overhead expenses. Live chat is a great way to separate yourself from the competition, enhance the CS experience, and boost your site’s SEO by decreasing bounce rate. – Jared Atchison, WPForms
12. CTO
Most small businesses mistakenly assume they need an in-house full-time CTO. In actuality, most small businesses and many medium-sized businesses are better served bringing on an outsourced part-time CTO. Freelance or virtual CTOs can be far more effective, as companies can access significantly better technology leaders within their budget, better capable of setting strategy and driving execution. – Adam Mendler, Custom Tobacco
13. Audio or Visual Editing
If you have a podcast, then outsourcing the audio editing is smart. If you’re creating video content, then you may want to outsource the editing. There are many tech elements that can be outsourced — I would look specifically for items that are repetitive and ongoing and outsource them.
– Thomas Smale, FE International
